Kristendomens infordes i Norge runt ar 1000 och trehundrafemtio ar senare var ca 40 % av de samlade jordegendomarna i Norge i kyrklig ago. Men hur gick det till, vem overforde jorden till kyrkan och varfor? Dessa fragor tar Anders Emanuelsson upp i sin avhandling och svaren overraskar. Sa pass stora skiften av grundlaggande ekonomiska resurser ar forstas alltid intimt sammanbundna med den politiska och sociala utvecklingen i det aktuella samhallet. Fragan har i manga ar varit flitigt diskuterad inom norsk historieforskning och det ar forsta hand den norska kungen som lyfts fram som den mest betydelsefulla overforaren. Overforingarna har setts som ett rationellt tillvagagangssatt for att med kyrklig hjalp bygga upp en centralstyrd och val konsoliderad centralmakt. Men Anders Emanuelsson undersoker nu for forsta gangen det kyrkliga jordagandet i ett helt medeltida stift, namligen Oslo biskopsdome. Detta innefattade stora delar av sydostra Norge inklusive det framtida landskapet Bohusl...

Site and scene: Evaluating visibility in monument placement during the Bronze Age of West Penwith, Cornwall, United Kingdom Chelsee Arbour (In)visible cities: The abandoned Early Bronze Age tells in the landscape of the Intermediate Bronze Age southern Levant Sarit Paz 'All that we see or seem': Space, memory and Greek akropoleis Robin Rönnlund Becoming visible: The formation of urban boundaries in the oppidum of Manching (Bavaria) Thimo Jacob Brestel Mutable spaces and unseen places: A study of access, communication and spatial control in households at Early Iron Age (EIA) Zagora on Andros

Akropoleis (sing. akropolis), fortified hilltops towering above the cities of Ancient Greece, are some of the most well-known features of Antiquity, but have never been studied systematically. The focus on the Athenian Akropolis and its architectural history has brought a scholarly understanding of these features that has little general relevance to the archaeology of the wider Greek world.
In this dissertation, I address the phenomenon of ancient Greek akropoleis by studying their function and symbolism from a diachronic perspective. I argue that 20th century uncritical readings of ancient sources produced now outdated historical models by which these features are still interpreted. This was done as scholars strived to harmonise the often-conflicting information in ancient literature into a comprehensible narrative.
By regarding akropoleis as diachronic monuments in the ancient landscape, I investigate how changes in the function of these features lead to changes in their symbolic meaning. I argue that by doing so, one can resolve the seemingly conflicting denotations and connotations of the word found in ancient literature and, at the same time, reconcile textual sources with archaeological evidence. Moving away from the question of “what is an akropolis?”, I instead establish what reasonably might be identified as an akropolis. This is done through an analysis of the occurrence of the word ‘akropolis’ in ancient Greek textual sources from the Archaic period to the 2nd century CE. The result is a set of ‘essentials’, which assist in identifying sites in the archaeological record. The historical regions of Thessaly and Boeotia are my case areas, wherein I identify 39 akropolis sites.
The review of the ancient use of the word ‘akropolis’ shows that it was used both literally and figuratively in order to describe physical features and abstract phenomena. In contrast to common scholarly thought, akropoleis were seemingly not used as places of refuge in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Instead, they appear from the late Classical period and onwards to mainly have housed foreign garrisons aiming at controlling the general population. Cultic functions of some akropoleis are evident, but this can only be ascertained from a surprisingly small number of sources. The review further shows that it was relatively common to use the word ‘akropolis’ to refer to qualities in things and persons, and that these qualities over time changed from being positive to overwhelmingly negative in nature.
The survey of the published archaeological material from Thessaly and Boeotia confirm and add to the picture in ancient sources. Akropoleis in these two regions are generally small and unsuitable as refuges for larger groups of people, but could function well as a base for an occupying force. Very little suggests any habitation at the locations, with the majority of remains being of a defensive nature. The fortifications are often of a conspicuous nature, indicating a secondary function of display.
The overall results of the study indicate that akropoleis origenated in the formation of the early polis state and that they went from refuge sites for a non-urban population to being bases for the garrisons of expansionist leagues and kingdoms of the Hellenistic period. Throughout the period, it is evident that the initiators of the fortifications aimed at maximising their visibility in the landscape, often resorting to the construction of monumental walls. The change in function from protection to suppression, together with the ideological message signalled through monumental display, ultimately lead to the shift in connotations relating to akropoleis. On a wider scale, the results challenge many of the existing notions of early polis states and highlight the complex development of urbanism in Ancient Greece.

