The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes

Bleda S. Düring is Associate Professor in Near Eastern Archaeology at the Faculty of Archaeology of Universiteit Leiden. He directed an ERC Starting Grant Research project (2012-2016) on the archaeology of the early Assyrian Empire. He is the author of The Prehistory of Asia Minor (Cambridge, 2010). Tesse D. Stek is Associate Professor in Mediterranean Archaeology and Head of the World Archaeology Department of the Faculty of Archaeology of Universiteit Leiden. He coordinates the NWO funded research project Landscapes of Early Roman colonization and is the author of Cult places and cultural change in Republican Italy and co-editor of Roman Republican Colonization (2014) and The Impact of Rome on Cult Places and Religious Practices in Ancient Italy (2015).

• 1. Ancient empires on the ground: provincial and peripheral perspectives Bleda S. Düring and Tesse Stek; Part I. The Transformation of Rural Societies and Landscapes: 2. Engineering empire: a provincial perspective on the Middle Assyrian empire Bleda S. Düring; 3. The creation of the Assyrian heartland: new data from the 'land behind Nineveh' Daniele Morandi Bonacossi; 4. Pioneers of the Western Desert: the Kharga Oasis in the Achaemenid Empire Henry Colburn; 5. Power at a distance: the Hellenistic rural exploitation of the 'farther' chora of Chersonesos (Crimea, Ukraïne) from the perspective of the Džarylgaè survey project Peter Attema; 6. Early Roman colonization beyond the Romanizing agro-town: village patterns of settlement and highland exploitation in the Abruzzo, Central Italy Tesse D. Stek; Part II. The Transformation of Peripheral Societies and Landscapes: 7. Negotiation, violence, and resistance: Urartu's frontiers in the Iron Age Caucasus Lauren Ristvet; 8. The archaeology of imperial borderlands: a view from Roman Egypt and Sudan Anna Lucille Boozer; 9. Living on the edge: the Roman Empire in the North Mesopotamian Steppe Lidewijde de Jong and Rocco Palermo; 10. On the edge: Butrint on the western frontier of the Byzantine Empire Joanita Vroom; Part III. Comparing Repertoires of Rule in Rural and Peripheral Regions: 11. Strategies of empire expansion J. Daniel Rogers; 12. What's the big picture? Comparative perspectives on the archaeology of empire Bradley J. Parker; 13. Towards a patchwork perspective of ancient empires Tesse D. Stek and Bleda S. Düring; Index.