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This thesis is an investigation of Roman pottery from the Maltese islands from the 1st century BC to the mid-4th century AD, and how pottery can help assess Malta's economic role in the wider central Mediterranean region. The archipelago's locally produced vessels, its range of ceramic exports, and the quantification of the types of amphorae, fine, and cooking wares the islands imported, were studied and the data were used to compare with the pottery available from the small islands of Pantelleria, Lampedusa and the Kerkennah isles. The aim is to revisit the theme of the economic role of the Maltese islands and other similar-sized islands in the region by moving away from the tradition of unilateral and monographic narratives, which more often than not, omit the wealth of information that can be garnered from pottery. In the first instance, a detailed study of three complete and new ceramic assemblages, including amphorae, fine, cooking and coarse wares, was undertaken. The opportunity to quantify identifiable imports and compare them with local products - the first of its kind for fine, cooking and coarse wares - provided valuable proxy data for comparing Malta with neighbouring islands and centres, and demonstrated what proportion of ceramic vessels were locally supplied, and how these changed over time. These data were also fed into a series of network analyses, which plotted the common pottery links shared between small-island and mainland sites in the region. The analyses were interpreted in conjunction with a critique of existing pottery quantification methods, and the potential acceptance for utilising all known pottery data irrespective of the quality and quantity of the published data available. Most importantly, the import trends obtained from this study were incorporated into the existing narrative of how small islands and their local industries featured in the central Mediterranean's regional economy, highlighting the types of archaeologically visible industries that existed; how these developed symbiotically alongside other larger supply networks; and what effect this might have had on the integration of small islands in the Roman Mediterranean.

No description available.

This research was born out of a need for me to know, as a London-born Greek Cypriot, why the archaeology and history of my place of origin have no shades of grey. The history I learned at school – British school – was fluid, it was about how different actors felt, why they did things; we learnt role play and empathy. At home, and in Greek school, history was black and white, them vs us, Turks vs Greeks and this was the way it had been throughout history. I wanted to known and understand history, not have it ask me questions. I went to university to study archaeology, hoping that by studying the distant past I would find my answers, but I just found more questions. The central research questions of this thesis are: what effect do political events have on state representations of the archaeological and historical record? How can these be analysed? What effect does politics have on archaeology as practiced in Cyprus? This research has addressed these questions by focusing on state uses of the past in Cyprus from 1878 until the present through the analysis of education, the mass media and tourism. The central premise is that states are involved in the creation and maintenance of national and group identities and that by studying these, one is able to understand the uses to which academic areas of study have been put. My research provides an assessment of how the pasts of Cyprus have been used by the British colonial administration and the government of the Republic of Cyprus in attempts to create particular identities relating to colonialism and nationalism. In my analysis I have focused on the three moments that are repeatedly represented as being central to Greek Cypriot literature about the history of Cyprus: the late Bronze Age Mycenaean ‘colonisation’; the classical period; and the folk image. These have been assessed with reference to three media used by all states in the creation and maintenance of national identities: education, the mass media; and tourism.

This thesis examines the changes forced upon the Roman elite in the evolving political climate of Ostrogothic Italy. It examines what mechanisms the Roman elite employed to renegotiate their position of influence within the state. The relationship the elite had with the past provides evidence for wider changes in society. I assert that, using the language and landscape of the past, the elite formed discourses which responded to, and which attempted to facilitate a realignment in, a changing environment. The education system still provided the Roman elite with a mechanism through which they could define themselves and prepare for what they considered to be the important aspects of the world outside the classroom. Religious discussions and debate in the post-imperial Italy of Late Antiquity were increasingly directed toward attempts to reunite the fractured Roman Empire through a unified empire of Orthodox faith. Having such a close relationship with the Roman Empire and its political and philosophical culture, education and religion are particularly suitable fields to reflect the changes to the political map of the Roman Empire. Focusing on the elite’s relationship with education and religion, this thesis will uncover examples of continuity and change which are implied by the construction of, and interaction with, discourses designed to facilitate the elite’s renegotiation strategies. Reconstructing the education of prominent members of the elite from their writings provides the evidence for such discourses. The emphasis on this part of the thesis is on discovering how the discourses circulating in relation to education responded to the political and philosophical problems through the language of the past and what these responses tell us about changes in the present. The religious discussion focuses on the attempts of the opinion formers in Italy to create and direct narratives designed to establish the superiority of one religious world-view over another. An examination of the language of tradition in the construction of these narratives provides evidence for the potency of the past in the decision-making process and ideology- forming strategies of the Roman elite. It also provides evidence for the changes in society to which the strategies were responding. A final-chapter case study provides an opportunity to see evidence of the effectiveness of these discourse-forming strategies. In this chapter we see a contemporary historical source interacting with those narratives and discourses we witnessed the elite employing in the education and religion chapters. It also provides an opportunity to see how the past is used to justify the actions of the Roman elite in Ostrogothic Italy to a post-Gothic audience (as the work was composed in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Ostrogothic Italy). This final consideration provides an instructive contrast which brings into sharp focus the extent and nature of continuity and change brought about by the Ostrogothic state.

