Naor Ben-Yehoyada: We are here today to discuss region formation and region making in the Mediterranean with Michael Herzfeld and Hashim Sarkis. Michael Herzfeld is the Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. Hashim Sarkis is the Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Thank you both for joining us today.
As the theoretical framework of this issue of New Geographies argues, in architecture and urbanistic literatures on the Mediterranean, cities are taken as emblems of ancient and medieval cross-sea connections, of early modern capitalism, and of modern cosmopolitanism. Cities like Naples, Thessaloniki, Izmir, Alexandria, and Tunis are often contrasted on the one hand to Atlantic cities, and on the other hand to the Mediterranean hinterlands. Recently this image of Mediterranean cities has been questioned. Some argue that the boundaries between cities and their hinterlands are exaggerated.  Others claim that Mediterranean hinterlands have actually been as connected to the worlds beyond their national boundaries as to their urban centers, if not more so.
These developments in urbanistic scholarship on the Mediterranean raise several questions that may shed light not only on these cities but also on their relationships to the wider Mediterranean as well as the rest of the world. The Mediterranean is sometimes examined as an emblem or model for global interactions and connections.  Yet most historians agree that the Mediterranean world, however defined, died with the advent of modernity. How do megacities like Istanbul serve in the articulation of these tensions? What is the role of tourists, heritage projects, migration, and cultural politics in the ways in which such tensions unfold?
This issue’s thematic exploration frames this inquiry more generally: “What are the elements in the formula that determine Mediterranean regional formations? And how are they spatially manifested?” If the Mediterranean is not made of “cities and the routes between them,” if cosmopolitan urban centers are not the main building blocks in this regional puzzle, what spatial-social constructions are?
Finally, the relationship of urban form and transnational constellations may help us distinguish also between region making and region formation—the former drawing our attention to projects and the latter to processes. Prima facie, anthropologists seem to reside safely on the “process” side of the fence, whereas urban planners seem to focus on the “project” side. But anthropologists and other social scientists have celebrated projects of “making,” and scholars of the built environment have paid attention to the processes through which projects interact. How do you combine these approaches in your studies, and how does your work on the Mediterranean shape your approaches?

Michael Herzfeld: I find the question very disturbing, because that question presupposes a reification of the Mediterranean. It presupposes everything that I’ve argued against in the last thirty years and more, inasmuch as it seems to suggest that there is something that is identifiable as the Mediterranean other than a geographical fact. I would wonder what the purpose of this perspective is. Certainly the idea that the Mediterranean has, as a general region, included a lot of areas where cities have interacted with hinterlands, have drawn very heavily on the populations of those hinterlands, but also have emphasized the distinction between city and country holds true. But it’s also true for many other parts of the world. As for the idea that it’s a place where people now are beginning to construct cities that are specifically Mediterranean—perhaps because those who claim this have in mind a particular kind of climate—there again, what I fear is the domination of a set of stereotypes over individual planning and over the understanding of cultural processes. And this is particularly worrying, because Southern European countries and Middle Eastern countries, in very different ways, are now homes to new forms of violence. It would be easy for someone to say, “Ah, yes, this is typically Mediterranean behavior.” Then we would be back to square one. All the stereotypes that were common in the 1960s and actually animated much of the anthropological and sociological thinking about the area, would move to a different plane, with the result that instead of focusing on the play of honor and shame in the villages we would be talking about the play of violence and refuge, or something of that sort, in the cities. So I worry about this kind of formulation. I think it would be much more useful to ask the question: Why is the idea of the Mediterranean so important to people who are looking at processes that have taken place in the area over a very long period of time?” If we approach the matter in that way, I think the answer will be clear and it will serve as an admonition to those who want to plan the future of the countries that sit around the rim of the Mediterranean Sea.

