The Roman Near East fascinates scholars with its diversity of local traditions derived from the region’s long and rich history. A close study of them allows us to determine their sources and trace how they combined over time, how they evolved and merged to create new entities. A study of such local traditions yields a vast wealth of new details which permit a better understanding of the history of communities that cultivated them. Local identity in the Roman Near East was the subject of a conference in Münster several years ago. Among those present were a number of historians dealing with the impact of Roman culture on local communities in the East, or, in a broader sense, the cultural aspects of Roman rule in the eastern Mediterranean. Many of them use the new research method, so far employed mainly in archaeological studies, which consists in simultaneous use of written evidence and various types of material evidence to reconstruct and interpret historical events. The volume in question contains ten articles whose subjects concern various aspects and manifestations of local identity. Many touch upon religious matters.