It is true that the music of antiquity is now mute, but archaeology has provided valuable artifacts pictorial representations showing musical activity and musical instruments of the ancient world. Several scholars have conducted paramount research regarding music from every period in the ancient Near East, and contributed greatly to the field. Further study, however, is required. This paper presents new questions to previously studied Near Eastern musical artifacts and iconography. These queries explore the areas of identifying instruments in artifacts and iconographic depictions, performance techniques, gender identification of musicians in depictions, and the use of space in cultic activities involving music. The goal of this study is to shed additional light and generate further discussion in these areas of musical activity in the Ancient Near East. As expected, this study is difficult. Nevertheless, these questions must be addressed in an effort to better understand music activity in ancient Israel/Palestine and surrounding Near Eastern cultures.

The dissertation investigates household organization for the inhabitants of southern Judah during the Iron Age II (late 8th century B.C.E.). It specifically attempts to broaden our understanding of the social unit which occupies the pillared dwellings so prevalent throughout the southern Levant during this time. This understanding comes through a spatial analysis of the de facto refuse from a single pillared dwelling preserved well in a destruction stratum and excavated at Tel Halif in southern Israel. Patterns observed in the occurrences, distributions, and frequencies of the de facto refuse, especially the ceramics, are associated with past activities and activity areas and used to infer the socio-economic organization of the occupants of the pillared dwelling, but only after patterns introduced by formation processes in various contexts are isolated and accounted for. Organization of the dwelling's space and inhabitants is inferred using ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological data and archaeometric techniques, and an "archaeological household" is identified. This is compared with the biblically reconstructed household, but only after the use of biblical texts for historical reconstructions of the Iron II is addressed. Thus, in addition to study of the Iron II household, the dissertation determines the usefulness of destruction strata from tell-type sites of the southern Levant, particularly ceramics, for reconstructing household organization. It also examines the "goodness of fit" between archaeological and biblical reconstructions for the Iron II household of the southern Levant--two disparate and sometimes dialectical sources of data.

In the present era, scientists and researchers have gathered together a considerable amount of evidence which putatively demonstrates that contact occurred between the Old and New Worlds far in advance of either Columbus or the Vikings. This paper will describe and examine a small part of this evidence as well as provide a background summary of how pre-Columbian history was constructed. The emphasis of this paper reveals how epigraphic research has become the principle element in current investigations.

This paper is intended as a survey of the major points in the debate over land use in Roman Italy in the Late Republic and Early Empire. The transition from Rome the agricultural backwater to Rome the international power created a series of social, political, economic, and demographic changes in Italy, further sparking a series of struggles over land use that brought down the Republic and defined the policies and problems of the Empire. Was the Italian peasant displaced from the land for the benefit of the latifundia and the wealthy, or did he prosper in the countryside along-side the large estates? What is the nature of the evidence? Recent archaeological evidence has suggested new answers to these questions, and new processual models have been proposed based on that evidence. This study will address and evaluate both the literary-historical and archaeological arguments.

The subject of this study is the identity of the Jewish Christian teachers in Galatians and their alternative gospel. This investigation concerns their origins, their theology, and their place in Second Temple Judaism and Jewish Christianity. It is discovered that they are not "legalists" or reducible to mere "opponents" of Paul. Instead, the teachers are Jewish Christian charismatic nomists proclaiming their interpretation of the gospel to the Galatians. In Chapter One, a history of research on the identification of the teachers is presented from the patristic period to the modern period. Programmatic issues are developed which provide direction and parameters for this study. Chapter Two examines the teachers' historical origins and their own "apostolic" authority as well as their relation to Paul. The chapter also investigates the teachers' understanding of Abraham and the covenant of circumcision, as well as their use of Moses and the Sinai covenant. In Chapter Three the soteriology and the christology of the teachers' gospel are developed. Their gospel's use of the Law (nomos) as a medium of charismatic revelations (pneuma) is examined. The function of circumcision and the calendar for accessing heavenly revelations is explored. The teachers' christology is seen to portray Jesus as a Teacher of the Law whose "law of Christ" provides the hermeneutic by which selective obedience to the Law is determined. Chapter Four attempts to locate the teachers and their tradition in Jewish and Jewish Christian history and sources. Jewish intertestamental literature, including the pseudepigrapha and Qumran sources, is investigated. Also, the teachers' specific relationship to the Jerusalem community--the "pillars" and the pseudadelphoi is examined. Other Jewish Christian law-observant traditions similar to the teachers' tradition are located in Colossians, the Kergymata Petrou, and the Book of Elkesai. The teachers are shown to be Jewish Christian charismatic nomists with an integral gospel and independent Gentile mission. They are part of a Torah-observant tradition within the Jesus Movement which offered the venerable and wondrous Jewish Torah to the Gentiles as a means for experiencing greater degrees of charismatic life in the Spirit.

