Integrated petrographic and geochemical analysis of the Langobard age pottery of Szólád, Western Hungary

This study presents the results of the petrographic and geochemical analyses of the entire pottery assemblage discovered at the sixth-century (AD) cemetery of Szólád, Western Hungary, associated with the Langobard era in the territory of the former Roman province of Pannonia. Szólád is one of the most prominent archaeological sites of this period, where prior studies have shown that the cemetery was used for ca. one or two generations by a migrating group of diverse genetic background. The present work is the first integrated typological and archaeological science pottery analysis from the early migration period (fifth to sixth century) Hungary. We applied polarising light optical microscopy (OM), prompt gamma activation analysis (PGAA), and neutron activation analysis (NAA) on all samples and, additionally, scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM–EDS) on one selected sample. One main fabric group with three subgroups were defined by OM, to which the majority of the samples belong. This fabric group was characterised by aplastic inclusions derived from a carbonate-cemented sandstone typical of the environs of Szólád; therefore, the vessels of this fabric group appear to have been produced locally. The remaining four samples display a variety of unique, ungrouped, fabrics (loners) indicative of different recipes and/or the presence of pottery originating from outside of the region. Our study concludes that the community associated with the cemetery favoured burying pots with the deceased that stylistically resembled archaic “Elbe Germanic” traditions, but which were in fact made locally. However, in some cases, relationships with more distant territories and cultural traditions are also represented.

Investigation of Ancient Wall Painting Fragments Discovered in the Roman Baths from Alburnus Maior by Complementary Non-Destructive Techniques

In this study, several wall painting fragments discovered in the Roman baths from the archeological site Alburnus Maior (Roşia Montană, Romania) were analyzed with the aim to investigate the material composition of both plasters and pictorial layers. Dated from the beginning of the second century AD, these rare findings stand among the oldest examples of preserved decorative polychrome paintings on plaster excavated thus far in the former territory of the Roman province of Dacia. A non-destructive multi-analytical approach based on complementary techniques was considered: Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV fluorescence, and hyperspectral imaging (HSI). The obtained results highlight a common Roman color palette mainly based on naturally occurring earth pigments. Red ochre, yellow ochre, manganese-rich ochres/wads, carbon black, and calcite were identified. A traditional two-layer sequence of plasters was found—arriccio (based on lime and siliceous sands), and intonaco (pure lime). The presence of an organic protein binder, identified via FTIR analysis, and sustained by combined imaging documentation, indicates that the pigments were applied a secco. The obtained results are discussed in relation to previous published data, and they can be considered as valuable archeological indicators that contribute to the understanding of the painting techniques and the materials used in the Roman provinces.

The Seat of the Roman Governor at Carnuntum (Pannonia Superior)

The Roman site of Carnuntum was once a flourishing center on the frontiers of the Roman Empire. In its heyday as the capital of the province of Pannonia superior, Carnuntum probably covered an area of almost 9 km². The whole site was divided into a military settlement (castra and canabae legionis) and a civil town (municipium/colonia). Through a large-scale archaeological prospection project, this huge area could be investigated and analyzed in great detail using a wide variety of nondestructive prospection methods. One of the main discoveries of the project was observed in the military settlement, where it was possible to identify a previously unknown military camp, interpreted as the garrison of the governor’s guard, the castra singularium. Through the topographic analysis of the immediate surroundings, the Roman fort was determined to be embedded in a large administrative complex related to the governor’s seat in Carnuntum. This article presents these new discoveries and shows what an important part they formed in the administration of the Roman province of Upper Pannonia.

History of the Spanish Lexicon

From an historical perspective, the Spanish lexicon consists of three different categories: (1) its historical core of words inherited from the Latin spoken in the Roman province of Hispania; (2) loanwords that entered Spanish over its long history as a result of contact at the levels of both oral and written discourse with other languages; and (3) words created internally through such mechanisms of derivational morphology as suffixation, prefixation, compounding, back-formations, and so on. Over the last 150 years, specialists in the history of the Spanish language have studied in considerable detail all three sources of lexical material. Although most of the lexical items inherited from spoken Latin have cognates in many (in some cases, all) of the Romance languages, Spanish has preserved some words that live on only in Spanish (and neighboring Portuguese) or only in Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian, the geographical extremes of the Romance-speaking world, far removed from the centers of linguistic innovation. As a result of language contact, loanwords from the pre-Roman languages of the Iberian Peninsula, Visigothic, Arabic, Gallo-Romance (northern and southern French), Portuguese, Catalan, Italian, classical Latin, native languages of the New World, and English have entered and taken root in the Spanish lexicon. Although such lexical borrowings have often been studied within a cultural framework, recent research has focused on their introduction and incorporation as examples of contact-induced language change at the level of the lexicon. Throughout its history, Spanish has increased the size of its vocabulary through the creation of neologisms through processes of suffixation, prefixation, and composition. The study of such items has traditionally been the focus of specialists in diachronic derivational morphology. This subfield constitutes in many respects an important component of diachronic lexicology. Indeed, etymology and diachronic derivational morphology are two sides of the same coin. Lexical history is not limited to the study of additions to the vocabulary. Over time, many words have fallen into disuse or have become obsolete. Some recent work on the history of the Spanish lexicon has examined the various external and internal/structural causes of lexical loss in the history of the Spanish lexicon.

