The 1st-c. CE Roman siege system of Masada exhibits a high degree of preservation due to its remote location and the arid climate. However, unlike the thoroughly excavated Masada fortress, the siege system has not received due attention. This article is part of a research project aimed at advancing our understanding of the conflict landscape around Masada using contemporary archaeological methods. Following a comprehensive surface survey and photogrammetric 3D modelling, we show that the circumvallation wall stood to a height of 2–2.5 m and served several functions – as an obstacle, a means of psychological warfare, and a platform from which to mount counterattacks. Based on our measurements and workload estimations, we argue that the construction of the siege wall and the camps around Masada occurred fairly quickly.

At Dura-Europos, homes were architecturally adapted across the late 2nd and 3rd c. CE by different religious groups to serve the needs of their communities. Although the Synagogue, Mithraeum, and Christian Building all began as domestic structures and share a similar architectural development, the origins of the latter have received unique attention through its classification as a domus ecclesiae or house church. This (hyper)focus on the structure's past use as a house does not do full justice to the archaeology of the building. Through an analysis of architectural adaptations, including before-and-after 3D reconstructions and daylight simulations, the authors show how the renovations significantly differentiated the Christian Building from its domestic antecedent and from Dura's houses more broadly. This approach is meant to shift attention away from more generalized, translocal, evolutionary models of Christian architectural development to micro-level archaeological analysis that situates structures within the spatial vernacular of their local contexts.

This contribution examines social practices in the Central Bathhouse in Jerash in Late Antiquity based on the ceramic assemblage, vessel glass, faunal remains, and small finds retrieved from two sections of the bathhouse's sewer. We argue that although the bathhouse underwent significant architectural alterations from its construction in the 4th c. CE to its abandonment in the late 7th, the activities taking place inside the building remained largely the same. Our study shows that even towards the end of the bathhouse's lifespan, bodily grooming remained integral to the bathing experience, while food and drink were consumed on the premises even though the bathing facilities had been reduced to a bare minimum. The faunal remains indicate the type of food consumed, while the small finds illustrate a lively environment where gaming and gambling took place in a social space frequented by men, women, and children.

This paper considers the question of how to find “women's space” in the Roman house by looking at a painting of the myth of Pero and Mycon in a small cubiculum off the atrium of Pompeii's House of Marcus Lucretius Fronto. It argues that the combination of the image with an ecphrastic poem functions to draw viewers into the enclosed room, so that they experience the painting from a position of interiority. This echoes the interiority which is thematized in the myth and presented as an important aspect of the virtuous femininity it celebrates. By communicating gendered meaning through both images of place and the viewer's physical experience, the painting offers a way of understanding women's space as simultaneously material and representational.

Tra il 2019 e il 2022 un nuovo programma di ricerche nell'area monumentale di Tusculum è stato dedicato all'indagine del versante sud-orientale della piazza forense, occupato dalla basilica di epoca imperiale e da un edificio la cui interpretazione è da lungo tempo incerta. Le indagini archeologiche hanno consentito di acquisire dati di rilevante interesse ai fini della ricostruzione delle fasi di occupazione di questo settore della città e sulla successione dei monumenti che qui furono edificati nel corso del tempo. Tra le scoperte effettuate spicca un gruppo di frammenti pertinenti a un apparato architettonico in stucco policromo caratterizzato dalla presenza di capitelli corinzieggianti di tipo figurato. Lo stato di conservazione e le caratteristiche tecniche e stilistiche di tali materiali, consentono di sviluppare alcune riflessioni sul contesto monumentale cui essi appartenevano e l'orizzonte storico-culturale entro il quale questo sistema decorativo venne realizzato. In questo contributo, dunque, proponiamo un'analisi tecnica e stilistico-formale di questi reperti, un tentativo di ricomposizione dello schema architettonico che essi componevano e un'ipotesi di attribuzione di quest'ultimo a uno degli edifici più dibattuti del foro tuscolano, il cosiddetto “Edificio porticato”. L'esame del contesto stratigrafico di provenienza dei reperti e la ricomposizione dell'impianto del monumento sulla base dei dati archeologici aprono nuove prospettive per la conoscenza della più antica basilica tuscolana.

