Preliminary Material /C. J. Bleeker -- L'initiation et le monde moderne /M. Eliade -- Some Introductory Remarks on the Significance of Initiation /C. J. Bleeker -- Terminologie bambara concernant l'initiation /D. Zahan -- Die Sprache von Zuyua als Initiationsmittel /Günter Lanczkowski -- The Significance of Time in some Ancient Initiatory Rituals /S. G. F. Brandon -- Initiation in Ancient Egypt /C. J. Bleeker -- Voraussetzungen der Einweihung in Eleusis /K. Kerényi -- "Le Secret Central de l'initiation aux mysteres d'Eleusis” /Maurice Mehauden -- Initiation in later Hinduism according to Tantric Texts /D. J. Hoens -- Dīkṣā /A. Basu -- Informal Initiation Among Hindus and Moslems /Henry H. Presler -- Initiation in the Shugendo: the Passage through the Ten States of Existence /Carmen Blacker -- L'initiation mazdéenne /J. Duchesne-Guillemin -- Pour une Etude de l'initiation dans l'ancien Israel /André Caquot -- Qumran und die Zwölf /David Flusser -- Initiation et mystère dans Joseph et Aséneth /Marc Philonenko -- Initiation, Mystères, gnose /U. Bianchi -- New Testament Baptism. An External or Internal Rite? /R. A. Barclay -- John the Baptist in Christianized Gnosticism /Leander E. Keck -- Conditions of Membership of the Islamic Community /W. Montgomery Watt -- The Initiation Ceremony of the Bektashis /Helmer Ringgren -- La signification psychologique de l'ésotérisme /Edmond Rochedieu -- Initiation and the Paradox of Power: a Sociological Approach /E. M. Mendelson -- Initiation et histoire /A. Brelich -- Religion als Einweihung /Anton Antweiler -- Einweihung und spirituelle Nachfolge /Matthias Vereno -- Das Fasten als Initiationsritus /Peter Gerlitz -- Some Reflections on the Rites of Initiation /Geo Widengren.

This volume draws attention to the importance of pottery evidence in evaluating archaeological material from Thrace. The volume considers the informative value of pottery in tracing cultural and political phases, by providing us with important data about production centres, commercial relations, daily life, religious rituals and burial customs.

In the Ptolemaic station of Bi'r Samut (3rd cent. B.C.) on the desert-road between Edfu and Berenice, the same African nomads were called Trogodytai in Greek and Blhm.w in Egyptian. In this word we recognise the Blemmyes of Greek and Latin literature and of documents from late antiquity. And yet, three centuries later, these nomads were simply called Barbaroi in the Roman garrisons of the Eastern Desert. From this discovery came the idea to publish, in the same volume, the demotic ostraca from Bi'r Samut that mention Blemmyes, together with a group of Greek orders to distribute grain to Barbarians from the time of Gallienus, found at the Roman praesidium of Xeron Pelagos. The only archaeological remains that can be attributed with certainty to these nomads are vessels and shards of Eastern Desert Ware, a hand built, polished ceramic decorated with incisions. The examples found at Bi'r Samut are published in the volume. The three chapters consecrated to the unpublished documents are preceded by a presentation of the history of the nomad-population of the Eastern Desert of Egypt in the long perspective from the Pharaonic period onwards, and reflexions on the names given by the Greeks and the Romans in turn to these people who occupied the Eastern Desert of Egypt and Nubia.

The Umayyads, the first dynasty of Islam, ruled over a vast empire from their central province of Syria, providing a line of caliphs from 661 to 750. Another branch later ruled in al-Andalus – Islamic Spain – from 756 to 1031, ruling first as emirs and then as caliphs themselves. This book is the first to bring together studies of this far-flung family and treat it not as two unrelated caliphates but as a single enterprise. Yet for all that historians have made note of Umayyad accomplishments in the Near East and al-Andalus, Umayyad legacies – what later generations made of these caliphs and their achievements – are poorly understood. Building on new interest in the study of memory and Islamic historiography and including interdisciplinary perspectives from Arabic literature, art, and archaeology, this book highlights Umayyad achievements and the shaping of our knowledge of the Umayyad past.

' This new journal from Brill makes many important promises to all scholars interested in the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and the Near East and the interactions between them. ... By opening a regular avenue for cooperation and conversation among scholars from many disciplines and countries, AWE has a real potential for fulfilling the promises it makes. '// BMCR , 2003.