This collection presents new analyses for the nature and scale of Roman agriculture. It outlines the fundamental features of agricultural production through studying the documentary and archaeological evidence for the modes of land exploitation and the organisation, development of, and investment in this sector.

Between the Roman annexation of Egypt and the Arab period, the Nile Delta went from consisting of seven branches to two, namely the current Rosetta and Damietta branches. For historians, this may look like a slow process, but on a geomorphological scale, it is a rather fast one. How did it happen? How did human action contribute to the phenomenon? Why did it start around the Roman period? And how did it impact on ancient Deltaic communities? This volume reflects on these questions by focusing on a district of the north-eastern Delta called the Mendesian Nome. The Mendesian Nome is one of the very few Deltaic zones documented by a significant number of papyri. To date, this documentation has never been subject to a comprehensive study. Yet it provides us with a wealth of information on the region's landscape, administrative geography, and agrarian economy. Starting from these papyri and from all available evidence, this volume investigates the complex networks of relationships between Mendesian environments, socio-economic dynamics, and agro-fiscal policies. Ultimately, it poses the question of the "otherness" of the Nile Delta, within Egypt and, more broadly, the Roman Empire. Section I sets the broader hydrological, documentary, and historical contexts from which the Roman-period Mendesian evidence stem. Section II is dedicated to the reconstruction of the Mendesian landscape, while section III examines the strategies of diversification and the modes of valorization of marginal land attested in the nome. Finally, section IV analyses the socio-environmental crisis that affected the nome in the second half of the second century AD.

Billings demonstrates that Acts was written in conformity with broader representational trends found on imperial monuments and in the epigraphic record of the early second century.

Major changes in policy and management , across the entire agricultural production chain, will be needed to ensure the best use of available water resources in meeting growing demands for food and other agricultural products. This new volume in the successful History of Water Series focuses on the African continent to address this key issue. Humanity has its roots in Africa and many of our food systems developed there. All types of agricultural production are present and the sheer size of the continent offers wide ecological variation from extreme desert to dense rainforest. Drawing together leading international contributors from a wide variety of disciplines Water and Food offers new insights into the evolution of food systems, from early hunter gatherers to the global challenges of the modern world.

An exploration of theoretical frameworks, methodology and field practice suited to the late antique Mediterranean. Broad themes such as long-term change, topography, the economy and social life are covered, but in terms of the issues and problems being tackled by scholars of late antiquity.