Life and Death in Asia Minor combines contributions in both archaeology and bioarchaeology in Asia Minor in the period ca. 200 BC – AD 1300 for the first time. The archaeology topics are wide-ranging including death and territory, death and landscape perception, death and urban transformations from pagan to Christian topography, changing tomb typologies, funerary costs, family organization, funerary rights, rituals and practices among pagans, Jews, and Christians, inhumation and Early Byzantine cremations and use and reuse of tombs. The bioarchaeology chapters use DNA, isotope and osteological analyses to discuss, both among children and adults, questions such as demography and death rates, pathology and nutrition, body actions, genetics, osteobiography, and mobility patterns and diet. The areas covered in Asia Minor include the sites of Hierapolis, Laodikeia, Aphrodisias, Tlos, Ephesos, Priene, Kyme, Pergamon, Amorion, Gordion, Boğazkale, and Arslantepe. The theoretical and methodological approaches used make it highly relevant for people working in other geographical areas and time periods. Many of the articles could be used as case studies in teaching at schools and universities. An important objective of the publication has been to see how the different types of results emerging from archaeological and natural science studies respectively could be integrated with each other and pose new questions on ancient societies, which were far more complex than historical and social studies of the past often manage to transmit.

A monumental history of Asia Minor from the Stone Age to the Roman Empire In this critically acclaimed book, Christian Marek masterfully provides the first comprehensive history of Asia Minor from prehistory to the Roman imperial period. Blending rich narrative with in-depth analyses, In the Land of a Thousand Gods shows Asia Minor’s shifting orientation between East and West and its role as both a melting pot of nations and a bridge for cultural transmission. Marek employs ancient sources to illuminate civic institutions, urban and rural society, agriculture, trade and money, the influential Greek writers of the Second Sophistic, the notoriously bloody exhibitions of the gladiatorial arena, and more. He draws on the latest research—in fields ranging from demography and economics to architecture and religion—to describe how Asia Minor became a center of culture and wealth in the Roman Empire. A breathtaking work of scholarship, In the Land of a Thousand Gods will become the standard reference book on the subject in English.

A complete geographical and thematic overview of the village in an antiquity and its role in the rise of Christianity. The volume begins with a “state-of-question” introduction by Thomas Robinson, assessing the interrelation of the village and city with the rise of early Christianity. Alan Cadwallader then articulates a methodology for future New Testament studies on this topic, employing a series of case studies to illustrate the methodological issues raised. From there contributors explore three areas of village life in different geographical areas, by means of a series of studies, written by experts in each discipline. They discuss the ancient near east (Egypt and Israel), mainland and Isthmian Greece, Asia Minor, and the Italian Peninsula. This geographic focus sheds light upon the villages associated with the biblical cities (Israel; Corinth; Galatia; Ephesus; Philippi; Thessalonica; Rome), including potential insights into the rural nature of the churches located there. A final section of thematic studies explores central issues of local village life (indigenous and imperial cults, funerary culture, and agricultural and economic life).

"In Urban Rituals in Sacred Landscapes in Hellenistic Asia Minor, Christina G. Williamson examines the phenomenon of monumental sanctuaries in the countryside of Asia Minor that accompanied the second rise of the Greek city-state in the Hellenistic period. Moving beyond monolithic categories, Williamson provides a transdisciplinary frame of analysis that takes into account the complex local histories, landscapes, material culture, and social and political dynamics of such shrines in their transition towards becoming prestigious civic sanctuaries. This frame of analysis is applied to four case studies: the sanctuaries of Zeus Labraundos, Sinuri, Hekate at Lagina, and Zeus Panamaros. All in Karia, these well-documented shrines offer valuable insights for understanding religious strategies adopted by emerging cities as they sought to establish their position in the expanding world"--

Can we study the social and legal practices related to families in an ancient society even in the absence of relevant literary and legal sources? In Lycia, thanks to our rich corpus of inscriptions, and the regional funerary epigraphic habit, we can. This book brings together for the first time the full range of Lycian epigraphic evidence, examines it in a systematic way, and investigates three central elements of familial life in the Hellenistic and Roman periods: marriage, children, and inheritance practices; in doing so it briefly touches on a number of prosopographical, demographic, and anthropological questions. The book makes an innovative contribution not only to the history of Lycia but also to the wider study of ancient families.

La notion de région a depuis fort longtemps été un concept de base de l'analyse historique du monde grec. Cependant, ce concept n'a pas toujours été clairement défini. Les contributions de ce volume n'esquivent pas la question et s'efforcent de mettre en évidence les implications de la notion selon différentes perspectives d'analyse, en prenant pour cadre de référence l'Asie Mineure hellénistique et romaine. Qu'elles examinent la culture, le monnayage ou les institutions politiques, les contributions de ce volume s'attachent à explorer les différentes facettes des identités régionales. De même, elles prennent en considération les moyens par lesquels ces identités pouvaient rester tendanciellement stables ou au contraire évoluer au fil du temps, et définissent leur type d'interaction avec les puissances hégémoniques. Parfois aussi, elles n'hésitent pas à mettre en cause l'utilité de l'approche régionale. Enfin, la question de l'"ethnicité" n'est pas négligée. Ce volume intéressera les spécialistes de l'Asie Mineure, aussi bien que tous ceux qui s'intéressent à la conceptualisation de la notion de région dans le monde méditerranéen. Regions and regionalism have been staples of historical analysis for the Greek world for a very long time. What is meant by a region, however, is not always obvious. The contributions in this volume seek to address the question of defining regions and working out the implications of regionalism along different dimensions of analysis for Asia Minor in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Looking at culture, coinage, political institutions, the papers explore different markers of regional identity, consider ways in which these identities may remain stable or change over time, review the character of the interaction between regional entities and hegemonic powers, and challenge the usefulness in some cases of regional analysis. Questions of ethnicity are also addressed. This volume will be of interest to historians working in Asia Minor and...

Our conception of the culture and values of the ancient Greco-Roman world is largely based on texts and material evidence left behind by a small and atypical group of city-dwellers. The people of the deep Mediterranean countryside seldom appear in the historical record from antiquity, and almost never as historical actors. This book is the first extended historical ethnography of an ancient village society, based on an extraordinarily rich body of funerary and propitiatory inscriptions from a remote upland region of Roman Asia Minor. Rural kinship structures and household forms are analysed in detail, as are the region's demography, religious life, gender relations, class structure, normative standards and values. Roman north-east Lydia is perhaps the only non-urban society in the Greco-Roman world whose culture can be described at so fine-grained a level of detail: a world of tight-knit families, egalitarian values, hard agricultural labour, village solidarity, honour, piety and love.