Publications: Thapsacus and Zeugma

A recently published book East and West in the World Empire of Alexander: Essays in Honour of Brian Bosworth contains a chapter on Thapsacus and Zeugma contributed by David L. Kennedy.

David L. Kennedy (2015) 'Thapsacus and Zeugma' in P. Wheatley and E. Baynham (eds) East and West in the World Empire of Alexander: Essays in Honour of Brian Bosworth: 277-298
For more details please visit the Oxford University Press page.

From the Oxford University Press website:  

"The essays in this volume - written by twenty international scholars - are dedicated to Professor Brian Bosworth who has, in over forty-five years, produced arguably the most influential corpus of historical and historiographical research by one scholar. Professor Bosworth's name is often synonymous with scholarship on Alexander the Great, but his expertise also spreads far wider, as the scope of these essays demonstrates. The collection's coverage ranges from Egyptian and Homeric parallels, through Roman historiography, to Byzantine coinage.

However, the life of Alexander provides the volume's central theme, and among the topics explored are the conqueror's resonance with mythological figures such as Achilles and Heracles, his divine pretensions and military display, and his motives for arresting his expedition at the River Hyphasis in India. Some of Alexander's political acts are also scrutinized, as are the identities of those supposedly present in the last symposium where, according to some sources, the fatal poison was administered to the king. Part of the collection focuses on Alexander's legacy, with seven essays examining the Successors, especially Craterus, and Ptolemy, and Alexander's ill-fated surviving dynasty, including Olympias, Eurydice, and Philip III Arrhidaeus."

New Book on Southern Jordan

Burton MacDonald has had his most recent book just published. It covers southern Jordan where he has conducted successive field surveys over some 40 years and include several APAAME aerial photos.

Chapters survey the successive periods from the Bronze Age to the end of Ottoman rule, each illustrated with useful maps and grounded in his own extensive survey results.

MacDonald, B. (2015) The Southern Jordan Edomite Plateau and the Dead Sea Rift Valley. The Bronze Age to the Islamic Period (3800/3700 BC – AD 1917), Oxford (Oxbow). Ix + 118; 49 colour plates.*

New publication on Maitland's Mesa and Wisad Pools, Jordan.

The "land of conjecture:" New late prehistoric discoveries at Maitland's Mesa and Wisad Pools, Jordan. 

A new publication in the Journal of Field Archaeology features APAAME imagery of Maitland's Mesa (Maitland's Fort).

"Qattafi Mesa 4 (Maitland's Fort)"
APAAME_20100601_SES-0095 © Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East.

Abstract:

"Major cultural transformations took place in the southern Levant during the late prehistoric periods (ca. late 7th–4th millennia B.C. ). Agropastoralists expanded into areas previously only sparsely occupied and secondary animal products played an increasingly important economic role. In the arable parts of the southern Levant, the olive in particular became increasingly significant and may have played a part in expanded exchange contacts in the region. Technological expertise developed in craft production, and the volume and diversity of status goods increased, particularly in funerary contexts. Mortuary and other ritual practices became increasingly pronounced. General study syntheses, however, rarely include more than a cursory mention of the more arid regions of the southern Levant (i.e., Negev, eastern and southern Jordan, and Syria). Recent investigations indicate that intensive exploitation of the regions may date to these late prehistoric periods, yet this evidence has been difficult to attribute to specific chronological period or cultural affiliations. The Eastern Badia Archaeological Project investigates two regions for a potential florescence of building and occupation during the late prehistoric periods in the eastern desert of Jordan."

The article will be made available through Maney Online:

Rowan, Y.M., Rollefson, G. O., Wasse, A., Abu-Azizeh, W., Hill, A. C. and Kersel, M. M. (2015) "The ‘‘land of conjecture:’’ New late prehistoric discoveries at Maitland’s Mesa and Wisad Pools, Jordan", Journal of Field Archaeology 40: 176-189"