The bust of Nefertiti symbolizes the transformation of the Egyptian heritage where the West has become the rightful heir of Ancient Egypt through a system of knowledge production that controls the Egyptian cultural heritage in Western Museum collections. This article explores the intricacies of the entanglement of cultural property with heritage politics projected on the famous bust. It is the best example to discuss decolonization and its ethical implications on museum practice in the twenty-first century and Egyptology as an area study. The article discusses the legal and ethical framework of the bust of Nefertiti’s discovery, export, and current exhibition and its complex receptions in Germany and Egypt.

Un texte récemment mis au jour dans les environs de Lepti Minus (Lamta, dans le Sahel tunisien), gravé sur sur la face principale d'une base de statue, apporte un éclairage substantiel concernant l’édification de l'amphithéâtre de la ville: le contexte d‘édification, la nature du financement et l'identité des évergètes qui l‘ont pris en charge. Il s'agit donc d'un hommage public que le populus Leptitanorum a rendu à L. Octauius Felix, un notable local, membre de l'ordre équestre, coopté en qualité de patron de la cité. Le texte présente ainsi des centres d'intérêt multiples: des considérations onomastiques et sociales, le cursus équestre du notable laptitain, L. Octauius Felix, du primipilat, à la préfecture du camp de la Legio VII Gemina, en Espagne, et a prise en charge de la construction de l'amphithéâtre.

Price and Jaffe (2023) develop a compelling argument that archaeologists have under-theorised the role of failure in past human societies. The authors contend that we must adopt a flexible approach to failure and recognise that power asymmetries, distributed agency and the temporalities of outcomes all play a critical, if variable, role in the success or breakdown of a technology, cultural practice, or institution.

We thank the respondents for their thoughtful replies to our debate article (Price & Jaffe 2023). Our main objective was to start a dialogue on failure and, in that, we have happily succeeded. The comments and critiques highlight the need for more discussion and thinking if we are to place failure in the archaeological interpretive toolbox. That said, the range of definitions, analytical perspectives, and unanswered questions will, we hope, provide a bulwark against turning ‘failure’ into yet another archaeological buzzword.

This article presents a new interpretation of the results of the 1980s excavations led by Andrea Carandini on the north Palatine slope. In contrast to Carandini's original reconstruction of the complex as four atrium houses, I propose one palatial complex on the Sacra Via that finds some parallels in recently excavated complexes elsewhere, like the Auditorium site in Rome and the Borgo at San Giovenale.

In 2019, three fragments of terracotta nails were discovered at the site of Amyan (Kurdistan region of Iraq, Duhok Governorate), probably dated to the second half of the second millennium B.C. Typologically unprecedented, they nonetheless belong to the well-known category of nails found throughout Mesopotamia and Susiana, dating from the fourth to first millennia B.C. This article publishes the nails from Amyan and also contextualises them by comparing them to other terracotta nails found in northern Mesopotamia and dated to the second half of the second millennium B.C. By doing so, I ultimately propose an initial typology of these objects.

The paper presents the results of radiocarbon (14C) concentration measurements in tree rings in the vicinity of Kursk NPP (Russia) with four operating RBMK reactors. The sampling was carried out from the site with the highest expected accumulation of radiocarbon in vegetation. The site was determined with long-term meteorological data. The measurements of 14C concentration carried out with accelerator-mass spectrometer in Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, Novosibirsk, Russia. The obtained results demonstrated the influence of exploitation of Kursk NPP to the concentration of 14C in tree rings. Based on the equilibrium between the 14C ratio in the tree rings and the surrounding air, retrospective estimates of the radiocarbon discharge and effective doses were made. Effective doses were calculated with two approaches: IAEA methodology and less conservative approach, considering the real food consumption in the Kursk region. The values of calculated doses by the second method (0.08–2.58 μSv) are more than 2 times less than IAEA approach (0.17–5.30 μSv). The highest difference between measured and background 14C in tree ring is 41.7 ± 5.8 pMC in 2014 during the restoration of graphite stack. The main contribution to 14С exposure in the considering period is caused by background – from 70 to 99%.

Edition with translation of three Sumerian liturgical fragments kept today in Birmingham City Museum. In themselves they are hardly significant, but once put back into their material context, i.e. joined to fragments kept in other museums, and once compared to their literary parallels, they start to become interpretable. The first fragment may come from Larsa, while the others belong to tablets kept in Berlin, partially published in 1913 by Zimmern in his Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler 2, whose origin is admittedly Sippir. The first fragment is part of a vast liturgy of the goddess Ninisina. The two following fragments are from two different tablets both containing a liturgy of Enlil which can now be almost entirely reconstructed. A further fragment is edited in a following article.

Rabana-Merquly was a major regional centre of the Parthian era in the central Zagros highlands. This article explores the hypothesis that the Rabana intramural settlement was in part a ‘sanctuary’ devoted to the ancient Persian water goddess Anahita, based upon extensive architectural augmentations around an ephemeral waterfall, combined with the nearby construction of a probable fire altar. Two jar burials excavated in 2022 inside an adjacent building show this complex also functioned as a mausoleum. Carbon-14 dating of these cremation deposits supports occupation of the site during the second to first centuries B.C. Twin rock reliefs at the entrances to Rabana-Merquly indicate that the fortress was likely associated with the ruling dynasty of Adiabene, a vassal kingdom of the Parthian (or Arsacid) Empire in north-east Mesopotamia. A further link to Natounissarokerta/Natounia on the Kapros is suggested by the iconography of that city's coinage, which features an obverse image of a goddess, potentially a hybrid representation of Anahita-Tyche.

The Tiwanaku civilization (around AD 500–1100) originated in the Bolivian altiplano of the south-central Andes and established agrarian colonies (AD 600–1100) in the Peruvian coastal valleys. Current dietary investigations at Tiwanaku colonial sites focus on maize, a coastal valley cultivar with ritual and political significance. Here, we examine Tiwanaku provincial foodways and ask to what degree the Tiwanaku settlers maintained their culinary and agrarian traditions as they migrated into the lower-altitude coastal valleys to farm the land. We analyze archaeobotanical remains from the Tiwanaku site of Cerro San Antonio (600 m asl) in the Locumba Valley and compare them to data from the Tiwanaku site in the altiplano and the Rio Muerto site in the Moquegua Valley during the period of state expansion. Our findings show high proportions of wild, weedy, and domesticated Amaranthaceae cultivars, suggesting that Tiwanaku colonists grew traditional high-valley (2,000–3,000 m asl) and altiplano (3,000–4,000 m asl) foods on the lowland frontier because of their established cultural dietary preferences and Amaranthaceae's ability to adapt to various agroclimatic and edaphic conditions.