On a cold winter morning in January of 1851, a small group of people approached the monumental façade of an ancient rock-cut burial cave located north of the Old City of Jerusalem. The team, consisting of two Europeans and a number of local workers, was led by Louis-Félicien Caignart de Saulcy—descendant of a noble Flemish family who later was to become a distinguished member of the French parliament. As an amateur archaeologist and a devout Catholic, de Saulcy was attracted to the Holy Land and Jerusalem in particular and was obsessed by his desire to uncover some tangible evidence for the city’s glorious past. However, unlike numerous other European pilgrims, researchers and adventurers before him, de Saulcy was determined to expose the evidence by physically excavating ancient sites. His first object of investigation constitutes one of the most attractive and mysterious monumental burial caves within the vicinity of the Old City, from then onward to be referred to as the “Tomb of the Kings” (Kubur al-Muluk). By conducting an archaeological investigation, de Saulcy tried to prove that this complex represented no less than the monumental sepulcher of the biblical Davidic Dynasty. His brief exploration of the burial complex in 1851 led to the discovery of several ancient artifacts, including sizeable marble fragments of one or several sarcophagi. It would take him another 13 years to raise the funds for a more comprehensive investigation of the site. On November 17, 1863, de Saulcy returned to Jerusalem with a larger team to initiate what would later be referred to as the first archaeological excavation to be conducted in the city.—(from the “Preface”) In 2006, some two dozen contemporary archaeologists and historians met at Brown University, in Providence RI, to present papers and illustrations marking the 150th anniversary of modern archaeological exploration of the Holy City. The papers from that conference are published here, presented in 5 major sections: (1) The History of Research, (2) From Early Humans to the Iron Age, (3) The Roman Period, (4) The Byzantine Period, and (5) The Early Islamic and Medieval Periods. The volume is heavily illustrated with materials from historical archives as well as from contemporary excavations. It provides a helpful and informative introduction to the history of the various national and religious organizations that have sponsored excavations in the Holy Land and Jerusalem in particular, as well as a summary of the current status of excavations in Jerusalem.

Drawing its numerous examples from Britain and beyond, Archaeological Investigation explores the procedures used in field archaeology travelling over the whole process from discovery to publication. Divided into four parts, it argues for a set of principles in part one, describes work in the field in part two and how to write up in part three. Part four describes the modern world in which all types of archaeologist operate, academic and professional. The central chapter ‘Projects Galore’ takes the reader on a whirlwind tour through different kinds of investigation including in caves, gravel quarries, towns, historic buildings and underwater. Archaeological Investigation intends to be a companion for a newcomer to professional archaeology – from a student introduction (part one), to first practical work (part two) to the first responsibilities for producing reports (part three) and, in part four, to the tasks of project design and heritage curation that provide the meat and drink of the fully fledged professional. The book also proposes new ways of doing things, tried out over the author’s thirty years in the field and brought together here for the first time. This is no plodding manual but an inspiring, provocative, informative and entertaining book, urging that archaeological investigation is one of the most important things society does.

This second volume presenting the research carried out through the Exeter: A Place in Time project presents a series of specialist contributions that underpin the general overview published in the first volume. Chapter 2 provides summaries of the excavations carried out within the city of Exeter between 1812 and 2019, while Chapter 3 draws together the evidence for the plan of the legionary fortress and the streets and buildings of the Roman town. Chapter 4 presents the medieval documentary evidence relating to the excavations at three sites in central Exeter (High Street, Trichay Street and Goldsmith Street), with the excavation reports being in Chapter 5-7. Chapter 8 reports on the excavations and documentary research at Rack Street in the south-east quarter of the city. There follows a series of papers covering recent research into the archaeometallurgical debris, dendrochronology, Roman pottery, Roman ceramic building material, Roman querns and millstones, Claudian coins, an overview of the Roman coins from Exeter and Devon, medieval pottery, and the human remains found in a series of medieval cemeteries.

The Archaeology of Greater Nicoya is the first edited volume in a quarter century to provide an overview of this fascinating archaeological subarea of Mesoamerica, encompassing Pacific Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica. Inhabited by diverse peoples of Mesoamerican origin centuries before Spanish colonization, Greater Nicoya remains controversial in the twenty-first century as scholars struggle to achieve consensus on questions of geography, chronology, and cultural identity. Drawing on approaches ranging from ethnohistory to bioarchaeology to scientific and culture-historical archaeology, the book is organized into sections on redefining Greater Nicoya, projects and surveys, material culture, and mortuary practices. Individual chapters explore Indigenous groups and their origins, extensive summaries of the three largest scholarly archaeological projects completed in Pacific Nicaragua in the last quarter century, clear evidence of Mesoamerican connections from Costa Rica’s Bay of Culebra, detailed histories of lithic analysis and rock art studies in Nicaragua, new insights into mortuary and cultural practices based on osteological evidence, and reinterpretations of diagnostic ceramic types as products of related potting communities and the first definitive identification of production centers for these types. Drawing upon new 14C dates, this volume also provides the most substantial revision of the late pre-colonial chronology since the 1960s, a correction that has critical implications for understanding the prehistory of Greater Nicoya.

This volume is the third in the Advances in Archaeological and Museum Science series sponsored by the Society for Archaeological Sciences (SAS). The purpose of this series is to provide summaries of advances in various topics in ar chaeometry, archaeological science, environmental archaeology, preservation technology, and museum conservation. The SAS exists to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration between archaeologists and colleagues in the natural and physical sciences. SAS mem bers are drawn from many disciplinary fields. However, they all share a common belief that physical science techniques and methods constitute an essential component of contemporary archaeological field and laboratory studies. The series editors wish to thank the reviewers of each of the chapters in this volume for their excellent comments and suggestions. We also wish to thank Chriss jones for her invaluable assistance in the preparation of the texts for submission to the publisher. xi Preface As noted in the introductory chapter, this volume is the second major review of research progress in the study of archaeological obsidian. An earlier book, Advances in Obsidian Glass Studies: Archaeological and Geochemical Perspectives, appeared in 1976. A comparison of the treatment of topics reflected in this earlier work and that contained in this volume not only highlights important advances in the quality and depth of research on archaeological obsidian over more than a quarter of a century but also illustrates more generally some characteristics of developments in the archaeological science field in general.