ActaRom-4°, 57: The Synagogue of Ancient Ostia and the Jews of Rome (2001)
ActaRom-4° / 2001-03-01

Distributed by Astrom Editions. The Synagogue of Ancient Ostia and the Jews of Rome. Interdisciplinary Studies Edited by Birger Olsson, Dieter Mitternacht & Olof Brandt In March of 1997 a research project on the ancient synagogue began at Lund University, Sweden, continuing a tradition of research that has its roots in the 1930s. The project’s title “The Ancient Synagogue: Birthplace of Two World Religions” suggests that Judaism and Christianity existed for a time in close proximity to each other and were shaped by the same particular milieu within the ancient world, namely, the synagogue. The synagogue in ancient Ostia was chosen as an initial case study, since there is evidence that it was built during the first century CE and consequently is one of the earlier synagogues in the Roman world to have been excavated. Olof Brandt presents for the first time a more extensive description of the area outside the city walls where the synagogue was built. Anders Runesson surveys all the material that has been published about Ostia in order to make a new reconstruction of the synagogue’s history in Ostia. Magnus Zetterholm attempts, primarily with the aid of interpretative theories and general considerations, to sketch the relations…

ActaRom-4°, 56: From huts to houses (2001)

Distributed by Astrom Editions. See record at WorldCat. From huts to houses. Transformations of ancient societies. Proceedings of an international seminar organized by the Norwegian and Swedish Institutes in Rome, 21–24 September 1997 J. Rasmus Brandt & Lars Karlsson, eds. The present volume contains 43 of the 43 announced papers and 11 posters presented at an international conference in Rome in 1997. In a cross-cultural context, the papers examine various aspects of transformation processes connected with architectural changes, covering themes such as building types and development, building function, building technology, and finance and organization. Within this framework, the investigations span a long era, extending from the Mesolithic period to modern times, including experimental reconstructions of ancient dwellings. From the geographical and cultural point of view the contributions cover the Middle East and Europe from the Arabian deserts to the Arctic Ocean, though with a slight emphasis on central Italy in the Iron Age. The last article is a translation from Swedish to English of a study on shepherd huts in the Roman campagna made by S. Erixon in 1932, an article often quoted in studies on primitive architecture, but not easily accessible to all. Bibliographical information J. Rasmus Brandt &…

ActaAth-4°, 46: The function of the “Minoan villa” (1997)

Published by the Swedish Institute at Athens. Distributed by Astrom Editions The function of the “Minoan villa”. Proceedings of the Eight International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 6–8 June, 1992 Edited by Robin Hägg These twenty papers, presented at an international conference in Athens, deal with various aspects of the so-called villas in Neopalatial Crete and their possible predecessors or equivalents in the preceding, Protopalatial period. They are followed by transcripts of the discussions of the symposium. Among the problems treated are: the origin of the “villa system”, the definition of the “villa”, the architectural analysis of buildings and building complexes, the magico-religious background of the “villa”, the role of religious painting, the origin of the Cretan andreion, and a study of ceramic exchange between towns and outlying settlements in Neopalatial eastern Crete. Special discussions concern the functional analysis of the architecture, administration and bureaucracy, with special reference to seals, sealings and Linear A tablets and political geography. Contents ‘Preface’, 7 Henri van Effenterre & Micheline van Effenterre, ‘Towards a study of Neopalatial “villas”: modern words for Minoan things’, 9–13 Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier, ‘The origins of the Minoan “villa” system’, 15–19 J.A. MacGillivray, ‘The Cretan countryside in the Old…