David Brown Book Company

Pichvnari: Results of excavations conducted by the joint British-Georgian Pichvnari expedition; v.1: 1998-2002: Greeks and Colchians on the east coast of the Black Sea.

The discovery in the late 1940s of coin hoards and jewelry from the fifth and fourth centuries BC attracted the attention of scientists to Pichvnari, which lies on the Black Sea coast of Georgia at the confluence of the Choloki and Ochkhamuri rivers in the Adjarian Autonomous Republic. Systematic large-scale excavations by the Georgian Academy of Sciences began in 1960, but declined after the break-up of the Soviet Union. They began again in 1998 in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The findings from the first two years are compiled here by site and period. The first part contains text, and the second part illustrations, including many color photographs. Text and captions are presented first in Georgian, then in English. There is no index. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Prehistoric landscape to Roman villa; excavations at Beddington, Surrey, 1981-7.

In the six years of excavation at the site in Beddington, researchers unearthed everything from three coaxial ditches from the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age to the third century. They found evidence of renovations and improvements as technology progressed, including Roman tiles, Flavian pottery, a bathhouse, living quarters and five other buildings including two barns. In this report of the results of their researchers give a chronological narrative describing findings, analyze conditions in the upper Wandle Valley in later prehistoric and Roman periods, and give a number of specialist reports ranging from stone objects to tiles to pottery, glass and adornments. The illustrations are particularly complete, clear and well-chosen. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Representations of power in medieval Germany 800-1500.

Weiler (U. of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK) and MacLean (U. of St. Andrews) bring together 13 essays originating at a conference — part of the International Medieval Congresses — in July of 2003 at the U. of Wales conference center at Gregynog. Essays focus on the political history and rulers of medieval Germany, particularly the representation of power in regional politics through charters, material culture, love songs, literature, and historiography. Scholars also investigate the early Middle Ages, Carolingian Bavaria, Ottonian Germany, Frederick II, and the twelfth-century Renaissance. Contributors are from universities in Europe and the US. There is no index. Distributed by The David Brown Book Co. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Requiem; the medieval monastic cemetery in Britain.

The monastic cemetery appears to have been a remarkably busy place. Monks, of course were subject to the same high rates of death as those outside the walls, but they also deserved a significant amount of preparation after death, with enshrouding, stone coffins in some cases, and maintenance of graves. The result is that monastic cemeteries are remarkable resources about medieval life, social identity, ritual, the role of families and community, and the real place in daily life of those committed to prayer. The text includes observations on rites of commemoration, the cemetery as landscape, sacred and social topographies, the archeology of preparation rites, preparation and internment, the "afterlife" of graves, demography and standards of living, and interpreting burials. The authors provide instructions on using the related database and a number of well-chosen photographs and illustrations. Distributed in the US by The David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Rhodes in ancient times. (reprint, 1885)

Antiquarian Torr provided Victorian England the first and most authoritative guide to the Greek island off the coast of Asia Minor, with this and a volume on modern Rhodes. His arrangement is topical rather than chronological, considering such aspects as topography, public affairs, the gods, art, and learning. The 1885 edition was published by Cambridge University Press. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Roman working lives and urban living.

In this collection of 12 papers from a conference held at a conference organized by the Centre for Roman Provincial Archaeology at the University of Durham in July 2001, contributors describe urban living and the setting for urban lives as well as the environs of people at work in this time and place. Topics include ritual and articulation in urban space in Roman Britain and its shops and workshops, domestic architecture and social discourse, the commercial landscape of Ostia and the taberna counters of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Specific work-related articles include such topics as the social organization of trade, working with the Tiber as infrastructure, shop keeping, crafts and pottery in Britain, glass working, agricultural specialization, and doctoring. Distributed by the David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Segsbury camp; excavations in 1996 and 1997 at an iron age hillfort on the Oxfordshire Ridgeway.

This work reports on findings at an archaeological site in England. After historical background and geophysical surveys, chapters look at unusual aspects of the Segsbury excavations and present evidence from the excavations. B&w photos from the field are included. There is no subject index. The book is distributed in the US by The David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Selfless cinema?; ethics and French documentary.

