The Bloomsbury Handbook Of Experimental Approaches To Roman Archaeology

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Experimental Approaches to Roman Archaeology

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Experimental Approaches to Roman Archaeology

This volume is the first comprehensive overview of Roman experimental archaeology, exploring its key themes, methodologies and applications through a diverse array of international case studies. Experiments, simulations and reconstructions are important methods for understanding the past, from uncovering how ancient objects and structures were made, used, destroyed, deposited and affected underground, to illuminating the experiences of tasting ancient foods, fighting alongside comrades or living in replicated structures. Although the incorporation of experimentation has had great success in prehistoric studies, greater reliance on the wealth of literary and material sources remaining from the classical period has meant that its potential for Roman studies has yet to be fully realised. The 26 chapters in this book are divided into 5 thematic parts, each of which opens with a contextualizing introduction that frames the detailed case studies found in individual chapters and showcases the actual and potential diversity of experimentation as applied to the Roman past by scholars, re-enactors, and practitioners in the heritage sector. In laying out a detailed guide to Roman experimental archaeology, the volume as a whole maps its past, present and future, and provides a firm foundation for further practical research and collaboration. In doing so, it reasserts that experiments and reconstructions are a significant resource for testing or developing theories, rather than merely artistic replicas, and that the vast amount of quantifiable data they yield can be invaluable in support of interpretations of relevant archaeological or historical evidence, regardless of the period in question and beyond the confines of academia.

Ancient Jewish Food in Its Geographical and Cultural Contexts

This book is the first in-depth study of food in talmudic literature in its geographical and cultural contexts. It demonstrates the sharing of foods and foodways between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbours in the Near East in Late Antiquity. Using both ancient written sources and archaeological evidence, this book sets the foods of the Mishnah and Palestinian Talmud in their Graeco-Roman context, and the foods of the Babylonian Talmud and the ge’onim in their Persian and Arab contexts. It explores practices of food preparation and their contribution to the ancient diet, as well as analysing the relationships between food, status and culture. The rabbinical authors of talmudic literature were more concerned with everyday food than were aristocratic Classical authors; by examining both talmudic sources and archaeological finds, this book paints a new picture of the diet, lifestyle and culture of ordinary people. Ancient Jewish Food in Its Geographical and Cultural Contexts will interest Food Historians as well as students and scholars of Jewish Studies, particularly the period of the Mishnah and Talmud, as well as those dealing with the wider social and cultural history of the Ancient Near East.