Hashim Sarkis: Let me start by situating the discourse on the Mediterranean within architecture and urbanism in relation to what I understand to be its reception, rejection, and criticism, in history and anthropology. I know I might be conflating two discourses that differ in their understanding and construction of the Mediterranean. However, I did see them conflated last year in the history/anthropology conference you organized.
At the conference, I felt that we were at one level way behind you in our understanding of the Mediterranean as a region, and at another level way ahead of you. Let me start with where I felt we were behind. As much as our discourse has come to dismiss the issue of contextualism or regional expression in the last twenty years, we haven’t yet critically assessed where we go from there. Because of the phenomena of globalization, the increasing mobility of architectural practices, and the waning interest in the expression of locality, we have lost interest in the past regionalist discourse, but we have not questioned it. We continue to operate with models that assume that architecture is indelibly bound to its region, even if we do not want to talk about it. We haven’t asked the question: If architecture is in crisis in relation to the context, and this context is not going to go away, how are we going to be dealing with it? We understand region to be given rather than something that we are actively involved in constructing, which I saw both anthropology and historiography elaborate as a deep problematic at the conference last year.
However, I feel we are ahead of you because we are beginning to look at the Mediterranean differently, not with new eyes but because of the radical transformations that are happening in that region and that we as architects and urbanists have to deal with as projects. Irrespective of whether we define it, draw a line around it, to be corresponding to one of the lines of the different existing definitions or not, we are seeing radical transformations in the region, and we try to map and define them in different terms. And yet we keep resorting to our stereotypes because we haven’t yet questioned them in the manner that you have. So we look at the littoral, at the coastal development of many of these cities, which have completely eradicated any sense of the Mediterranean port-city type, and yet we still seek to confirm this type in some implicit manner. So at the level of what constitutes the Mediterranean city, we are confronted with examples that are fantastically transforming it, if there ever was such an “it.”  We are still holding on to some grounding in a particular conception of the Mediterranean city, its history, and its evolution; evolution is very important for us in thinking about cities. We do not like cataclysmic shifts and breaks.

From the Contents:
François Salviat, Le vin de Thasos. Amphores, vin et sources écrites; François Salviat, Vignes et vins anciens de Maronée à Mende; François Salviat, Le vin de Rhodes et les plantations du Dème d' Amos; François Salviat, Origine orientale et diffusion des cépages grecs; André Tchernia, Le vin et l' honneur; André Tchernia, Les dimensions de quelques vignobles romains; André Tchernia, Maesanius Celsius et Caedicia Victrix surdes amphores de campanie; André Tchernia, Le cercle de L. Licinius Crassus et la naissance de la hiérarchie des vins à Rome; André Tchernia, Acre Falernum: Juvenal, XIII, 213-216; Archéologie expérimentale et got du vin romain: la valorisation du got de madérisé; François Salviat, André Tchernia, Les appellations d' origine dans l' antiquité grecque et romaine; André Tchernia, La formule pane et vino adjecto et l' inscription du college d' Esculape et d' Hygie (CIL, VI, 10234)

This Forum discussion aims to explore the topic of repatriation from a variety of viewpoints considering twenty-first century realities in the region. The contributions
fall into three main categories addressing general background matters, presenting case studies and offering future directions. We hop  that the differing perspectives assembled in this issue of JEMAHS will contribute to the ongoing debate regarding repatriation, curation and ownership of artifacts, some now housed far from their places of origin.

Los contenidos de esta publicación han sido evaluados por el Comité Científico que en ella se relaciona y según el procedimiento que se recoge en http://ocs.editorial.upv.es/index.php/FORTMED/FORTMED2015 © editor Pablo Rodríguez-Navarro © de los textos: los autores © 2015, de la presente edición: Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València www.lalibreria.upv.es / Ref.: 6249_01_01_01 ISBN : 978-84-9048-377-0 (obra completa) edición impresa ISBN : 978-84-9048-427-2 (Vol. III) edición impresa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/CONGR.2015 Modern Age Fortifications of the Western Mediterranean Coast. Se distribuye bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 4.0 Internacional. Basada en una obra en

"Writing as Material Practice grapples with the issue of writing as a form of material culture in its ancient and more recent manifestations, and in the contexts of production and consumption. Fifteen case studies explore the artefactual nature of writing — the ways in which materials, techniques, colour, scale, orientation and visibility inform the creation of inscribed objects and spaces, as well as structure subsequent engagement, perception and meaning making.

