Frontiers and Borderlands in Imperial Perspectives: Exploring Rome's Egyptian Frontier | American Journal of Archaeology

Archaeological research has addressed imperial frontiers for more than a century. Romanists, in particular, have engaged in exploring frontiers from economic, militaristic, political, and (more recently) social vantages. This article suggests that we also consider the dialogue between space and social perception to understand imperial borderland developments. In addition to formulating new theoretical approaches to frontiers, this contribution represents the first comprehensive overview of both the documentary sources and the archaeological material found in Egypt's Great Oasis during the Roman period (ca. 30 B.C.E. to the sixth century C.E.). A holistic analysis of these sources reveals that Egypt's Great Oasis, which consisted of two separate but linked oases, served as a conceptual, physical, and human buffer zone for the Roman empire. This buffer zone protected the "ordered" Nile Valley inhabitants from the "chaotic" desert nomads, who lived just beyond the oases. This conclusion suggests that nomads required specific imperial frontier policies and that these policies may have been ideological as well as economic and militaristic.

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Women and the Production of Ceremonial Textiles: A Reevaluation of Ceramic Textile Tools in Etrusco-Italic Sanctuaries | American Journal of Archaeology

Ceremonial textiles in the ancient Mediterranean are well attested in literature and visual representations but are often difficult to document because of the limited preservation of the textiles themselves. Several depictions of textile production in elite contexts from pre-Roman Italy, as well as the common occurrence of textile tools in assemblages of prestige grave goods, have traditionally been used to illustrate the social significance of textile skills for Etrusco-Italic women. Less attention has been directed to the actual practice of such skills in ritual or social ceremonies. This study brings forth new evidence from the numerous tools for spinning and weaving found in Etrusco-Italic sanctuaries to elucidate the relationships between textiles, women, and the sacred sphere.

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Honorific Practices and the Politics of Space on Hellenistic Delos: Portrait Statue Monuments Along the Dromos | American Journal of Archaeology

The statue landscape of Hellenistic cities and sanctuaries was constantly changing, but the process of the gradual accrual of statues is customarily elided on site plans, which tend to show—if they represent statue bases at all—the final phase of this long and complex process. Investigating the way statue landscapes developed over time can provide a better understanding of the political, social, and spatial dynamics at play in portrait dedication. This article takes as a case study for such an approach the portrait statue monuments set up along the dromos of the Sanctuary of Apollo on Delos. Our aim is to unpack the processual dimension of this statuary display by representing this process visually through phase plans and a three-dimensional model of the dromos made in Trimble SketchUp. Parsing into phases the gradual accumulation of statues along the dromos reveals the historical dimension of statue dedication and exposes the tensions between individual and group identity that could be negotiated visually through the location, material, and size of a portrait monument. Finally, we argue that imaginative reconstruction can help us think through  the implications of display context for sculptural style: the ever-increasing number of portrait statues in the Late Hellenistic period may have been a driving force behind the stylistic changes that occurred in Late Hellenistic portraiture.

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This hypothetical 3D reconstruction shows the gradual accumulation and increasing density of statue monuments on the Delian Dromos over approximately 150 years. It is an attempt to represent the process of change over time. The authors believe this model is a useful tool for trying to gauge and interpret the visual effects of statue collocations on the ancient honorific landscape.

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Early Prehistoric Research on Amorgos and the Beginnings of Cycladic Archaeology | American Journal of Archaeology

Amorgos is widely known for its Early Cycladic antiquities, which now predominantly adorn private collections and numerous museums outside Greece. Some of the finest Cycladica associated with the island emerged before the first systematic excavations were conducted in 1894 by Christos Tsountas. With the exception of brief references, this early period of Cycladic exploration is little known. This article attempts to identify and reconstruct the private excavations that took place on Amorgos and the organization, operation, and trafficking of the island's Early Cycladic antiquities between 1880 and 1894. By integrating archival and archaeological material, this study offers glimpses of the cultural history of late 19th-century Amorgos and of some of the protagonists who paved the way for the systematic investigation of the early Cyclades.

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