Archaeology and Material Culture of Nabataea and the Nabataeans

The Nabataeans were an Arab people who inhabited northwest Arabia over two thousand years ago. Their center was the city of Petra, located in what today is the southern part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. They appear in Greek accounts around 312/311 BCE when the armies of Antigonus Monophthalmos attempted to raid the small, but well-defended kingdom of traders in their capital of Petra. They were reportedly a small, but extremely wealthy, Arab people who transported aromatics, frankincense, and myrrh from the Arabian Peninsula to the Mediterranean coast and Egypt. They were skilled stone cutters, a craft developed in the Hellenistic period when they hewed and plastered large cisterns for their exclusive use along desert tracks in the Negev. The Nabataeans became an important element in the geopolitical deposition of the southern Levant at a time when Rome was becoming increasingly involved in the region. They controlled trade routes in the desert regions of the Negev and Sinai Peninsula and extended their rule northward into Syria and southward to the Red Sea coast of Arabia. Their control of the Negev led to the establishment of towns along the main route between Petra and Gaza, called the Incense Road, as well as along other major tracks. By the Roman era they were also master potters, producing exquisite, thin-walled vessels that took the place of glass. In the increasingly competitive markets of the Augustan era, they responded by producing perfumed oils packaged in ceramic unguentaria produced at Petra that they marketed abroad. The increased revenues that they received in an era of high international demand allowed the Nabataeans to indulge in the monumental architecture that can still be viewed with awe today. Nabataea was a client state during the reign of Augustus, and it was ruled by a series of native kings until its annexation by Rome in 106 CE, upon which its territory became the Roman province of Arabia. Loss of self-rule does not seem to have affected the prosperity of the Nabataeans or the production of pottery and aromatics at Petra, and their role in international trade continued until Roman collapse in the region in the 3rd century CE. Nabataean language, culture, and religion continued under Roman rule well into the Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods. In those periods, their written language—Aramaic—was transformational, leading to the development of written Arabic as known today.

The Roman Aqueduct of Aquincum in Technological and Cultural Contexts

This article explores the technological and cultural history of the Roman aqueduct of Aquincum in Budapest. The only one in the Roman province of Pannonia that was elevated to a continuous line of arches, this aqueduct conveyed water from its source in what is now Budapest’s third district to its final destination over three miles to the south, where a Roman military town was located. Apart from the aqueduct’s technological and archaeological aspects, this article also examines several cultural practices that it engendered including the ritualistic significance of the springs that fed it, its appearance as a ruin in various medieval documents, the transformation of its last, above-ground pier into a Christian shrine in the nineteenth century, as well as the relocation of two of its piers to give way to the construction of a road junction.

Revaluing Roman Cyprus

This study addresses the traditional characterization of Roman Cyprus’s history as a Roman province as uneventful, insignificant, and ‘weary’. It brings fresh insight to the study of its culture and society by taking an integrated approach and bringing together well-known, less familiar, and new evidence to reassess cultural change, local responses to Roman rule, and the articulation of local identity in the Cypriot context. While it focuses primarily on material from the annexation of the island in 58 BC until the mid fourth century AD, or more specifically the refoundation of Salamis by Constantius II between AD 332 and 342, where relevant space will be given to discussion of evidence from across all periods of the island’s ancient history to facilitate a meaningful investigation of the key themes of this work. Ultimately, this study aims to reinsert Roman Cyprus into academic narratives about culture and society of the Roman provinces. Furthermore, it has been put together with the undergraduate student in mind to encourage and promote the study of Roman Cyprus—and, of course, ancient Cyprus—by collating key studies, evidence, and material, and thus making them accessible to new audiences