Covering a temporal span of some 5000 years, from c.3200 BCE to the present day, and ranging in spatial context from the Americas to the Near East, the chapters in this volume bring a variety of perspectives which contribute to both specific and broader questions of writing materialities.

The authors also aim to place past graphical systems in their social contexts so they can be understood in relation to the people who created and attributed meaning to writing and associated symbolic modes through a diverse array of individual and wider social practices."

A recent excavation in the Phoenician-Punic necropolis of Mount Sirai, located in the southwestern part of Sardinia, Italy, has brought to light a number of tombs contextually attributed to a period from the early 6 th to early 5 th century BC, which is simultaneous with the beginning of the Carthago influence in Sardinia. Among the interred burials recently brought to light, the skeletal remains, sometimes of two superposed bodies, are found in a primary position and with fine anatomic connection. Some of the bones were visually stained, suggesting they were possibly subjected to fire treatment. In order to ascertain more objectively whether the bodies were subjected to burning, the bones from all the tombs were investigated by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform infra-red (FT-IR) spectroscopy techniques. After excluding the role of important diagenetic effects, from line broadening/sharpening analysis of hydroxylapatite in the bones according to the Rietveld method, it was evaluated that the bodies were probably subjected to a temperature regime from 300 to 7008C. These data were supplemented and confirmed by an analysis of the splitting factor (SF) of apatite phosphate peaks in the infra-red spectrum of the bones. Our results indicate the existence of a rite intermediate between incineration and inhumation. This sort of 'semi-combustion', perhaps limited to the period of the early 5 th century BC, appears to be peculiar just to this site.

Though Odysseus’ tales to Eumaios and Aninoos in Odyssey 14.199–359 and 17.417–44, respectively, are presented as fictional tales within Homer’s larger myth, some elements have striking analogs in Late Bronze–Early Iron Age reality.

This article examines these portions of the hero’s false ainoi within their fictive context for the purpose of identifying and evaluating those elements. Particular focus is given to Odysseus’ declaration that he led nine successful maritime raids prior to the Trojan War; to his twice–described ill–fated assault on Egypt; and to his claim not only to have been spared in the wake of that Egyptian raid, but to have spent a subsequent seven years in the land of the pharaohs, during which he gathered great wealth.

Through a comparative examination of literary and archaeological evidence from the Late Bronze–Early Iron transition in the Eastern Mediterranean, it is shown that these aspects of Odysseus’ stories are not only reflective of the historical reality surrounding the time in which the epic is set, but that Odysseus’ fictive experience is remarkably similar to that of one specific member of the ‘Sea Peoples’ groups best known from 19th and 20th dynasty Egyptian records: the ‘Sherden of the Sea.’

In molti contesti preistorici e protostorici italiani sono largamente rinvenuti resti strutturali in terra e conglomerati architettonici combusti o parzialmente cementati. La loro caratterizzazione tecnologica è un passo importante per ottenere dati rigurdanti la paleoeconomia,  lo sfruttamento delle risorse e l’esistenza di tradizioni costruttive su scala locale o regionale. L’integrazione al protocollo di analisi tecnologica di osservazioni effettuate ad occhio nudo o con microscopio ottico su sezioni levigate può aiutare ad una migliore comprensione dei resti in una fase intermedia dello studio, successiva alla loro caratterizzazione morfologica ed al riconoscimento di classi di impasto, ma preliminare all’approfondimento dello studio per mezzo di analisi specialistiche. La realizzazione su alcuni campioni di una sezione rettificata e polita (sezione levigata) permette infatti di descrivere con maggiore completezza l’organizzazione e la natura dei componenti, nonché le alterazioni subite dal materiale, ad esempio in caso di esposizione al calore. Si tratta dunque di associare le caratteristiche osservate ai meccanismi di deformazione della materia e a gesti specifici, che una volta messi in sequenza potranno permettere di ricostruire materie prime utilizzate, tecniche e catene operative. Qualche osservazione rilevante può riguardare anche le dinamiche di funzionamento delle strutture o il loro ingresso nel record archeologico. Sono qua presentati alcuni casi studio e chiavi di lettura preliminari, da completare ed affinare con l’avanzamento delle ricerche. Le prime applicazioni di tale tecnica hanno fornito risultati incoraggianti, soprattutto per il rapporto positivo tra massa di dati prodotta e costo finanziario ridotto.

