The Archaeology Of Imperial Landscapes

This book examines the poorly understood transformations in rural landscapes and societies that formed the backbone of ancient empires.

The Assyrian capitals of Nineveh, Nimrud, Khorsabad, and Ashur were the most important cities of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Historical and archaeological sources indicate significant investments by the Assyrian state on these capitals during the Neo-Assyrian period. Not only were these cities a focus during this period, but the landscape surrounding them was transformed by policies and actions taken by individuals and the state. Despite the significant influence the Assyrians had on their landscape, much of the region surrounding the Assyrian capitals has never been significantly studied and published. Mark Altaweel investigated anthropogenic transformations of the physical landscape surrounding the Assyrian capitals, using remote sensing sources. In his book he uses satellite data, including CORONA, ASTER, and elevation data to locate and analyze archaeological sites, hollow ways, and irrigation features. Features recovered from remote sensing data are studied together to better reconstruct the archaeological landscape. The relationship of these features to the physical landscape is investigated using coupled agent-based social and mathematical ecological models (i.e. socio-ecological modeling). Socio-ecological modeling enables more rigorous estimates on the potential of archaeological features affecting landscape dynamics than other analytical methods. The results obtained by this work show that the Neo-Assyrian central region was exceptional in contrast to other areas and contemporary landscapes. Methods and outputs from this research are relatively new in Near Eastern archaeology in combining remote sensing data with socio-ecological modeling. More broadly, the remains and outputs produced from studying the Assyrian capitals' landscape can provide a significant amount of data for future studies and serve as a model for other empires with similar central regions of political and economic activities.

The first two centuries AD are conventionally thought of as the 'golden age' of the Roman Empire, yet Italy in this period has often been seen as being in a state of decline and even crisis. This book investigates the relationships between city and countryside in Italy in the early Empire, using evidence from literary texts and inscriptions, and the wealth of data derived from archaeological field surveys over recent years. Looking at individual towns and regions as well as at the broader picture, and stressing the diversity of situations across Italy, John R. Patterson examines how changing patterns of building and benefaction in the cities were related to developments in the country, and underlines the resourcefulness of the cities, both large and small, in seeking to maintain and develop their civic traditions.

The concept of a socially constructed space of human activity in areas of everyday actions, as initially proposed in the field of anthropology by Tim Ingold, has actually been much more applied in archaeology. In this wide-ranging collection of 13 papers, including a re-assessment by Ingold himself, contributors show why it has been so influential, with papers ranging from the study of Mesolithic to historic and contemporary archaeology, revisiting different research themes, such as Ingold’s own Lapland study, and the development of landscape archaeology. A series of case studies demonstrates the value and strength of the taskscape concept applied to a variety of contexts and scales across wide geographical and temporal situations. While exploring new frontiers, the papers contrast British, Nordic and Mediterranean archaeologies to showcase the study of material culture and landscape and conclude with an assessment of the concept of taskcape and its further developments.

How can we understand the remarkable success of the Assyrian Empire? This book provides an agent-centred explanation using archaeological data.

This volume, the first in a new series dedicated to the archaeological and historical landscapes of central Mediterranean Italy, aims to offer a fresh and dynamic new approach to our understanding of central-southern maritime Tuscany during the Roman period. Drawing on research that was initially presented at the first International Mediterranean Tuscan Conference (MediTo) held in Paganico (Grosseto, Italy) in June 2018, and supported by invited papers from other experts in the field, this collection of essays offers the most up-to-date research into Roman and Late Antique landscapes within Tuscany and its broader Mediterranean context, as well as the political, economic, and social networks that developed in this area during the Classical Period. Ultimately, what emerges from this in-depth study of river valleys, urban centres, and coastal settlements is an understanding of a dynamic Roman territory of cities and villages, villas and sanctuaries, minor sites, and manufacturing districts in which the local population fought to establish and maintain connections with the wider Mediterranean.

Annotation. Inscribed Landscapes explores the role of inscription in the social construction of place, power, and identity. Bringing together twenty-one scholars across a range of fields-primarily archaeology, anthropology, and geography-it examines how social codes and hegemonic practices have resulted in the production of particular senses of place, exploring the physical and metaphysical marking of place as a means of accessing social history.

This book analyses the magnificent imperial necropolises of ancient China from the perspective of Archaeoastronomy, a science which takes into account the landscape in which ancient monuments are placed, focusing especially but not exclusively on the celestial aspects. The power of the Chinese emperors was based on the so-called Mandate of Heaven: the rulers were believed to act as intermediaries between the sky gods and the Earth, and consequently, the architecture of their tombs, starting from the world-famous mausoleum of the first emperor, was closely linked to the celestial cycles and to the cosmos. This relationship, however, also had to take into account various other factors and doctrines, first the Zhao-Mu doctrine in the Han period and later the various forms of Feng Shui. As a result, over the centuries, diverse sacred landscapes were constructed. Among the sites analysed in the book are the “pyramids” of Xi’an from the Han dynasty, the mountain tombs of the Tang dynasty, and the Ming and Qing imperial tombs. The book explains how considerations such as astronomical orientation and topographical orientation according to the principles of Feng Shui played a fundamental role at these sites.