Focus on Fortifications: New Research on Fortifications in the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East

Rune Frederiksen · Mike Schnelle · Silke Muth · Peter Schneider

Mei 2016 · Oxbow Books

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With a collection of 57 articles in English, French and German, presenting the most recent research on ancient fortifications, this book is the most substantial publication ever to have issued on the topic for many years. While fortifications of the ancient cultures of the middle east and ancient Greek and Roman worlds were noticed by travelers and scholars from the very beginning of research on antiquity from the late 18th century onwards, the architectural, economic, logistical, political, urban and other social aspects of fortifications have been somewhat overlooked and underestimated by scholarship in the 20th century. The book presents the research of a new generation of scholars who have been analyzing those aspects of fortifications, many of them with years of experience in fieldwork on city walls. Much new evidence and a fresh look at this important category of built structure is now made available, and the publication will be of interest not only to the field of ancient architecture, but also to other sub-disciplines of archaeology and ancient history.

The papers were presented at a conference in Athens in December 2012, and they all present material and discuss topics under seven headings that represent the most central themes in the study of fortification in antiquity: the origins of fortification, physical surroundings and building technique, function and semantics, historical context, the fortification of regions and regionally confined phenomena, the fortifications of Athens and new field research.

The book is Volume 2 in the new series Fokus Fortifikation Studies, created by the German based international research network Fokus Fortifikation. The topics included have been identified by the network over many previous conferences and workshops as being the most important and as needing research and discussion beyond the network members. Volume 1 in the series, Ancient Fortifications: a compendium of theory and practice (Oxbow Books) will also appear in 2015 and together the two volumes bring the field of fortification studies up-to-date and will be an essential resource for many years to come.

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Dr Rune Frederiksen is a classical archaeologist and since 2010 the director of the Danish Institute at Athens. He did his PhD at the Copenhagen Polis Centre on Archaic Greek city walls, published in 2011, and was the Sackler Fellow at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford 2004-7 researching its collection of plaster casts of ancient sculpture. Other research interests include early Greek urbanization, Greek and Roman art and architecture, and the history of collecting in Europe since Antiquity.

Mike Schnelle is a Bauforscher specialized in archaeology. Mr Schnelle has got extensive experience as a field archaeologist and is working on a PhD focussed on the Sabaean fortifications of the cities of Sirwah and Marib in Yemen. Since 2012 he is research associate at the Sanaa Branch of the German Archaeological Institute and he is currently involved in several projects of the Branch in Sirwah, Marib and Tan'im in Yemen and Yeha and Hawelti in Ethiopia.

Dr Silke Müth is a classical archaeologist. She did her PhD at the Free University of Berlin on the topography and town planning of ancient Messene and was as a lecturer there for five years, doing research on doing research on the city walls of Messene and Zeugma. Currently she is working on the symbolic functions of Greek and Roman fortifications as a research fellow at the German Archaeological Institute at Athens with funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Further research interests include Greek and Roman urbanism and interdisciplinary approaches between archaeology and ancient history.

Dr Peter Irenäus Schneider is a Bauforscher specialized in archaeology. He conducted several field projects in Turkey (Hasankeyf, Miletos) and Saudi-Arabia (Tayma), organized a number of conferences and edited volumes on ancient architecture. Currently he is visiting professor for Building Archaeology and Conservation of Sites at Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus - Senftenberg.