This book presents a new study of Greek large-scale bronze statuary of the late Archaic and Classical periods. It examines the discovery, origin, style, date, artistic attribution, identification, and interpretation of the surviving bronzes, and focuses in particular on their technical features and casting techniques. It contains over 170 plates of photographs and drawings to illustrate its discussion.

It also places the development of the casting techniques in connection with the stylistic evolution in Greek free-standing sculpture. During the Classical period, artists preferred bronze to marble when creating their contrapposto figures. Indisputably, bronze gave particular freedom to artists in creating three-dimensional figures. In addition, the evolution in style encouraged the development of the uses of bronze to serve the new needs and tendencies in sculpture during the late Archaic and especially the Classical period. Through the examination of how technical matters affect style, this book presents fresh interpretations of these important monuments of Greek art and offers a new approach in the field of Greek free-standing bronze sculpture.

Renewed excavations by Rome "La Sapienza" University at Motya in the last ten years (2002-2011) provided a new set of archaeological data concerning the area of the so-called "kothon" and the nearby South Gate, with the identification of a huge sacred compound, including a monumental temple (called Temple of the Kothon, since it was connected with was proved to be a sacred pool), and several other cult installations and structures. Investigations both in the temple proper area and in the southern sector of this compound brought about the earliest layers of Phoenician occupation in the island, with a series of wells, a huge building and the earliest cult devices. Diagnostic ceramic finds, with striking comparisons in Phoenicia, hint at dating in the second quarter of the 8 th century BC for the foundation of the colony, that is roughly 50 years earlier than previous thought. 1 Una presentazione preliminare della stratigrafia e della ceramica dall'area del Tempio del Kothon dall'VIII al VI secolo a.C. è offerta in L. NIGRO, "Alle origini di Mozia: stratigrafia e ceramica del Tempio del Kothon dall'VIII al VI secolo a.C.", in L. NIGRO (ed.), Motya and the Phoenician Repertoire between the Levant and the West, 9th -6th century BC.

progress". So say those in the know about this unique Swiss watch company, where each and every moment moves forward to create the future at breathtaking speed. Hublot's reputation dates back three decades: during this era, it was the first Swiss watch luxury brand to fuse precious metals with less conventional materials such as natural rubber. This creative concept, known as the "Art of Fusion", combined with an original design, led to a veritable revolution in the watchmaking industry.

