Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

12 results

  • 1 - Introduction

  • Edited by Jane L. Rowlandson, King's College London, Roger S. Bagnall, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York, Dorothy J. Thompson, Girton College, Cambridge
  • With contributions by Jelle Bruning , W. Graham Claytor , Jennifer Cromwell , Christopher J. Eyre , Brian P. Muhs , Sarah J. Pearce and Christopher J. Tuplin
  • Book:
    Slavery and Dependence in Ancient Egypt
    Published online:
    01 March 2024
    Print publication:
    21 March 2024, pp 1-36
    • Chapter
      • You have access
    • PDF
    • Export citation

  • Summary

    This chapter introduces the following corpus of texts from ancient Egypt, and outlines the differing meanings ascribed to slavery and dependence from antiquity to modern times. The terms used for dependents and slaves in the various languages of the texts translated here – Egyptian (Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, Demotic, and Coptic), Greek, and Arabic – are briefly presented, and defining features of the condition of those so labelled are discussed. How and from where such persons were acquired, their life experiences, and the different forms of exploitation in which they were involved are introduced, as are forms of slave resistance and limits to the archaeological and textual evidence available, and so to what we can learn from it.

  • 14 - Early agriculture in Japan

  • Edited by Graeme Barker, University of Cambridge, Candice Goucher, Washington State University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge World History
    Published online:
    05 May 2015
    Print publication:
    16 April 2015, pp 353-386

  • Summary

    This chapter surveys the nature of early agricultural communities, focusing on archaeological evidence for the social life of early farmers in different parts of the world. In many ways early agricultural societies are extremely diverse, but underlying this range of cultural forms are striking similarities, suggesting that agriculture tended to constrain and direct social behaviour along certain lines. The chapter focuses on archaeological evidence for, first, the nature of agricultural practice, and second, forms and scales of collective social action, from residential families to work parties, ritual congregations and broader networks. It also presents three pairs of case studies, each comprising a major centre of agricultural origin involving domestication of key cereal crops and an adjacent region of agricultural spread, West Asia and Europe, China and Korea and Mesoamerica and the Southwest. Archaeobotanical evidence indicates that cultivation took place in a range of lowland and upland contexts, using high-water-table, floodwater, mesa top run-off, or rain-fed techniques.

  • 27 - Conclusion: the meanings of early cities

  • from Part VI - Early imperial cities
  • Edited by Norman Yoffee, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Book:
    The Cambridge World History
    Published online:
    05 March 2015
    Print publication:
    12 March 2015, pp 546-557

  • Summary

    Jerusalem, in stone and imagination, is unique as a holy city of the world's three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The most relevant primary texts describing the physical features of Jerusalem's cities include the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, Roman and Late Antique Jewish sources and Christian writings. Jerusalem dramatically changed during the eighth century BCE, coinciding with abundant archaeological and textual evidence testifying to its significance as a major cultic and urban center with a large residential population, perhaps for the first time in the city's history. More recently, salvage excavations have uncovered additional impressive remains dating to the late Second Temple period. Herod's monumental buildings have left their imprint on Jerusalem's landscape and topography; remnants are still visible today. First and foremost Byzantine Jerusalem was a city of pilgrimage, whose main function was devoted to the cult of holy places.

  • Revisiting the origin of the domestication of noni (Morinda citrifolia L.)

  • Anurudh K. Singh, Kirti Singh, P. I. Peter
  • Journal:
    Plant Genetic Resources / Volume 9 / Issue 4 / December 2011
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    12 October 2011, pp. 549-556