The Baetican Dressel 20 is probably the most widely diffused amphora of the Roman period, found in large quantities throughout all the Roman and nearby territories. It is the most powerful evidence of the importance of the olive oil trade for Roman society and of olive oil's extraordinary production in the Baetican countryside. This wide diffusion of the amphora and, in some ways, its ubiquity at many archaeological sites, have hindered the study of the early stages of Baetican olive oil production and diffusion. The protagonists were not these spherical containers, commonly stamped up until the late 3rd c. CE, but previous models that evolved rapidly after their origins in Late Republican times. In this paper, we aim to analyze not only the formal characteristics and evolution of these peculiar and still unstandardized containers, but also other aspects linked to their production, as well as the scope of their diffusion.

El objetivo principal de este trabajo es presentar importantes novedades sobre el marco histórico y productivo de la explotación minera de la sierra de Corduba en época romana, así como de la gestión de sus recursos. Desde hace años y a partir de la documentación epigráfica disponible, se ha venido apuntando una posible presencia en este territorio de la societas Sisaponensis y de la explotación de plomo y plata por su parte, a pesar de la afamada vinculación con el beneficio del cinabrio que recoge un conocido pasaje de Plinio. Nuestras investigaciones en el norte de Córdoba y los análisis arqueométricos realizados sobre tres lingotes de plomo recuperados en el paraje de Los Escoriales de Doña Rama, situado en la Sierra de Gata (Belmez-Córdoba), suponen una superación de la frontera del conocimiento sobre los aspectos reseñados, ya que permiten contrastar estas dos hipótesis tradicionales y proponer nuevas cuestiones sobre la explotación de estos parajes y la actividad de esta societas. Estos lingotes fueron encontrados en una instalación minero-metalúrgica romana, algo que es excepcional, y conservan una inscripción, S S, que los vincula sin duda con la societas Sisaponensis.

The production and distribution of ceramic building materials (CBM) in the Roman period have long attracted the attention of archaeologists, as they provide clues to aspects of trade, identity, and technological and architectural traditions. However, there has been a notable scarcity of studies focusing on plain CBM in the southern Levant, particularly in the Mediterranean coastal region. This study concentrates on CBM (bricks, tubuli, drainage pipes, and roof tiles) from a Roman-period wealthy farmstead (Khirbat Khaur el-Bak) near the city of Ashqelon/Ascalon, apparently owned by a serving member of the military or a veteran. The petrographic analyses indicate that apart from the locally produced drainage pipes, the CBM were imported from overseas, namely Cilicia and Beirut. The results shed light on CBM trade in the Eastern Mediterranean, and on the complex nature of the population and material life in and around Roman Ashqelon, which included local and foreign elements.

This article traces a statue, which Zenon of Aphrodisias carved, from Syracuse to its discovery at the Palace of Cogolludo in 2007. The study of this statue of the Muse Euterpe broadly demonstrates the appreciation for a figure from the classical world to Early Modern Europe and focuses attention on two understudied moments in the history of sculpture. It shows that Zenon carved the figure in the 4th c. CE, and its story reveals new connections between sculptors of Aphrodisias and specific patrons of the period. The statue's subsequent history attests to the high regard for ancient art and epigraphy in the Iberian Peninsula in 1500–1700. Since the statue probably belonged to Luis de la Cerda, ninth Duke of Medinaceli, it draws attention to a remarkable patron and a neglected aspect of Spanish cultural history.

Though infrequently used and largely superfluous, amphitheaters were often the most physically imposing and ideologically charged structures in a Roman city. The preponderance of extramural amphitheaters in Italy and their appearance in visual culture confirm they were potent markers of urban life and civic status. This paper contextualizes Tibur's imperial amphitheater within the Roman suburbium's persistent urban sprawl and villas, especially Hadrian's Villa, using a novel GIS visibility analysis. Its apparent size from various points in the surrounding landscape is quantified within empirical and qualitative scales developed for modern visual impact assessments. The results demonstrate the amphitheater's suburban location did more than integrate Tibur's extramural growth into the older urban center. It emphasized the city's urban appearance, even from long distances, and monumentalized alternate routes to the city used by the villa-owning elite, countering the ambiguous status of a liminal city that was both Rome's annex and an autonomous municipium.