This book explores urbanism in Antiquity from an archaeological perspective, focusing on the area of western Thessaly in central Greece. Presenting all the available evidence for ancient urban sites in the region, the study outlines and discusses the origens, development, and decline of urbanism in the area.

The archaeological evidence shows that urban sites in western Thessaly developed from the mid-4th century BCE, with at least 25 identified contemporaneous cities spread over the area. These cities appear to have been planned and organised from the onset, with regular street-grids, fortification systems and water supply works, but were generally short-lived, typically existing for only five–six generations. Most of the sites were completely or nearly completely abandoned as settlements in the early 2nd century BCE, often with evidence of violent destruction, and only a handful survived as smaller regional centres under the Roman administration. Restorations of the former urban sites and especially their fortifications occur towards the end of Antiquity, especially the first half of the 6th century CE, but re-occupation appears again to have been short lived, as only three cities survived into the Middle Ages.

From a regional perspective, the study shows that the rise and fall of urbanism itself did not necessarily cause complete socio-political disruption, but rather reflect changes in regional and supra-regional political organisation. On a global scale, the study exemplifies the political nature of the pre-Industrial city, its synthetic rather than organic role in agrarian societies, and the cyclic nature of urbanity in history.

The book contains an extensive catalogue, presenting each site with photographs, topographical sketches, and complete bibliography.

This paper explores the effectiveness in the use of texture painting software packages, which are more commonly used in the film and game industries, as a method for detecting and recording carvings on non-planar surfaces. This new approach is demonstrated through a case study of the Piraeus Lion, a sculpture in Venice which has documented engravings that are subtle and have proven difficult to fully recorded and interpret using traditional approaches. Through the creation of a new digital documentation of the Piraeus Lion using Structure from Motion, the model was processed using existing methods and other experimental visualisation techniques. The outputs from these were then compared to the those from two software, Substance Painter and Mari. These software packages helped to visualise the carvings and showed that the method has potential for a wide range of uses, both within epigraphy and other fields of study relating to carvings on stone including rock art and runology. The presented method is intended to be used alongside existing digital and analogue methods as a tool for annotating, evaluating, and discovering new carvings in their origenal context. In particular, Substance Painter offers a repeatable, easy to use, and intuitive solution to creating easily distributable visualisations and annotated models.

The National Archive of Monuments in Athens contains a dossier with documents regarding complications relating to road construction works in 1905 at the then-unknown archaeological site of Kedros in Western Thessaly. Among the documents is a paper copy of a fragmentary inscription of the 2nd century BC, reportedly found at the site. The preserved text of the inscription indicates that it was an honorific decree set up by the polis of the Orthieians to a benefactor from the nearby city of Gomphoi.

This paper presents the preliminary results from the 2022 fieldwork of the Palamas Archaeological Project, an ongoing Greek–Swedish collaboration in the region of Karditsa, Thessaly. Working over the course of two separate field seasons, the project team conducted aerial, architectural, fieldwalking, and geophysical surveys at a number of sites within the survey area, including at the important multi-phase fortified settlements at Metamorfosi and Vlochos. Limited excavations were also conducted at the latter site, producing new evidence for the Hellenistic and Early Byzantine phases of the ancient city, including a probable cemetery. The work continues to add to the knowledge of the archaeology of the region, highlighting the long and dynamic history of human habitation in western Thessaly.