Applying the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (who didn't say much about film himself), Cooper (King's College, London) views the centrality of ethics to the documentary film genre and such themes as memory, responsibly for the past, and identity. She focuses on the films of four representative French film-makers: Jean Rouch (e.g., Les Maîtres fous, 1955); Chris Marker (Sans Soleil, 1982), Raymond Depardon (Urgences, 1987); and Agnès Varda (Duex ans après, 2002). The book includes film stills and a filmography, but not translations of French titles into English. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Co. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Shadows of a northern past; rock carvings of Bohuslän and Østfold.

The wealth of bronze age rock carved images in Bohuslän, Sweden and Østfold, Norway are described by Cole, whose study of the carvings extends over 30 years. He surveys the types of images, the placement of the sites, and the changes that have occurred in the landscape since ancient times. The book is oversize (9.75x12 inches) and heavily illustrated with b&w and color photos and drawings. Distributed in the U.S. by The David Brown Book Co. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Smakkerup Huse; a late mesolithic coastal site in northwest Zealand, Denmark.

The site at the headwaters of a former fjord known as the Saltbæk Vig, was excavated in 1989 and again in 1995-97. This report includes some background on the Mesolithic of southern Scandinavia, a history of research, the geology and topography of the site and environment, the layout and sequent of the excavations, stratigraphy, the finds, dating, interpretation, and significance. As always in Mesolithic studies, a major question is why people changed from hunting and gathering to farming. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Snail Down, Wiltshire; the bronze age barrow cemetery and related earthworks, in the parishes of Collingbourne Ducis...excavations, 1953, 1955 and 1957.

When researchers excavated Snail Down, situated about eight miles from Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain, they found it largely contains ashes as cremation was the favored rite. However, they also found several hundred years' worth of grave-goods, including ornaments, awls, flints, bonework and vessels, and insight into how people ate and hunted and lived and died and also how the graves were constructed and tended. This narrative and catalog of the findings (including a trepanned human cranial disc and a variety of sophisticated tools and examples of pottery) includes photographs and drawings done at the time of excavation. Along with being a fascinating study of Snail Down, this also gives younger scholars a very good idea of how excavations were conducted and recorded 50 years ago. Distributed in North American by The David Brown Book Co. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The splendor of the word; medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts at the New York Public Library.

In this beautifully photographed collection of 100 illuminated manuscripts from the collection of the New York Public Library, the devotion, passion, and precision of the art form becomes startlingly clear. The text for each manuscript includes provenance and bibliography as well as a significant scholarly commentary on the content and construction of the piece. The artwork ranges from the deeply devotional to the resolutely whimsical, illuminated letters abound, and even the Apocalypse is beautiful. This book has a second ISBN: 0-87104-455-2 (New York Public Library). Distributed by the David Brown Book Co. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

St. Martin's uncovered; investigations in the churchyard of St. Martin's-in-the-Bull Ring, Birmingham, 2001. (CD-ROM included)

Brickley et al., a group from Birmingham Archaeology, provide a report of their findings during an excavation of the St. Martin's churchyard in Birmingham, England, in 2001, which uncovered 857 burials from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The report describes findings relating to health, diseases, burial and funeral practices, demographics, family histories, and life in Birmingham. Background information on the excavations, parish, church, churchyard, methods, dating, and detailed contents, along with tables of photos of findings, is included. The CD-ROM contains nine appendices with reports and data on pottery, grave memorial stones, analyses of human bone, and catalogs of individuals, and textiles and fiber. Distributed by The David Brown Book Co. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

St Wulfsige and Sherborne; essays to celebrate the millennium of the Benedictine abbey, 998-1998.

In an era of warlords, when life was often short and brutal, St. Wulsige brought some degree of refuge, both spiritual and temporal, in his founding of a Benedictine House at Sherborne. A thousand years later those who still seek the peace of understanding have contributed materials to this collection, including papers delivered at the April 1998 commemorative conference and the first complete translation into English of the Life of St. Wulfsige written by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin. Topics of the 21 papers collected include the charter for Sherborne Abbey, the writing and spelling of Wulfsige's and other Anglo-Saxon personal names, tenth-century monastic reform, saints' lives in Anglo-Saxon Wessex, the effects of Viking campaigns, the abbey and its estates at its founding, Benedictine books of the time and place, iconography, the dissolution of the abbey, and aspects of the Benedictine legacy in Sherborne today. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Stone age Scania; significant places dug and read by contract archaeology.

