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The Graeco-Roman site of Tell Timai (ancient Thmuis) in Lower Egypt is among the largest urban tells in the Nile Delta, boasting substantial amounts of preserved earthen architecture. Although earthen architecture made up the vast majority of public and domestic structures in ancient Egypt, it still does not receive the same analytical attention from archaeologists as other categories of evidence. This paper presents a case study for the archaeological investigation of the earthen architecture at Tell Timai. The goal was to develop a methodology that can be implemented in the field by excavators with little geoarchaeological training and limited laboratory access in order to generate useful data for determining building stratigraphy and studying construction processes. Through the close examination and sampling of three buildings of different periods and scales, we tested a new field methodology combining geoarchaeological techniques and mensiochronology. The results provide information useful for stratigraphy and phasing as well as for identifying specific patterns of mudbrick manufacturing, production, and construction during the Graeco-Roman period at Tell Timai.

Soon after the destruction of the Monumental Arch at Tadmor-Palmyra by the Islamic State in 2015, the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) erected a physical replica of the monument in Trafalgar Square, London. The IDA project has been subject to extensive criticism, but this essay focuses on an overlooked aspect of that discourse: the presentation of the Monumental Arch as essentially “Roman” by the IDA and in the media, which amounts to an erasure of its fundamental Syrianness. Through a brief survey of the historical and architectural context, I highlight how the monument is truly a Palmyrene work in terms of its purpose, form, decor, and construction. I also explore how the IDA’s framing of the Monumental Arch is a consequence of lingering colonial biases within the fields of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern archaeology. Thus, the IDA project was a missed opportunity to rightly situate the Monumental Arch within a true global history of architecture and give Syrian heritage its due.

The 2010 excavation season at Tel Dor (located on Israel’s Carmel coast) marked the eighth year of the new campaign and the thirtieth year overall of continuous study and excavation of this Mediter...

The interchange between Greek and Semitic traditions of religious practice has long been one of the more fascinating aspects for scholars of the Hellenistic East. In order to highlight the ambiguity of the visual evidence for questions of religious acculturation as well as to draw attention to the importance of context, physical, historical, and political as well as cultural, this chapter looks at the images related to one of the most well-documented cases of interpretatio graeca of a Near Eastern divinity: Herakles and Melqart. There is a tendency to explain the Greek character of visualizations of Tyrian 'Herakles' as an indication (or result) of the general 'Hellenization', more or less deep, of Phoenician culture generally or the Tyrian god specifically. Keywords: Hellenistic East; Herakles; interculturality; Phoenician culture; religious acculturation; Tyrian Melqart