Summer Reading List for Ancient Worlds, 2024/25

We have summer reading lists for some of our postgraduate courses, which you might like to peruse.

The summer is a good time to get ahead with your studies, what follows is a list of suggested pre-course readings, and are in no way exhaustive. It is, of course, not a requirement that you read any of these books before commencing a course. Many libraries will have copies of these books and Amazon.co.uk and Abebooks.co.uk will hopefully have cheap second hand copies of other works. BookFinder.com – is also a useful website as it searches a wide range of both new and secondhand databases.

Some general introductions into our fields

This section lists a few resources that introduce our fields – you may want to look at some of them before taking the Core Course. They should be easy reading, but some of them are fact-heavy, so perhaps keep your notebooks ready!

Díaz-Andreu García, M., Lucy, S., Babić, S. and Edwards, D. N. 2005 (eds.). The Archaeology of Identity: Approaches to Gender, Age, Status, Ethnicity and Religion. London.

Johnson, M. 2019. Archaeological Theory: An Introduction. 3rd Edition. London.

Carver, M. 2009. Archaeological Investigation. London.

Lucas, G. 2005. The Archaeology of Time. London.

Morley, N. 1999. Writing Ancient History. London.

Morley, N. 2018. Classics: Why it Matters. Cambridge.

Some recent books people talk about in Classics/Ancient History (all epochs):

This section has nothing in particular to do with current course offerings. It lists relatively recent titles written in English that have stirred more than the usual amount of debate in their respective fields – which does not of course mean that what they argue is true! All of them should be interesting to read, though some are more complicated than others.

Harper, K. (2017), The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. Princeton.

Kosmin, P. (2018), Time and its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire. Cambridge (MA).

Mason, S. (2016), A History the Jewish War. A.D. 66-74. Cambridge.

Ober, J. (2017), Demopolis: Democracy Before Liberalism in Theory and Practice. Cambridge.

Quinn, J. (2017), In Search of the Phoenicians. Princeton.

Scheidel, W. (2018), The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century. Princeton.

Simonton, M. (2017), Classical Greek Oligarchy: A Political History. Princeton.

Books Related to Courses:

Some readings for Debating Marriage Between Antiquity and the Middle Ages

• Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988)
• Kate Cooper, The Fall of the Roman Household (Cambridge, 2007)
• David d'Avray, Papacy, Monarchy and Marriage, 860-1600 (Cambridge, 2015)
• Judith Evans Grubb, Law and Family in Late Antiquity: Emperor Constantine's Marriage Legislation (Oxford, 1995)
• Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass., 2013)
• Ruth M. Karras, Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 2012)
• Sara McDougall, Royal Bastards: The Birth of Illegitimacy, 800-1230 (Oxford, 2017)
• Philip L. Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage during the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods (Leiden, 1994)
• Rachel Stone, Morality and Masculinity in the Carolingian Empire (Cambridge, 2011)
• Rachel Stone and Charles West, The Divorce of King Lothar and Queen Theutberga: Hincmar of Rheims's De Divortio (Manchester, 2016)
• Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford, 1991)
• Suzanne F. Wemple, Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500 to 900 (Philadelphia, 1981)

Some readings for Egypt and its neighbours during the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BCE)

• Bar, S.; Kahn, D. and Shirley, J. J. (eds.) 2011. Egypt, Canaan and Israel: history, imperialism, ideology and literature. Proceedings of a conference at the University of Haifa, 3-7 May 2009. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 52. Leiden; Boston: Brill.
• Kilani, M. 2019. Byblos in the Late Bronze Age: interactions between the Levantine and Egyptian worlds. Harvard Semitic Museum publications; Studies in the archaeology and history of the Levant 9. Leiden; Boston: Brill.
• Moreno García, J.C. 2018. Ethnicity in ancient Egypt: an introduction to key issues. Journal of Egyptian History 11 (1-2), 1-17.
• Morris, E. 2005. The architecture of imperialism: military bases and the evolution of foreign policy in Egypt's New Kingdom. Probleme der Ägyptologie 22. Leiden; Boston: Brill.
• Mumford, G. 2014. Egypt and the Levant. In: M. L. Steinerand A. E. Killebrew (eds.), The Oxford handbook of the archaeology of the Levant, c. 8000-332 BCE. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 69-89.
• Raue, Dietrich (ed.) 2019. Handbook of ancient Nubia, 2 vols. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter.
• Schneider, T. 2010. Foreigners in Egypt: Archaeological evidence and cultural context. In: W. Wendrich (ed.), Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 143-163.
• Schneider, T. 2003. Foreign Egypt, Egyptology and the concept of cultural appropriation. Ägypten und Levante 13, 155-162.
• Smith, S. T. and M.R. Buzon 2014. Colonial entanglements: "Egyptianization" in Egypt's Nubian empire and the Nubian Dynasty. In: J.Anderson and D.A. Welsby (eds.), The Fourth Cataract and beyond: proceedings of the 12th International Conference for Nubian Studies. Leuven; Paris; Walpole, MA: Peeters, 431-442.

