Bøger i Topoi - Berlin Studies of the Ancient World/Topoi - Berliner Studien der Alten Welt serien

The Mittani empire is one of the most enigmatic political structures in Mesopotamian history. Reconstructing the emergence and the organisation of this state, whose territory encompassed Upper Mesopotamia touching the Levant and the piedmont plains of the Zagros in the East at the height of its power, is exceedingly difficult. Cuneiform specialists, archeologists and historians discuss the Mittani state with regard to modes of spatial organisation co- and preexisting in the region.

Der Schwerpunkt der Arbeit ist auf die Entwicklung der Raumnutzung des sudostlichen Siebenstromlandes im kulturhistorischen Kontext gerichtet. Der Steppengurtel des ostlichen Eurasiens bietet ein enormes Potential fur geistes- und naturwissenschaftliche Forschungen. In einer Kleinregion im sudostkasachischen Siebenstromland konnte eine einmalige Konzentration von Bodendenkmalern der Bronze- und Fruheisenzeit untersucht werden. Die Dokumentation und Kartierung der archaologischen Bodendenkmaler hat ein besseres Verstandnis der Raumnutzung in den prahistorischen Perioden zur Folge. Die neu gewonnenen und zusammengefuhrten Informationen sollen den bis dato skizzenhaften Forschungsstand erganzen und erweitern.Das Hauptaugenmerk richtet sich auf Nekropolen mit Grokurganen der sakischen Elite. Analysen dieser Kurgangraberfelder bezuglich ihrer Verteilung im Gelande und der Erfassung ihrer inneren Struktur im Untersuchungsgebiet belegen beeindruckend den Prozess einer steten Entwicklung und Ausbreitung der sehr mobilen, reiternomadischen Kultur seit dem Anfang der Fruheisenzeit, wobei die Untersuchung der vorangehenden Bronzezeit ein Kulturwandel von der Bronze- zur Fruheisenzeit besser nachzeichnen zu konnen verhilft.

Does the soul have parts? What kind of parts? And how do all the parts make together a whole? Many ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers discussed these questions, thus providing a mereological analysis of the soul. Their starting point was a simple observation: we tend to describe the soul of human beings by referring to different types of activities (perceiving, imagining, thinking, etc.). Each type of activity seems to be produced by a special part of the soul. But how can a simple, undivided soul have parts? Classical thinkers gave radically different answers to this question. While some claimed that there are indeed parts, thus assigning an internal complexity to the soul, others emphasized that there can only be a plurality of functions that should not be conflated with a plurality of parts. The eleven chapters reconstruct and critically examine these answers. They make clear that the metaphysical structure of the soul was a crucial issue for ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers.

This volume presents new research by the Topoi group "The Conception of Spaces in Language" on the expression of spatial relations in ancient languages. The six articles in this volume discuss static and dynamic aspects of the spatial grammars of Ancient to Medieval Greek, Akkadian, Hittite, and Hieroglyphic Ancient Egyptian, as well as field data on eight modern languages (Arabic, Hebrew, English, German, Russian, French, Italian, and Spanish). Among the grams discussed are spatial particles, motion verbs, case and, most prominently, spatial prepositions. All ancient language data are fully explained in linguistic word-by-word glosses and are therefore accessible to scholars who are not themselves experts on the respective languages. Taken together, these contributions extend the scope of research on spatial grammar back to the third millennium BCE.d millennium BCE.

This book contains a collection of papers discussing questions related to space and movement in the framework of computational archaeology, landscape archaeology, historical geography and archaeological theory. The contributions, written by recognized experts in the field, show how the study of settlements pattern and movement has been dramatically transformed by the use of technology like Geographic Information System (GIS). The papers focus on the ways to approach past movement using GIS in archaeological landscape studies: theoretical, technical and interpretative issues are addressed and explored. They provide the state of the art in theory and methodology and show, by using case studies, the potential of the developed approaches for the understanding of factors and effects of landscape formation and transformation in the long term.

This book, consisting of 12 contributions, amalgamates the most recent results from archaeological research in the Upper Mesopotamian piedmont. Under the growing influence of expanding territorial states which had become established during the 2nd millennium BC, this region experienced a substantial change in social and political life during that time. The discussion is centered around settlement shapes, developments in the material culture, as well as written documents that attest to this change. In summary, this book emphasizes the significant roll of archaeological research in the reconstruction of models concerning the formation and transformation of political space in the ancient world.

Questions concerning mobility and migration as well as subsistence strategies of past societies have always been of major importance in archaeological research. The West Eurasian steppes in the Eneolithic, the Early Bronze and the Iron Age were largely inhabited by cultural communities believed to show an elevated level of spatial mobility, often linked to their subsistence economy. In this volume, questions concerning the mobility and potential migration as well as the diet and economy of the West Eurasian steppes communities during the 4th, the 3rd and the 1st Millennia BC are approached by applying isotope analysis, specifically 87Sr/86Sr, I 18O, I 15N and I 13C analyses. Adapting a combination of different isotopic systems to a study area of vast spatial and chronological dimension allowed a wide variety of questions to be answered and establishes the beginning of a database of biogeochemical data for the West Eurasian steppes. Besides the characterisation of mobility and subsistence patterns of the archaeological communities under discussion, attempts to identify possible Early Bronze Age migrations from the steppes to the steppe-like plains in parts of Eastern Europe were made, alongside an evaluation of the applicability of isotope analysis to this context.

Den Schriften der römischen Feldmesser wird seit etwa 20 Jahren verstärkt Interesse verschiedener Wissenschaftsdisziplinen entgegen gebracht. Die Texte der Gromatici veteres geben zu Fragen Anlass: Welche rechtsgeschichtlichen Schlüsse lassen sich ziehen? Welche Welt- und Raumvorstellungen liegen zugrunde? Wie sind sie geschichtlich zu kontextualisieren und wie wurden sie rezipiert? Die hier vorgelegten Beiträge ergeben ein facettenreiches Bild, dem modernste Forschungen und erste Werkstatt-Ergebnisse der Forschergruppe B-I-1 zugrunde liegen. Der neue Blick auf die Texte führt oft zu neuen Interpretationen. Es werden mathematische Hintergründe und ihre Rezeption, die Rolle bei Grenzstreitigkeiten von Gemeinwesen und in der diokletianischen Steuerreform, die Rezeption griechischer Geographen, die Prägung des Wegesystems und der frührömische Hintergrund der Landnutzung behandelt. Die Rolle in der antiken Fachliteratur wird beleuchtet und das Vokabular terminologisch analysiert.Das reiche Sach- und Quellenregister ermöglicht dem an Einzelproblemen interessierten Leser einen schnellen Zugriff.Der Band ist unverzichtbar für jeden, der sich mit den römischen Feldmessertexten beschäftigt.en beschäftigt.

Population Dynamics in Prehistory and Early History

Suitable for the study of human engagement, experience and socialisation within the built environment, this book brings together contributions from a number of specialists in archaeology, social theory, architecture, and urban planning, who explore the theoretical and methodological frameworks.

Tumuli were the most widespread form of monumental tombs in the ancient world. This title constitutes the proceedings of an international conference in Istanbul in 2009, that revolve around the question of the symbolic significance of burial mounds in the 1st millennium BC in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black-Sea regions.