Very little, practically nothing has been written about the Submycenaean period in Western Achaea, a fact reflecting the belief that this stage was not particularly developed or that it had nothing significant to offer. 1 Moreover, in the few reports the word "Submycenaean" defines objects that do not fall stylistically into the Mycenaean period and, at the same time, cannot be classified as EPG, without taking into consideration their cultural environment, as usually happens elsewhere. 2 The simple definition "probably Submycenaean" is the most common in these cases and it refers exclusively to objects, so that the phase is merely being insinuated, without the slightest effort to place these objects in a general cultural frame, if there should be one. It seems that the existence of this hypothesis does not leave room for further analysis and for thorough examination so that the subject is finally overlooked and not discussed. This situation is due to objective difficulties related to the region, but also to the numerous and often different and contradictive views which are still pertinent to the use of the term Submycenaean. 3 This fact gives the impression that there are only few and isolated objects, mostly pottery, in Achaea that probably belong to the Submycenaean Style, which is either rare or confused with the local LH III C Late/Mature Achaean pottery Style. 4 As a result this particular phase, stage, period or whatever it is, is practically considered to be non-existent. However, this perspective is not exclusively related to pottery but it partly includes bronze items as well. If the classification of bronze or other objects in the Submycenaean period is correct, and given that the Submycenaean is not exclusively associated with a certain pottery style only, then the presence of other features, which so far have been overlooked or regarded as insignificant, must be expected. Below we are going to propose that in Achaea there is not only a particular or local Submycenaean style but features which define a Submycenaean Period. These features are beyond changes in the settlement but also beyond fashion in dressing, like the appearance of new bronze accessories, as we shall see below.

Forthcoming April 2017

http://upers.kuleuven.be/en/book/9789462701052

Chapters by:
Simon Jusseret (The University of Texas at Austin, Université catholique de Louvain)
Manuel Sintubin (KU Leuven)
Jan Driessen (Université catholique de Louvain)
Susan E. Hough (U.S. Geological Survey)
James P. McCalpin (GEO-HAZ Consulting Inc.)
Christoph Grützner (RWTH Aachen University, University of Cambridge)
Thomas Wiatr (RWTH Aachen University, German Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy)
Charalampos Fassoulas (Natural History Museum of Crete, University of Crete)
Gerassimos A. Papadopoulos (National Observatory of Athens)
Jack Mason (RWTH Aachen University)
Klaus Reicherter (RWTH Aachen University)
Clairy Palyvou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Eleftheria Tsakanika (National Technical University of Athens)
Jeffrey S. Soles (University of North Carolina – Greensboro)
Floyd W. McCoy (University of Hawaii – Windward)
Rhonda Suka (Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii)
Colin F. Macdonald (The British School at Athens)
Tim Cunningham (Université catholique de Louvain)

"In his recent book „The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean“ (Cambridge 2012), Ronnie Ellenblum argues that a series of climatic disasters in the 11th cent. led to the decline of polities in the Near East and prepared the ground for both the advance of the Seljuks and of the Crusaders into the region. Focused on the Byzantine case during the „Comnenian period“, this paper will critically review this hypothesis on the basis of both textual and natural scientific evidence and propose a more nuanced picture of the interplay between society, climate and environment in the Eastern Mediterranean from the 11th to the 13th century. As will become clear, neither the complexity of natural phenomena nor the complexity of medieval societies should be reduced to mere linear lines of causation.
This research was made possible with support of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit-Foundation during a stay at the Institute for Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens.
The following pages provide a first short overview over some material to be presented and discussed in this lecture.
Contact: Johannes.Preiser-Kapeller@oeaw.ac.at
"

La conduite de la vigne en hautain, qui consiste à faire grimper le cep et les sarments sur un arbre porteur, est une technique mentionnée par les agronomes antiques, notamment pour la Gaule (Columelle, Les arbres, XVI, et De l’agriculture, V, 7 ; Pline H.N. XVII, 35 ; Palladius, L’économie rurale, III, 10). La pratique du hautain est encore couramment employée en France à l’époque moderne, très répandue en Espagne et en Italie au XXe s., et on la trouve encore aujourd’hui en Haute-Garonne dans le piémont pyrénéen, et en Haute-Savoie, au bord du lac Léman : il s’agit des fameuses « crosses » dont il reste quelques exemplaires sur la commune de Marin, près d’Evian.
Les archéologues français recherchent depuis longtemps en Narbonnaise et dans le reste de la Gaule des traces matérielles permettant de corroborer les descriptions des auteurs antiques.
P. Boissinot disait en 2001 à propos de cette technique : « on imagine dans ce cas une profusion de fosses autour d’un réseau régulier de creusements plus volumineux. On ne connaît pas pour l’instant une telle configuration de fosses (espacements, emboîtements) dans les décapages archéologiques effectués dans le Midi ». Or il se trouve que pour l’heure seule la plantation du Grand Palais à Châteauneuf-du-Rhône, peut évoquer une telle configuration : des emboîtements de fosses d’un module de 4 pieds et de fosses de 3 pieds, ainsi que des espacements entre les autres fosses s’avérant souvent inférieurs à 2 pieds. Ce site a naturellement soulevé la question de la conduite en hautain.
Récemment, dans Archéopages, nos collègues bretons ont interprété des traces agraires mises au jour sur le site de la villa du Quiou dans les Côtes d’Armor, comme les preuves de cultures en hautain. Ces traces, qui s’organisent en une trame régulière de fosses circulaires, s’apparentent précisément à l’état le plus précoce (Ier s. av. J.-C.) des plantations du Grand Palais. Nous essaierons lors de cette présentation de livrer les arguments permettant d’accréditer ou de réfuter une telle hypothèse d’interprétation.