Since the 1960s, Swedish archaeologists have been hiring companies to conduct excavations, the practice based on the assumption that such excavation was designed merely to document findings, which would be interpreted later by professionals sitting clean, dry, and warm in their ivoried towers. One problem is that results have not been published as quickly as they have come in. Here is a synthesis of research in the Scania region in southern Sweden based mainly on the substantial results from contract archaeology during the past decade, addressing many classic research questions and offering new interpretations. It is the first in a projected series to clear the backlog while the whole enterprise is being rethought. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Studies in the ancient history of northern Iraq.

British archaeologist Oates' (1927-2004) report on his survey and excavation of sites in northern Iraq between 1954 and 1958 was also a memorial to his predecessor Aurel Stein. It was published for The British Academy by Oxford University Press in 1968, and has long been out of print. Here is a facsimile reprint with the original page numbers. His widow and long-time collaborator Joan Oates contributes a new preface. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Sutton Hoo; a seventh-century princely burial ground and its context.

This book offers complete description of archaeological investigations begun in 1983 to understand the context of the seventh-century burial ship discovered (in 1939) at Sutton Hoo on the River Deben in Suffolk (its treasure is in the British Museum). Contributions discuss the design and execution of the excavation, the artefacts themselves and their interpretation, and the site's prehistoric and post Sutton Hoo contexts. Published by the British Museum Press and distributed in the US by The David Brown Book Co., this volume is identified as part of the series "Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London, No.69." (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Town plans in place and time; extension planning and conservation in the 1909 Copenhagen International Competition.

The Danish city of Copenhagen held an international competition in 1908-1909 soliciting urban planning proposals for the city's expansion. In surveying institutional, professional, and biographical aspects of that event, this work is primarily concerned with demonstrating how a town planning competition can be analyzed as "a structure of communication for conceptual approaches and occupational practices in relation to professional bodies of architects, engineers, surveyors or landscape gardeners, which were confronting views and competence on how to order urban transformation and development." A secondary theme concerns planning as a cultural activity embedded in historical circumstance. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

(Un)settling the neolithic.

A suspicion about the fundamental concepts and structures that underlie research into the Neolithic period in central and eastern Europe has led these archaeologists, most of them British, to forge new intellectual paths through the field. Their topics include unstable dwellings and fluid landscapes in the earliest Neolithic of Greece, the role of pottery in agropastorialist communities in southern Romania, and environmental archaeology in tells. Distributed in the US by the David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Vicars choral at English cathedrals; Cantate Domino; history, architecture and archaeology.

This study of medieval priests in England focuses on vicars choral, lower employees of the church who were assigned liturgical duties at secular cathedrals and housed in special buildings. Hall (York Archaeological Trust) and Stocker (English Heritage) assemble essays on the architectural, archaeological, and historical characteristics of nine English colleges (groups) of vicars. The 16 essays by an interdisciplinary group of scholars are from a conference organized by the York Archaeological Trust in 2002 and held in York. They describe the history and origins of vicars choral, their work with choirs, and their accommodations at churches in Chichester, Exeter, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln Minster, St. Paul's in London, Salisbury, Wells, Ripon, Beverley, and Southwell. The last four essays center on archaeological aspects and domestic and religious life of the college at York. Distributed by the David Brown Book Company. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Women of distinction; Margaret of York and Margaret of Austria.

Published to accompany an eponymous exhibition held in Mechelen, Belgium (where both Margarets lived) in 2005, this sumptuous, oversize (10x11.5 inches) catalogue contains 16 essays by an international group of art historians and historians in addition to color plates and catalogue entries for 153 objects. Wooden sculpture, tapestry, illuminated manuscripts, early prints, and painting are some of the arts featured. The activities of both women in politics, patronage of the arts, religion, literature, and collecting are some of the topics, making this a rich resource for all interested in the history and arts of the 15th and early 16th centuries in northern Europe. Distributed in the US by The David Brown Book Co. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)