  • Based on the distribution, molecular similarity and use of Morinda citrifolia L., and occurrence of a wild Morinda species, Southeast Asia and Micronesia have been suggested to be the places where noni originated. The present article discusses the indices used by Vavilov and subsequent authorities on the origin of crop plants to argue that South Asia (Southeast India) has a greater probability of being the centre of domestication/origin for noni than Southeast Asia or Micronesia. The basic reasoning is that economically important plant cannot originate without richness in biodiversity and ingenuity of local people. India with rich floristic diversity, one of the centres of origin of crop plants with a natural distribution of Morinda species, including M. citrifolia L. and its immediate ancestors, has the oldest reference of occurrence, use and cultivation (Vedic literature); therefore, it appears to be the more probable centre of noni's origin. The ancient history of the expansion of Indian culture, religion and trade to Southeast Asian countries corroborate the possible role of Indians in the introduction of noni or knowledge regarding its value to Southeast Asia, from which it was carried to Micronesia and Polynesia, which provided a more favourable environmental niche for perpetuation and use.

  • 10 - Archaic Greece

  • from Part II - Early Mediterranean Economies and the Near East
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 277-301

  • Summary

    Under all the major indicators of economic change, that is, population, growth, urbanization, production and exchange, institutions, and stock of knowledge, there are reasons to believe that the period between 700 and 500 BC in archaic Greece saw significant developments. This chapter analyzes those developments in more detail by comparing and contrasting the archaeological evidence relating to circa 700 BC and circa 500 BC. It explores how the picture that one can create on the basis of archaeological evidence relates to the picture of the economy offered by one further resource making its dramatic appearance in this period: literary texts. Athenian Solon puts a value upon the individual citizen, whose political capacity is determined by his wealth. That there was a transition from gift to commodity during the period from the eighth to the sixth century has often been suggested. The chapter traces both the economic background to that change and its political origins.

  • 13 - The transformation of Italy, 300 – 133 B.C. The evidence of archaeology

    • By Jean-Paul Morel, Professor at the Université de Provence (Aix en Provence), and Director of the Centre Camille Jullian
  • Edited by A. E. Astin, F. W. Walbank, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    07 December 1989, pp 477-516

  • Summary

    The central issue in the development of Italy during the third and second centuries BC is without doubt that of its hellenization; nevertheless it would be a mistake to relate everything to this factor. Indeed, an enquiry confined to art and architecture would be unacceptable in the light of the approach taken recently by archaeology. The evidence leaves no doubt that the beginning of the third century and even the end of the fourth century constituted an intensely creative period in Italy. Models and ideas spread more vigorously in the field of art than in that of ordinary craft products, which Central Italy had no great need to import. As for Cosa, it represents an exception in Central-Southern Etruria and extends northward the expansion-zone of the great architectural innovations from Latium and Campania. Innovations were less acceptable, especially in Rome, insofar as they impinged on what might be called public morality.

  • 10 - THE BABYLONIAN EVIDENCE OF ACHAEMENIAN RULE IN MESOPOTAMIA

  • Edited by I. Gershevitch
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 June 1985, pp 529-587

  • Summary

    To present the Babylonian evidence, cuneiform texts and archaeological remains, for the Achaemenian rule over the satrapy Babairuš is to write a history of Mesopotamia. To write a history of Mesopotamia during these two hundred years would moreover necessitate the complete and critical utilization of contemporary and later classical sources. The cuneiform evidence of Achaemenian rule not only confirms the sequence of Persian rulers as known from Old Persian inscriptions and from Greek writers, but adds important chronological refinements. The student of Mesopotamian history can also rely on the inscriptions often written or stamped on bricks destined for temples, palaces, city walls, etc. In Mesopotamia as elsewhere historical events have left their imprints on literary creations and, conversely, literary creations have been used for political purposes. This chapter discusses the problems connected with the co-regency of Cyrus and Cambyses. Mesopotamian sources provide very little written evidence for Darius I, apart from the mention of his name in the Uruk kinglist.

