American Journal of Archaeology

This note describes the fragment of a relief decorated with a griffin discovered during an excavation in 2015 in Mérida (ancient Augusta Emerita), Spain. The piece is exceptional for its considerable size and its singular iconography and because the only known parallels are in reliefs on imperial buildings in Rome and Castel Gandolfo. The excavation site is in what is known as the Forum Portico, a Flavian-period cult precinct to the northeast of the Roman forum.

The end of the 13th and beginning of the 12th centuries B.C.E. witnessed the demise of the great territorial states of the Bronze Age and, with them, the collapse of the extensive interregional trade networks that fueled their wealth and power. The period that follows has historically been characterized as an era of cultural devolution marked by profound social and political disruption. This report presents the preliminary results of the Tayinat Archaeological Project (TAP) investigations of Iron I (ca. 12th to mid 10th century B.C.E.) contexts at Tell Tayinat, which would emerge from this putative Dark Age as Kunulua, royal capital of the Neo-Hittite kingdom of Palastin/Patina/Unqi. In contrast to the prevailing view, the results of the TAP investigations at Early Iron Age Tayinat reveal an affluent community actively interacting with a wide spectrum of regions throughout the eastern Mediterranean. The evidence from Tayinat also highlights the distinctively local, regional character of its cultural development and the need for a more nuanced treatment of the considerable regional variability evident in the eastern Mediterranean during this formative period, a treatment that recognizes the diversity of relational networks, communities, and cultural identities being forged in the generation of a new social and economic order.

Much has been written about gentrification in the contemporary world, but far less work has interrogated whether a similar type of renewal can be observed in different places or periods. This article explores the archaeological application of this concept to the cities of Roman North Africa. Three baseline characteristics are identified for the gentrification process: the displacement of less affluent communities, transformations to the overall character of the built environment, and subsequent waves of gentrifying elites. Making use of the wealth of data for elite domestic construction in North Africa, I first demonstrate the archaeological traces of physical alterations that can be associated with these three factors—that is, evidence for the architectural dynamics of Roman gentrification. I then rely on queries provided by modern gentrification studies to explore the social dynamics of who is involved and why only some neighborhoods are gentrifiable. The resulting discussion highlights the contradictory trends and competing processes that are central to urban regeneration in the Roman world and best situated within the ongoing dialogue of Roman globalization. The introduction of gentrification into the globalization debate is thus a novel way to understand how connectivity shaped the dynamic city spaces of North Africa in antiquity.

In July 2014, we conducted a survey of Pompeii’s street network to document traces of iron that were observed on the stone-paved streets, which resulted in the identification of 434 instances of solid iron and iron staining among the paving stones. This paper describes the iron deposits, categorizing them into six observable types, and argues that, in the final days and weeks before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E., Pompeians were—in addition to using solid iron wedges—pouring molten iron and iron slag onto their streets as a method of emergency repair. Before discussing the evidence available for how the melting, transporting, and depositing of these ferric materials might have been accomplished, we address whether the Romans had the technical ability to achieve sufficiently high temperatures to melt iron, finding much evidence to affirm the claim that they did. Finally, we consider why Pompeians undertook such measures to repair their streets. Recent research on the costs of paving stone streets in terms of time, money, and opportunity provides the economic context for this novel repair process and shows the use of iron and iron slag to have been an expedient alternative. 

This paper offers a reexamination of a small Augustan lares altar found on the Capitoline Hill and now in the Museo Nazionale Romano at the Terme di Diocleziano. The altar features two women, one on each of its sides, wearing very similar costumes and offering libations, and twin lares on the front. The discussion analyzes the altar’s original context, scale, iconography, workmanship, and state of preservation. This altar fits into the well-known series of altars dedicated by freedmen vicomagistri in the local neighborhoods (vici) in honor of the newly named Lares Augusti in and immediately after 7 B.C.E. Based on this setting and their elaborate costumes, which resemble those of the vestal virgins, these women can be identified as Roman brides, who regularly made offerings to the local lares near their new home on their wedding day. The Terme altar provides valuable evidence for the religious roles of Roman women, specifically in relation to lares at crossroads shrines (compita); it is the only representation of brides in a relief from the city of Rome and a rare example, among extant images, of women pouring a libation.

Separated by less than 4 km and set in a strategic position about 25 km east of Knossos on the northern coast of Crete, the Bronze Age settlements of Sissi and Malia have produced extensive archaeological evidence of a prosperous occupation and an important regional role during the last 250 years of their history. The volume, diversity, and quality of the ceramic finds reflect the diversity of social contexts of pottery consumption and wealthy trade connections during a period of critical transformations in the political organization of Crete. Through petrographic analysis of 218 ceramic samples, this article explores technological choices, local and regional types of production, and pottery import networks in the Malia region during the Final Palatial period of centralized administration at Knossos (Late Minoan II–IIIA2 [early], ca. 1460–1370 B.C.E.) and at Malia during the ensuing Postpalatial period of regional organization of Crete (Late Minoan IIIA2/B–IIIB, ca. 1370–1190 B.C.E.). The results indicate that north-central Crete played an important role as a producer and supplier of pottery under the Knossian rule. Some strictly local pottery traditions developed at Sissi and Malia toward Late Minoan IIIA2 and continued into the Postpalatial period, leading to a complex alliance of new and old Minoan traditions.