The results of three archaeological seasons carried out in a settlement discovered in the Congreso lsland (Chafarinas lslands, North Africa, Spain) are presented, where different habitat structures (hearths, silos), which yielded an important amount of interesting archaeological materials, like cardial pottery, ostrich shell vessels and a highly specialized lithic industry, were located. lt is a small habitat with agriculture and livestock rising as showed by the-faunal and palaeobotanical analyses, but with an important role of shellfish gathering. This site has been 14C dated to the mid Vth millennium cal BC.

AUXIETTE G., MUGNE C., PEAKE R. et TOULEMONDE F. (dir.) – Autour de la table : l’alimentation à l’âge du Bronze et au premier âge du Fer, Actes de la journée d’Etude de l’APRAB (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, mars 2017), Bulletin de l’Association pour la Promotion de la Recherche sur l’Age du Bronze, supplément 6, 2020.

Les fouilles menées sur le site de Lattes/St-Sauveur, l’antique Lattara, ont permis de mettre au jour dans un horizon du deuxième quart du Ve s. av. J.-C. un bâtiment de plan bi-absidial. Ce dernier a connu deux états successifs caractérisés par l’emploi de techniques différentes, à savoir le torchis puis la terre massive. Inédit à l’échelle du site, ce type de plan est en revanche bien connu sur le plan régional au premier et au début du second âge du Fer.
Interprété comme une unité domestique, ce bâtiment est associé à des constructions annexes au sein d’un quartier qui présente alors une trame lâche. Cette phase fait suite à la destruction apparemment généralisée du site (vers -475) et précède la mise en place (vers -450) d’un nouveau programme d’urbanisme, caractérisé par une trame régulière avec des constructions quadrangulaires mitoyennes à soubassement en pierre et élévation en bauge ou adobe. Le caractère transitoire de cette phase, ainsi que l’absence de contraintes matérielles au sein d’une portion de terrain sûrement prédéfinie, semblent avoir alors conditionné le recours à cette forme architecturale traditionnelle.

The excavation leaded on the settlement of Lattes/St-Sauveur, the ancient Lattara, revealed a bi-apsidial building in a context of the second quarter of the fifth century BC. The latter shows two successive states characterized by different techniques of construction, first wattle-and-daub, then cob-built. Unheard of on the settlement itself, this sort of plan is however well-known on a regional scale during the first and the beginning of the second Iron Age.
Interpreted as a domestic unit, this building is associated with secondary constructions, taking place at this moment into an area with a loose frame. This phase comes after the apparently generalized destruction of the settlement (around 475 BC) and before the development of a new urbanistic program (around 450 BC), characterized by a regular frame with quadrangular and adjoining constructions made of stone basements and mud-brick or cob-built elevations. The transitory aspect of this phase, as well as the lack of material constraints in the hearth of a presumably pre-defined plot of land, seems to have conditioned the use of this traditional architectural shape.