Some readings for The Athenian Akropolis

• Barringer, J. M. 2008. Art, Myth, and Ritual in Classical Greece. Cambridge.
• Berger, E., ed. 1984. Parthenon-Kongress Basel. Mainz.
• Economakis, R., ed. 1994. Acropolis Restoration: the CCAM Interventions. London.
• Hurwit, J.M. 1999. The Athenian Acropolis. Cambridge.
• Hurwit, J.M. 2004. The Acropolis in the Age of Pericles. Cambridge.
• Keesling, C. 2003. Votive Statues of the Athenian Acropolis. Cambridge.
• Neils, J. 1996. Worshipping Athena: Panathenaia and Parthenon. Madison.
• Neils, J. 2001. The Parthenon Frieze. Cambridge.
• Parker, R. 1996. Athenian Religion: A History. Oxford.
• Pausanias, Description of Greece.
• Pollitt, J.J. 1997. "The Meaning of the Parthenon Frieze" In The Interpretation of Architectural Sculpture in Greece and Rome, edited by D. Buitron-Oliver, 50-65.
• Stewart, A., 2005. Attalos, Athens, and the Akropolis. Cambridge.

Some readings for Etruscan Italy, 1000-300 BC

Barker, G. & Rasmussen, T. 1998. The Etruscans. Oxford, Blackwell. Bell, S. & Carpino, A. (eds.) 2016. A Companion to the Etruscans. John Wiley & Sons.  Haynes, S. 2000. Etruscan civilization. A cultural history. London, British Museum Publications. Izzet, V. 2007. The Archaeology of Etruscan Society. Cambridge University Press.  Leighton, R. 2004. Tarquinia. An Etruscan city. London, Bloomsbury. Naso, A. (ed.) 2017. Etruscology. De Gruyter.  Riva, C. 2020. A Short History of the Etruscans. London, Bloomsbury.  Smith, C. 2014. The Etruscans. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.  Turfa, J.M. (ed.) 2013. The Etruscan World. Routledge. 

Some readings for Herod the Great and the End of Hellenism

• D. Ariel & J.-P. Fontanille, The Coins of Herod. A Modern Analysis and Die Classification, Leiden 2012.
• E. Baltrusch, Herodes. König im Heiligen Land, Munich 2012.
• K. Czajkowski & B. Eckhardt, Herod in History. Nicolaus of Damascus and the Augustan Context, Oxford 2021.
• A. Marshak, The Many Faces of Herod the Great, Grand Rapids 2015.
• E. Netzer, The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder, Tübingen 2006.
• P. Richardson & A. M. Fischer, Herod. King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans, 2nd ed. London 2018.
• A. Schalit, König Herodes. Der Mann und sein Werk, Berlin 1969.
• G. Vermes, The True Herod, London 2014.

Some readings for Homo migrans: The archaeology of migrations from prehistory to the present

• Anthony, D.W. 1990. Migration in archeology: The baby and the bathwater. American Anthropologist 92(4), 895-914.
• Burmeister, S. 2000. Archaeology and migration. Approaches to an archaeological proof of migration. Current Anthropology 41(4), 539-567 (with comments).
• Fernandez-Gotz, M., Nimura, C., Stockhammer and Cartwright, R. (eds.) 2023. Rethinking Migrations in Late Prehistoric Eurasia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Fisher, M.H. 2013. Migration: A World History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Frieman, C.J. and Hofmann, D. 2019. Present pasts in the archaeology of genetics, identity, and migration in Europe: a critical essay. World Archaeology 51(4), 528-545.
• Hakenbeck, S. 2008. Migration in archaeology: are we nearly there yet? Archaeological Review from Cambridge 23(2), 9-26.
• Hamilakis, Y. (ed.) 2018. The New Nomadic Age: Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented Migration. Bristol: Equinox Publishing.
• Manning, P. 2005. Migration in World History. London/New York: Routledge.
• Reich, D. 2018. Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Van Dommelen, P. 2014. Moving on: Archaeological perspectives on mobility and migration. World Archaeology 46(4): 477-483.

Some readings for Popular Culture in the Roman World

• Burke, P. (2009) Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. 3rd edition. Farnham.
• Clarke, J. R. (2003) Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans: Visual Representation and Non-Elite Viewers in Italy, 100 BC- AD 315. London.
• Forsdyke, S. (2012) Slaves Tell Tales and Other Episodes in the Politics of Popular Culture in Ancient Greece. Princeton.
• Frankfurter, D. (1998) Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance. Princeton.
• Hall, S. (1981) "Notes on Deconstructing the 'Popular'", in R. Samuel (ed.), People's History and Socialist Theory (London): 227-40.
• Hansen, W. (1998) Anthology of Ancient Greek Popular Literature. Bloomington and Indianapolis.
• Horsfall, N. (2003) The Culture of the Roman Plebs. London.
• Kurke, L. (2011) Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose. Princeton and Oxford.
• Scott, J.C. (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. London.
• Storey, J. (2006) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. 4th edition. London.
• Toner, J. (2009) Popular Culture in Ancient Rome. Cambridge.
• Whitmarsh, T. (2008) The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel. Cambridge.