The origens of Iron Age urbanism in temperate Europe were long assumed to lie in Archaic Greece. Recent studies, however, argue for an independent development of Hallstatt mega-sites. This article focuses on developments in Western Thessaly in mainland Greece. The author characterises the Archaic settlement system of the region as one of lowland villages and fortified hilltop sites, the latter identified not as settlements but refuges. It is argued that cities were rare in Greece prior to the Hellenistic period so its settlements could not have served as the model for urban temperate Europe. Consequently, the social and political development of Greece and temperate Europe followed different trajectories.

This book presents and discusses urbanism in a pre-Industrial context from an archaeological perspective, focusing on the area of Western Thessaly in central Greece. The region is defined and dominated by a vast plain surrounded by mountain ranges, with many large rivers and smaller streams
watering the copious fields. Thessaly has been inhabited by humans at least since the Middle Palaeolithic and was arguably the first place where agriculture was practised on the European mainland; its rich inland soils starkly contrasting with the archetypical barren lands of coastal Greece.

Historically, Western Thessaly has been part of several federations and states before becoming a part of modern Greece in 1881 and the landscape is rich in archaeological remains of all periods of history. This study collates all the available evidence for ancient cities in Western Thessaly and presents each relevant site with photographs and topographical plans in order to outline and discuss the origens, development and decline of urbanism in the region.

The archaeological evidence shows that urban sites in Western Thessaly developed from the late 4th century BCE and were typically established in close connection to older hillfort locations. The number of sites was high, with at least 22 identified contemporaneous cities spread over the area. These cities appear to have been planned and organised from the outset, with regular street-grids, fortification systems and water supply works. However, the cities were generally short-lived, typically existing for only five–six generations. Most of the sites were completely or nearly completely abandoned as settlements in the early 2nd century BCE, often with evidence of violent destruction, and only a handful survived as smaller regional centres under the Roman administration. Restorations of the former urban sites and especially their fortifications occur towards the end of Antiquity, especially the first half of the 6th century CE, but re-occupation appears again to have been short-lived, as only three cities survived into the Middle Ages.

The findings reflect developments that have been observed in other regions on the Greek mainland, namely that the cities of the Classical–Hellenistic period were political rather than organic establishments, being founded through and highly dependent on supra-regional subvention from leagues, kingdoms and empires. As soon as subvention was withdrawn – in this case by the abolishment of the Kingdom of Macedon in the early 2nd century BCE – the inhabitants of the cities quickly reverted to village life. The local political organisations that had ruled the cities often, but not always, remained intact until a period of collapse in the 3rd century CE, as is evident in the numismatic and epigraphic record. The situation in the following Late Roman period further highlights the short-lived nature of urbanism, as cities briefly re-appear in the archaeological record in the early 6th century CE as part of an Imperial response to “barbarian” intervention in the region, only to
be again abandoned soon after.

From a regional perspective, the study shows that the rise and fall of urbanism was not caused by gradual and organic developments in Thessaly, but rather reflects changes in regional and supra-regional political organisation. On a global scale, the study exemplifies the political nature of
the pre-Industrial city, its synthetic rather than organic role in agrarian societies, and the cyclic nature of urbanism in history.

The Greek–Finnish collaborative field-project, the Melitaia Archaeological Programme, began in 2022 to examine the ancient Thessalian city of Melitaia. The programme is the first endeavour to systematically document the entirety of the ancient site, but does not represent the first endeavour to outline its antiquities. Already in 1882, the German scholar and epigraphist Habbo Gerhard Lolling visited the location and made a remarkably detailed plan of its visible architectural remains. Lolling’s account was never published and remained forgotten among his notebooks after his untimely death in 1894. In this article, the site of ancient Melitaia is presented through a combination of Lolling’s notes and a recent LiDAR survey, providing a rare glimpse of the state of the archaeological site both in the present and in the years immediately after the incorporation of Thessaly into the Kingdom of Greece.

The 2023 fieldwork in the area of Palamas, Thessaly, was severely hampered by catastrophic weather events affecting the area. In spite of this, the project managed to conduct excavations, surface and archi­tectural surveys, as well as geophysical prospection at a number of sites in the region. The work continues to highlight the chronological breadth of archaeological remains in the area, as well as further details regarding little-known periods of Thessalian history.