How did Romans drive around their cities? While Classical authors had plenty to say about the coarse manners of the muleteers using the streets, they were less interested in setting down the rules of the road. Was it just a free-for-all? Subtle traces worn into the streets of Pompeii by passing carts suggest otherwise. Our cover feature sets out how to be streetwise in the ancient city.
There is no doubt that the ladies laid to rest in a remarkable Copper Age tomb at Montelirio, Spain, were more highly thought of in their community than Pompeii’s muleteers. Placed alongside the dead were beautiful objects crafted by highly skilled artisans. But who were these ladies, and how did they meet their fate?
A list of female names on a tablet from the Assyrian provincial capital at Ziyaret Tepe, Turkey, provided a mystery of another kind when it emerged they were written in a previously unknown language. This is only one of the remarkable discoveries to emerge from long-running excavations, which have shed new light on life and death at the site.
The life and death of the city at Amarna, Egypt, was intimately tied to that of its founder: the ‘heretic pharaoh’ Akhenaten. When the settlement was abandoned following his demise, a craftsman left behind some sculpture. This included a famous – and much imitated – likeness of Nefertiti. What can creating a replica of the bust reveal about this remarkable work of art?
Nefertiti’s modern home is in Berlin’s Neues Museum, but as our travel section shows, there is far more to enjoy on the city’s Museum Island. Tunisia’s spectacular Roman cities are also under the spotlight, while David J Breeze has visited Aquincum, Hungary – and in the reviews section casts a critical eye over the book I wrote before taking over as editor CWA.
FEATURES
Montelirio Exceptional Copper Age burial rites in an Iberian tomb
Crosstown traffic Driving the streets of Pompeii
Ziyaret Tepe Two decades researching a bastion of the Assyrian north
Spotlight: Nefertiti Recreating an icon
NEWS
- Roman harboured secrets
- Finding the first Americans
- Tracking China’s prehistoric food miles
- Discoveries from Roman Doliche
- First funerary fish hooks found
- Excavating a Wari temple
- Best foot forward
- Blockbuster finds
NEWS FOCUS
A painted camel in the Ice Age Urals
CHARLES HIGHAM
The Maritime Silk Road: new findings
HORIZON
Rituals in the Nasca desert
TRAVEL
GERMANY: Richard Hodges explores Berlin’s Museum Island
TUNISIA: Caitlin McCall investigates Roman Carthage
HUNGARY: David J Breeze goes on the trail of Hadrian in Aquincum
CULTURE
MUSEUM
The Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery of China and South Asia at the British Museum
REVIEWS
Protecting the Roman Empire; Built on Bones; The Diversity of Hunter-Gatherer Pasts; Egyptian Art; The Fate of Rome
SPECIAL REPORT
Championing conservation after conflict
CHRIS CATLING
Vices and victories
FORUM
Letters, crossword, cartoon
THINKING ALOUD
Interpreting ‘nothing’
OBJECT LESSON
William the Hippo
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