Proclaiming that man is a political animal, Aristotle overcame the Sophists' opposition between law and nature. My dissertation looks at whether the law successfully promotes the human good in Aristotle's political philosophy. Aristotle believes law should inculcate the virtues of character. In Chapter One, I argue habituation to virtue through laws does not unacceptably undermine citizens' autonomy. Aristotle intends the law to inculcate virtue in coordination with other parts of the social fabric, including the household and social customs. Yet Aristotle also believes laws, including laws about moral education, should conform to the goal of the constitution. Many constitutions do not aim at a life of virtue correctly conceived. In Chapter Two, I argue that by promoting the virtue of the citizen in deviant regimes, Aristotle's lawgiver risks inculcating moral vice. Chapter Three looks at the basis for the law's authority in the practical wisdom of the lawgiver. Aristotle identifies legislative wisdom as a form of practical wisdom, and speaks of the lawgiver as a sage. But just as absolute kingship is unlikely, so too is a lawgiver sage. Aristotle's more realistic account of legislative activity, as conducted by citizens who are often not practically wise, shows Aristotle still values the rule of law for the constraints it places on human bias. Chapter Four analyzes Aristotle's conception of equity. Because practical affairs are only 'for the most part,' dikasts deciding particular cases in court need to take into account exceptional circumstances. In the light of Athenian judicial procedure, equity is inconsistent with the rule of law. The tension between the two must be tolerated because of the nature of practical affairs. Chapters Five and Six revisit the question whether Aristotle is a natural law theorist. According to Nicomachean Ethics V.7, only the best constitution provides a standard of natural justice. Other passages usually thought to indicate Aristotle held a natural law view either are poor sources for Aristotle's view or have little to do with natural justice. Natural justice provides no specific guidance as is found in later natural law theorists, e.g., invalidation of or disobedience to positive law.

<p> This work is a geopolitical analysis of the Byzantine Empire's method of governance, expansion, and imperial administration over the lands it chose to inhabit. While no single scholar or then-contemporary Byzantine author has articulated a specific policy of geostrategy in the Byzantine Empire, this dissertation demonstrates an overt bias in Byzantine military and diplomatic operations toward coastal regions and maintenance of their physical control within the Mediterranean Basin. These imperial choices were fueled largely by: 1) the reigning geopolitical model of the Byzantine Empire; 2) the importance of the capital, today's Istanbul (then Byzantium, and later, Constantinople); 3) the distribution of other major cities of the Empire; and 4) the maritime-based trade economy of the Byzantine Empire.</p>

<p> The purpose of this thesis is to suggest why Athenian oligarchs reacted against the democratic agenda of Panhellenism in 413&ndash;411. Panhellenism was a gradual process of Greek cultural unification, which took on a politicized connotation after the Persian Wars calling for the accession of a hegemon to oppose the Persian Empire. This thesis examines the differences in political ideology between oligarchs and democrats, the increasing economic burdens on oligarchs to finance the Peloponnesian War, and the rift between oligarchic restraint (<i>sophrosyne</i>) and democratic courage (<i>andreia </i> ) as the reasons for the oligarchs' opposition to Panhellenism after the failed Sicilian Expedition. By examining Thucydides' <i>History </i>, various speeches of the Attic orators and Athenian plays, as well as incorporating inscriptionary evidence, this thesis shows that Panhellenism was indeed not a universally held notion in Athens, and that further study must be done on the fragmentary nature of Athenian Panhellenism in the Classical Period.</p>

<p> Earlier studies on Hadrian's Wall have focused on its defensive function to protect the Roman Empire by foreign invasions, but the determination is Hadrian's Wall most likely did not have one single purpose, but rather multiple purposes. This makes the Wall more complex and interesting than a simple structure to keep out foreign intruders. Collective research on other frontier walls' functions and characteristics around the empire during the reign of Hadrian are used to compare and determine the possible function or functions of the Wall. The Wall not only served political purposes, but also had economic and social uses as well.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 184-194).