American Journal of Archaeology

Batty’s monograph on Ostia’s Domus del Ninfeo—an Imperial-period insula turned Late Antique domus—represents the culmination of her work for her Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Manchester.

Levin-Richardson’s book fills a gap in the scholarship, since—as the author’s careful assessment of the literature abundantly makes clear—the Lupanar at Pompeii has never been subjected to a comprehensive study. To accomplish this objective, she combs all available primary sources, including excavation diaries and material finds; she considers the rather meager assortment of objects found in the structure; and she provides an impressive, in-depth analysis of the numerous graffiti.

This volume explores diachronic histories of Roman material culture, engaging the evolution of select works of art and architecture in the years, even centuries, after their creation. The book presents eight analyses of reuse and renovation, drawn from a range of media, from both the eastern and western Mediterranean, and from both public and private contexts. The essays are grouped into two chronologically ordered sections. Longfellow, Laird, Keesling, and Ossi examine material from the first and second centuries CE.

Roman altars, apart from special ones such as the Ara Pacis, are rarely the focus of a book-length study. They were the subject of Helen Cox Bowerman’s 1913 dissertation “Roman Sacrificial Altars: An Archaeological Study of Monuments in Rome” (Bryn Mawr; not cited by Moser), a descriptive catalogue and analysis of the altars known at that time and a snapshot of the state of the question in American scholarship in the early 20th century. So much has changed in the intervening 106 years.

Our image of Rome in the Middle Republic is filling out quickly. In recent years, a flood of important articles and books on architectural production, the political offices that supported and depended on it, public space, urban dynamics, architecture and social memory, and Roman expansion into Italy has augmented, and in some cases provided an entirely new footing for, study of the period.

“Of all the cities of Etruria, none takes so prominent a place in history as Veii” (xiii). So writes Tabolli at the beginning of this volume, borrowing the words of George Dennis in his landmark study of Etruscan topography The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (Cambridge 1848 [1]). The use of this quotation serves as a neat justification for the current publication ­by positioning Veii as one of the most (if not the most) historically preeminent cities of Etruria.

These two volumes present the results of five months of underwater fieldwork carried out over three seasons, 30 years ago (1984–1986). The volumes comprise the final publication of the Hellenistic harbor of Amathus, supplanting a dozen earlier articles, most of which are short annual reports published in the Bulletin de correspondance hellénique and Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus. Exploration of the harbor occurred in conjunction with terrestrial excavations initiated by the French School at Athens in 1975.

In this reworking of her doctoral thesis, Tonglet explores the appropriation and adaptation of Etruscan vase forms by sixth-century BCE Athenian potters, primarily for trade back to Etruscan consumers. The ladle-shaped cup (or cup-shaped ladle) known as the kyathos is her primary focus—and one particular example inscribed as belonging to an Etruscan woman (“Madame Teithurnai”) the catalyst—but this single shape sparks larger discussion about cross-cultural interaction and influence.

Chemsseddoha has written a book that would not have been possible even a few decades ago. It might be a slight exaggeration by now to call the Iron Age and northern Greece two new frontiers in Greek archaeology, but it seems fair to say that it is only recently that tireless excavation and publishing activity by the Greek Archaeological Service and Greek universities (and others) has resulted in a critical mass of evidence that seems ripe for synthesis.

Cities: The First 6,000 Years is a lively romp that takes the reader through a rich landscape of urban scenarios and across an inclusive cross-section of city dwellers. Written for the general public (and not published by an academic press), it is undoubtedly a valuable resource for any scholar interested in how and why such complex entities came together, functioned, and, in some cases, declined.