  • 11 - Early food production in sub-Saharan Africa

  • Edited by J. Desmond Clark
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Africa
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    25 February 1982, pp 770-829

  • Summary

    This chapter focuses on the cultural evidence of food production and animal domestication in sub-Saharan Africa. Archaeological evidence for the practice of food production in the context of the Nok culture is limited to two sculptures apparently representing fluted pumpkins. Food-producing societies practising the manufacture of pottery and ground stone implements were present in more northerly regions for at least two millennia before these traits became prevalent in West Africa itself. The chapter summarizes the spread of food-production techniques through the milieu of the Early Iron Age, together with an evaluation of the economy of the final Later Stone Age peoples during the time of their contact with the immigrant Iron Age farmers. The early Urewe ware makers were certainly workers of iron, but there is as yet only indirect evidence for pastoralism or agriculture in this group of the Early Iron Age.

  • 6 - The Later Stone Age in sub-Saharan Africa

  • Edited by J. Desmond Clark
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Africa
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    25 February 1982, pp 410-477

  • Summary

    In sub-Saharan Africa, more especially in the eastern and central areas, the study of Stone Age archaeology was largely inspired by pioneer researchers in South Africa. South Africa was the first, and only major, part of the sub-continent where European colonizers and settlers came into contact with indigenous people who regularly used stone tools. By the end of the century a great deal of artifactual material, most of it poorly documented, had been amassed in museum and private collections. This chapter provides the archaeological evidence for the inception and progress of the Later Stone Age cultures in each region of sub-Saharan Africa up to the time of the first appearance of techniques of food production. West Africa is separated from the rest of sub-Saharan Africa on the one side by the densely forested Congo basin and on the other by the vast northern area, stretching between Cameroun and the southern part of the Sudan Republic.

  • 3 - The earliest archaeological traces

  • Edited by J. Desmond Clark
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Africa
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    25 February 1982, pp 157-247

  • Summary

    This chapter deals with archaeological studies of developing technology and culture from the earliest traces to the end of the Middle Pleistocene. The African sequence of archaeological documents is the longest known Pleistocene record. The energies of Palaeolithic archaeologists were formerly devoted primarily to the detailed study of stone artifacts but, as indicated, emphasis is steadily changing. The chapter reflects contemporary endeavour in African Palaeolithic prehistory by being more concerned with what is known of long-term developments in human ecology, technology and social grouping than with such versions of culture history as those expounded in the classics of African Palaeolithic literature. The excavation of undisturbed archaeological sites provides the crucial evidence for attempts to understand early prehistory in socio-economic and ecological terms. In Africa, prehistoric archaeology has provided an important opportunity for investigating the long-term record of the stages by which the contrast arose.

  • 6 - The emergence of Bantu Africa

  • Edited by J. D. Fage
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Africa
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    01 February 1979, pp 342-409

  • Summary

    In Africa south of the Equator the period from 500 BC until AD 1000 was first and foremost the period which saw the change to food production. The transition to food production coincided with the transition from the Stone to the Iron Age. This chapter considers the historical implications of recent work on the classification of the Bantu languages at the end of the Stone Age. The archaeological evidence surveyed suggests that the Iron Age entered Bantu Africa across the western half of its northern frontier. The introduction of the South-East Asian food-plants was the most significant event of Early Iron Age times in the forest region. This must presumably have been a process which started on the east coast of Africa with the oceanic voyages of Indonesian traders and migrants. A scatter of exotic objects, such as glass beads and seashells, has come from Early Iron Age sites in the southern half of Bantu Africa.

  • (b) - ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

  • Edited by I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 September 1975, pp 331-337

  • Summary

    This chapter explores the archaeological contribution towards an elucidation surrounding the origins of the Israelite tribes in Palestine. Owing to the peculiar position which Palestine holds in respect to three world religions, the reason for and the evolution of excavations in her soil have been somewhat different from those in other parts of the world. The one distinctive element of the culture of the Hebrew tribes of which one may speak with any certainty is their religion, the nature of which was such that during the period in question it remains, archaeologically speaking, an invisible attribute. The chapter presents the sites where excavation has revealed a destruction which could have been caused by the incoming Hebrew tribes; the sites include Bethe, Tell el-Jib. Of far greater archaeological importance is the bearing which the Deir 'Alia excavations have on the problems of recognizing the arrival of new population groups.