American Journal of Archaeology

The appearance of the fourth volume of the Finnish Institute at Athens’ Thesprotia Expedition report is an achievement worthy of note, not least because it officially brings the first phase of an important project (2004–2010) to a close. A cooperative project between the Finnish Institute and the Ephorate of Antiquities of Thesprotia is slated to come next and aims to study the Roman colonia and the medieval episcopal see of Photike, after having surveyed its urban area for two seasons already.

This book is a timely and well-crafted contribution to the field of early Christian studies. It has three main aims, which it meets admirably. Firstly, it contextualizes disciplinary developments in the field in recent years. Secondly, it highlights the contribution of archaeological research to studies of early Christianity more generally. Thirdly, it presents regional and thematic surveys of this contribution.

Over the course of January 1 to 3 in 2018, the Maarrat al-Nu‘man Museum, which houses the floor mosaics that are the subject of Abdallah’s book, was bombed for the third time since 2015. The town and its eponymous museum are located between Idlib and Hama in northwest Syria, an area at the center of the Syrian War.

Szabó’s study was carried out within the framework of the research project Lived Ancient Religion: Questioning “Cults” and “Polis Religion” that was hosted by the Max Weber Center at Erfurt University between 2012 and 2017. This project proposes a radical redefinition of well-established concepts and topics in the field of ancient religion.

Roman Amphorae in Neuss is an overview of the imports that arrived at Neuss (Novaesium), one of the major military sites of the frontier in the Roman province of Germania Inferior. The publication includes both amphorae collected in fieldwork and previously published material stored in Meckenheim.

The site of Aptera in northwest Crete boasts some of the best-preserved architecture of the Greek and Roman periods on the island, including the remains of a magnificent theater constructed in the third century BCE, rebuilt in Roman style in the first century CE, and repaired in the second century. This theater was initially excavated in 2008–2009, when 40 fragments of Italian and Eastern Terra Sigillata bearing stamps were recovered from the site.

This collection of studies, part of the ambitious and fast-moving publication series Palmyrene Studies, publishes papers from the 2016 and 2017 Palmyra Portrait Project workshops. As such, it includes both new methods and results and some signs of undigested work in progress. After a useful historiographic introduction to studies of the family in Roman-period Palmyra, this volume presents the workshop papers, which are organized around the funerary sphere and the civic and religious sphere, plus two comparative studies.

Puddu’s book, the publication of a doctoral thesis completed at the University of Cambridge, explores community identity in Roman-period Sardinia through an analysis of funerary material. By incorporating a robust theoretical framework, the author joins others (e.g., P.

More than 30 years ago, the late ancient historian Mark Golden published an article with a title that baldly asked the question “Did the Ancients Care When Their Children Died?” (GaR 35.2, 1988, 152–63). His trenchant framing and analysis of this issue largely set the terms of the scholarly debate that has followed.