Les patrons de diversité sont des états temporaires d'une dynamique de changements écologiques et évolutifs. Les politiques de conservation doivent intégrer cette dynamique et les priorités de conservation s'orienter vers les processus qui produisent et maintiennent cette diversité. Préserver la biodiversité, sans mesurer toutes ces facettes, nécessite de rechercher des substituts biologiques ou écologiques. Une démarche originale est d'évaluer la capacité de la phylogéographie à définir ces substituts. En effet, la phylogéographie permet de fournir des indices sur les zones de diversification et sur les entités (e.g. evolutionary significant units) qui soutiennent celles-ci au niveau intraspécifique. L'objectif général de ce travail est d'évaluer, en terme de cibles et de substituts, l'apport de la phylogéographie à la conservation de la flore méditerranéenne. Nos analyses s'appuient sur deux zones d'étude en région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur intégrant deux plantes endémiques restreinte: le littoral des Alpes maritimes et l'endémique Acis nicaeensis, la basse Provence calcaire et l'endémique Arenaria provincialis. Chez Arenaria provincialis, les résultats montrent une répartition spatiale des phénomènes de persistance et de divergence et le rôle clé de la phylogéographie dans la recherche des critères optimaux de planification des actions de conservation. L'originalité génétique et écologique des populations d'Acis nicaeensis est mise en exergue à faible échelle. Leurs vulnérabilités face à l'urbanisation appellent à des actions de conservation ciblées sur des surfaces restreintes afin de préserver l'héritage évolutif de l'espèce. / Diversity patterns are temporary state in a dynamic continuum of ecological and evolutionary changes. Thus, conservation policies have to integrate this dynamics and Conservation priorities have to be oriented towards the processes which generate and maintain diversity. Conserving biodiversity without needing to measure all its different components, it is necessary to search for biological and ecological surrogates. An original approach is to assess the capacity of phylogeography to define these surrogates. Indeed, the phylogeography allows providing indices for diversification zonation and can be used to delineate the units (e.g. evolutionary significant units) that support diversification at intraspecific level. The main objective of this work is to evaluate, in terms of targets and surrogates, the role of phylogeography for conservation of the Mediterranean flora. We based our analyses on two study areas of the South-East France harbouring two endemic species: the coastal ranges of Maritime Alps where Acis nicaeensis grows, and the calcareous Provence where Arenaria provincialis is found. The phylogeography of Arenaria provincialis revealed a spatial distribution of persistence and divergence. Our study highlights the critical role of phylogeography in the search for optimal criteria for defining the conservation strategies. The marked differences of genetic and ecology in populations of Acis nicaeensis but also in terms of its vulnerability to urbanization are highlighted in a local scale. The results demonstrate the need of conservation actions designed for small areas to avoid the loss of Acis nicaeensis evolutionary legacy.

This work is a textual study of the Gospel of John as it is preserved in the catena compiled by Nicetas of Heraclea. In part 1, a stemma is drawn up based on an examination of full transcriptions of all known witnesses: Gregory-Aland 249 317 333 423 430 743 869. Though some scholars have stated that G-A 841 886 1178 2188 contain the catena as well, closer examination shows they contain other works. The manuscripts of Nicetas are related as follows: 1) 249 333 423 are descendants of a common ancestor, β; 2) 333 was the exemplar for 423; 3) 317 869 are descended from a common ancestor, γ; 4) 430 is an independent witness with an idiosyncratic text; 5) 743 has a high degree of majority text contamination and an unclear relationship with the other witnesses. The second part of the study consists of a reconstruction of Nicetas’s text of John with a full apparatus.

This thesis considers the use of numismatic imagery in the Byzantine Empire during the period 610-867, with its main focus centred in the period 685-842. Though charting the iconographic trends and changes on the coinage of the period and the possible reasons behind them is the principal raison d’être of the thesis, it also tackles methodological issues such as the use and abuse of dies studies and ways of determining who decided what images appeared on coins. The main body of the text is arranged chronologically with the methodological issues appearing throughout. Exceptions to this format are the first chapter, which considers the economic context of coin circulation in the period and the gold purity of the coins of the period, and the third chapter, which considers the production at the mint of Cherson, which produced anonymous coins not identifiable by date, but still part of the context. Finally, the thesis contains two appendices, the first paper appendix presents a catalogue of the coins held at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts for the period 685-842, and the second CD-ROM appendix presents the data from the All That Glitters ... project, testing the purity of Byzantine gold coins with x-ray fluorescence.

This account of British interest in Egypt in the late 18th century, whilst not attempting to be exhaustive, aims to suggest the many-sided importance and interrelation of British interest in Egypt during 1775-1798. Topics include: British interest engendered by the Levant company; antiquarian research; British conceptions of Arab life and literature; British travellers’ impressions of Egypt (political and commercial interest); the Indian factor; the importance of Egypt on an envisaged new route to India; international competition for trade via Egypt; the decline of British interest in Egypt; and the growth of British policy towards the Ottoman Empire.

The messages in the imagery on Byzantine coins, although often neglected by scholars, were a key means of projecting imperial power. Emperors could project power via dress, ceremonial, and displays, but these methods would not have reached all subjects. Byzantine coins had the advantage of reaching all subjects, as the Byzantine economy was fundamentally monetized. Military symbols (figures, dress, and weapons), whose study has been rather overlooked, formed an important part of this imagery. Whilst military symbols disappeared from Byzantine coins in the early eighth century, and were absent for some three centuries, they were reintroduced in the mid-eleventh century and appeared until 1394/5. Their importance is indicated by the fact that military types comprised over half the overall total of types for some emperors. This study examines military symbols on Byzantine coins from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, and notes also imperial representations in other media. The numismatic sources for this study are the collections in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, and Dumbarton Oaks. The general conclusions are that military symbols were used most frequently from 1204 to 1261, less frequently from 1261 to 1394/5, and least frequently from 1042 to 1204. The variety of military saints portrayed increased at first, but declined in the fourteenth century, until only St Demetrios remained, but in the highest status: riding with the emperor.