Janine Bourriau - Böcker

Understanding Catastrophe examines the immense and varied impact that catastrophic change can have on the development of life on earth. Opening with a remarkable account of supernovae and the nature of stellar catastrophe, it then examines the way evolution itself can proceed through genetic jumps of catastrophic proportions. The primal forces of the earth, manifested in such natural catastrophes as earthquakes and cyclones, and the devastating impact these can have even today on human populations across the world receive extended scrutiny as does the power of famine historically in determining the future of humankind. To conclude, a fascinating final chapter on changing medical and social attitudes to epidemic diseases such as tuberculosis offers - in the age of AIDS particularly - some unsettling insights into our fundamental incapacity when confronted by major threats to life and health.

This volume is a study of ceramic change in a stratified settlement at Kom Rabia, Memphis, during the New Kingdom. Ceramic chronology of this period has traditionally relied on pottery associated with dated individuals, usually from burials. In contrast, this study presents quantified evidence from a random sample taken from all contexts. A corpus has been made up for each level or phase. Appendices show the distribution of pottery within single contexts and of types within the sequence. Dating, fabric, surface treatments and shape are described in detail and there is a critical appraisal of the methodology used.

This volume is the first of a series on the ceramics from the Egypt Exploration Society's excavations in the Anubieion at Saqqara. The desert edge overlooking the Nile Valley was intensively used for two and a half millennia before its selection as the site of the mainly Ptolemaic temple. Mastaba tombs, pyramids and their associated temples, densely packed shaft tombs and a Late Dynastic cemetery came and went, many leaving evidence of former magnificence, while invisible beneath shifting sands lies fragmentary testimony to the kings, queens, nobles and commoners buried here and the priestly communities who ministered to their needs in the afterlife. Two volumes have described the surviving structures and the large and small objects found and analysed in the area's complex stratigraphy; the present volume adds the evidence of that most prolific of ancient artefacts, the pottery, for the whole period from the first use of the area until the eighth century BC. Published and some unpublished parallels from Saqqara itself, from the city of Memphis, where most of those buried here lived and died, and from further afield, place each type in its geographical and chronological context to trace the evolution of the ceramic repertoire in the Saqqara/ Memphis area through the major periods of ancient Egyptian history.

This volume is a study of ceramic changes in the stratified settlement at Kom Rabia, Memphis, during the Late Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period. The pottery is presented by sectors, following the archaeological narrative of Giddy's report (The Survey of Memphis VI), and quantitative analysis of a random sample taken from 73% of all contexts is used to plot ceramic changes through time. The fine points of this development are discussed in the commentary for each corpus, while Appendices 1 and 2 show the distribution of types within the sequence and of pottery within single contexts. Within the Egyptian pottery assemblage there were classes that required discussion of all occurrences and these are presented in two separate chapters: vessels with marks incised before and after firing (Chapter 12, Carla Gallorini) and large handmade oval plates with incised decoration ('fish dishes') (Chapter 13, Bettina Bader). Three further chapters discuss the non-Egyptian pottery: Nubian Pottery (Chapter 14, Janine Bourriau and Serena Giuliani); Aegean and Cypriote Fine Wares (Chapter 15, Kathryn Eriksson) and Middle Bronze Age Canaanite Jars (Chapter 16, Mary Ownby).