Reviews
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Archaeology in the Smallest Realm: Micro Analyses and Methods for the Reconstruction of Early Societies on Cyprus
16–25 minutesMarialucia Amadio, ed., Archaeology in the Smallest Realm: Micro Analyses and Methods for the Reconstruction of Early Societies on Cyprus (Rome: Artemide Edizioni, 2021). 9788875753795. Reviewed by Christine L. Johnston, Western Washington University, Christine.johnston@wwu.edu. This slim volume (166 pp.) presents ten studies of archaeological microanalysis, focusing in particular on the enhanced benefits of integrating macro- and micro-scale archaeological approaches to the study of early Cyprus. Originally intended as an in-person workshop before the coronavirus pandemic,…
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Acta Martyrum Scillitanorum: A Literary Commentary
8–12 minutesVincent Hunink, Acta Martyrum Scillitanorum: A Literary Commentary. Giornale Italiano di Filologia Bibliotheca 24 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021). 9782503590950. Reviewed by Jared Secord, University of Calgary, jaredjohn.secord@ucalgary.ca The Acts of the Scilitan Martyrs (henceforth ASM) has traditionally been regarded as one of the earliest works of Christian Latin literature. It narrates the encounter between a group of Christians from the North African town of Scili and the Roman proconsul Saturninus, with this meeting dated by the…
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Freewomen, Patriarchal Authority, and the Accusation of Prostitution
12–17 minutesStephanie Lynn Budin, Freewomen, Patriarchal Authority, and the Accusation of Prostitution (London: Routledge, 2021). 9780367198299. Reviewed by Mali Skotheim, Ashoka University, mali.skotheim@ashoka.edu.in Stephanie Lynn Budin’s Freewomen, Patriarchal Authority, and the Accusation of Prostitution, published in the Routledge series Interdisciplinary Research in Gender, is a comparative study of women who have been called prostitutes in ancient Mesopotamia and Greece, early modern Italy and Japan, and contemporary India. She demonstrates repeatedly that women who do not fall…
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Aspects of Death and the Afterlife in Greek Literature
10–15 minutesGeorge Alexander Gazis and Anthony Hooper, eds., Aspects of Death and the Afterlife in Greek Literature (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021). 9781789621495. Reviewed by Amy K. Vandervelde, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, amykv2@illinois.edu In their edited volume, Gazis and Hooper bring together a variety of scholars from across disciplines to examine questions pertaining to death and the afterlife in Greek thought in new ways. As the editors themselves point out, “Greek thinking on death and…
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Uncovering Jewish Creativity in Book III of the Sibylline Oracles: Gender, Intertextuality, and Politics
10–15 minutesAshley L. Bacchi, Uncovering Jewish Creativity in Book III of the Sibylline Oracles: Gender, Intertextuality, and Politics (Leiden: Brill, 2020). 9789004424340. Reviewed by Gillian Glass, University of British Columbia, rgglass@student.ubc.ca In Uncovering Jewish Creativity, Bacchi articulates the significance of Jewish literature for the field of Hellenistic literature generally, in addition to contributing to the ever-growing understanding of how the Hellenic tradition influenced Jewish literary production and theological expression. Focusing on the persona of the Sibyl…
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London’s Roman Tools: Craft, Agriculture and Experience in an Ancient City
12–17 minutesOwen Humphreys, London’s Roman Tools: Craft, Agriculture and Experience in an Ancient City, Archaeology of Roman Britain 3 (Oxford: BAR Publishing, 2021). 9781407357386. Reviewed by Tim Penn, University of Oxford, timothy.penn@classics.ox.ac.uk Humphreys’ book is dedicated to “Sarah, and everyone else who won’t read it but might look at the pictures.” But anyone who just looks at the pictures is missing out. The archaeological study of tools has until now been dominated by typological approaches that…
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Deserted Villages: Perspectives from the Eastern Mediterranean
17–25 minutesRebecca M. Seifried and Deborah E. Brown Stewart, eds., Deserted Villages: Perspectives from the Eastern Mediterranean (Grand Forks: The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota, 2021). 9781736498613. Reviewed by Eric W. Driscoll, Harvard University, edriscoll@fas.harvard.edu. When modern archaeological survey began in the 1950s with Robert Adams’ fieldwork east of Baghdad, and later in the Aegean with the Minnesota Messenia Expedition in the 1960s, it already necessitated a diachronic perspective running from prehistory to…
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Choreonarratives: Dancing Stories in Greek and Roman Antiquity and Beyond
11–16 minutesLaura Gianvittorio-Ungar and Karin Schlapbach, eds., Choreonarratives: Dancing Stories in Greek and Roman Antiquity and Beyond (Leiden: Brill, 2021). 9789004462472; 9789004462632. Reviewed by Amanda Kubic, University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, akubic@umich.edu. Choreonarratives: Dancing Stories in Greek and Roman Antiquity and Beyond is an ambitious collection of essays with a clear goal: to reconsider ancient dance from a “narrative angle” (p. 3) so as to recognize better how dance itself, in ancient Greece and Rome as…
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Chiusi Villanoviana
10–15 minutesMaria Chiara Bettini, Chiusi Villanoviana, Monumenti Etruschi 14 (Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider, 2021). 9788876893285. Reviewed by Jacopo Tabolli, University for Foreigners of Siena (UNISTRASI), jacopo.tabolli@unistrasi.it. Almost one hundred years after Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli’s Clusium, which appeared within the series Monumenti Antichi dei Lincei in 1925, Chiusi Villanoviana [Villanovan Chiusi] by Maria Chiara Bettini represents a seminal work of Italian protohistory and Etruscology and places the earliest remains at Chiusi within the larger context of the social…
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Der Artemis-Hymnos des Kallimachos
13–20 minutesZsolt Adorjáni, Der Artemis-Hymnos des Kallimachos. Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar. Texte und Kommentare, Band 66 (Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter, 2021). 9783110698428. Reviewed by Gary P. Vos, University of Edinburgh, gvos@ed.ac.uk The last decade has been good to Callimacheans: Annette Harder published her magnum opus, a full-scale edition and commentary on Callimachus’s Aetia,1 while Susan Stephens has been prolific with her concise but rich commentary on the Hymns and a born-digital annotated Aetia, as…
Rhea Classical Reviews 