Battered Books Seek Caring New Home

Just as the plucky three-legged cats of this world tend to end up in animal shelters looking for love and attention from a kindly owner, we at Oxbow have a collection of less-than-perfect books in need of a caring home…

Of all the new books that have passed over the desks of the Oxbow staff this month, these, for whatever reason, are the ones that grabbed their attention.

Roman Working Lives and Urban Living
edited by Ardle Mac Mahon and Jennifer Price
Paperback. GB £25.00

The ordinary people who made up the largest section of the population in the cities and towns in the Roman world were largely ignored by contemporary writers and have often been marginalised in traditional studies of Roman urbanism, but research into their patterns of work and social interaction had increased markedly in recent years. This book has come out of a conference on 'Roman Working Lives and Urban Living' held at the University of Durham in 2001. The conference was planned as a forum for people researching urban space and architecture, commercial and retail structures, organisation of craft activity and social theory. The twelve papers presented here have been organised into two categories: Urban living and the settings for working lives and People at work: Owners, and artisans, crafts and professions. The range of topics and variety of approaches in the papers emphasise the wealth of the material available, and it is hoped that this will stimulate further research into the lives of the 'silent voices' of Roman urban society.

Fertile Ground
edited by David N Smith
Paperback. GB £40.00, GB £5.00

Most of the papers presented here come from a one-day meeting of the Association for Environmental Archaeology, held in Autumn 2000. They are centred on issues looked at by Susan Limbrey during her career, and presented in her honour on the occasion of her retirement...

The Archaeology of Death in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the Manchester Conference, 16th-20th December 1992
edited by Stuart Campbell and Anthony Green
Paperback. GB £40.00

The conference in Manchester in 1992 which this book came out of was organised to raise the profile of the study of mortuary remains in the Ancient Near East. Thirty papers from the conference are published here, covering a wide variety of regions and periods, from Epipalaeolithic to modern. Many different aspects are examined: physical anthropology, burial goods, social structure, ethoarchaeology, etc. This volume has a wide relevance not only to the areas specifically addressed, but also in the interpretation of burial remains and the evolution of society.
Recently re-released.

Conferences we will be attending

EAA (European Archaeologists Association) 2005
University College Cork, Ireland (Monday 05 September, 2005 - Sunday 11 September, 2005)
11th Annual Meeting of the EAA. Themes/papers/excursions to be announced. Further details will become available on their website. For further information please contact Gina Johnson, email: eaacork2005@corkcity.ie

EES (Egypt Exploration Society) 2005
Cambridge, UK (Saturday 24th, 2005 - Sunday 25 September, 2005)
There is currently no all-embracing forum for those involved in Egyptology in the UK to present their work to fellow colleagues, students and the wider, interested public, and we believe that such an event would be of benefit to all. We do not intend the event to be the stage for the presentation of ground breaking new research only, though such work is undoubtedly underway in the many centres of Egyptology across the country. We see this as an opportunity for all concerned to keep abreast of the extremely broad range of topics being researched by people from a variety of backgrounds and training, and as a convenient means of introduction and point of contact for scholars, students and other enthusiasts, who might otherwise never have the chance to hear of each others’ work, or to meet and to discuss things informally. We firmly believe in the value of such an event, but need the support of the Egyptological community in order to make it a success. We are well aware that most involved with the subject are already very busy, but would urge you to place your faith in the idea and to support the event.
http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/projects/ae/Congress/Congress_index.html