In 2022, a Tunisian citizen was arrested in Oslo when he tried to sell 30 Carthaginian bronze coins to a local antiques dealer. The dealer had previously alerted the police after receiving an email inquiry asking him whether he was interested in buying a ‘large number’ of Punic coins from an alleged underwater find, presumably a hoard, off the coast of Tunisia. The University of Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History, which cooperates with law-enforcement agencies and the authorities in cases involving illicit cultural artefacts, assisted with the identification of the coins. Eventually, the latter were returned to Tunisia, and Norwegian prosecutors dropped the charges against the Tunisian national. This article discusses the relevant legal framework of the case and the process that unfolded from the time when an attempt was made to sell the coins until they were returned to their country of origin. The broader numismatic implications of this find are also examined.

This article revisits the concept of the ‘Christian city’ in Late Antique North Africa by shifting the focus from topography to the lived and perceived urban experience. While earlier scholarship has emphasized the accumulation of Christian buildings, this study argues that religious transformation is equally, if not more, visible through the evolving practices of city inhabitants. By analysing both Christian and continuing pagan traditions between the fourth and seventh centuries, the article explores how monuments and public religious practices shaped the perception and function of the city. Special attention is given to the volumetric presence of sacred architecture and to the role of public spaces, particularly streets, in hosting religious acts. Ultimately, the study offers a more nuanced understanding of the Christian city: one defined not solely by the presence of basilicas, but by the rhythms, gestures, and visibility of religious life within the broader civic landscape.

It has often been considered that the representations of the gods in Ancient Central Mexico were purely symbolic and that we should not look for the presence of glottograms, i.e. signs that encode linguistic units pronounced in the Nahuatl language. This article intends to demonstrate that we should reject the image/writing dichotomy in this context. In order to understand the identity of the Nahua gods, it is necessary to combine symbolic deciphering with a reading of the names embedded in their bodies and ornaments. This article takes the example of several representations of gods in codices of the Aztec tradition. It shows that this embedded script used the main scriptural techniques known in Nahuatl writing: logograms, phonograms, and indicators. In this way, the identity of the god, and therefore its ritual effectiveness, was expressed simultaneously visually and phonically.

This paper presents the results of recent geophysical survey work in the vicinity of the Roman town of Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough, North Yorkshire). It combines results from research projects with information from developer-funded work to assess the nature of settlement in the area at the time of the foundation of the Roman town and through the period of its use. The work confirms that there was no major pre-Roman Iron Age centre in the area at the time of Roman annexation. It does, however, provide new evidence to show that the landscape was heavily exploited and occupied by rural settlements. The evidence revealed suggests that Iron Age society in this area may have been heterarchical.

A 103 km2 aerial lidar survey of Dzibanche/Kaanu’l, Mexico, reveals the city’s settlement to be more populous and well-organized than previously thought. The sprawling settlement incorporated the early center of Ichkabal in a network of smaller peri-urban civic-ceremonial nodes. The density and complexity of the Kaanu’l settlement is consistent with its extraordinary political reach as a multiregional hegemonic state. The city and settlement grew to their maximum extent during the Early Classic period until AD 630. The lidar-derived data show that Dzibanche may have had the largest monumental zone and highest population density in the Maya Lowlands at that time. The Early Classic layout was unaltered by later construction, allowing us to document a well-developed system of causeways connecting an urban center and peripheral plaza groups with surrounding settlements and agricultural fields. The spatial organization and interconnectedness of this Early Classic settlement suggests a greater level of urban planning for optimal flow of goods and people across urban and peri-urban zones than previously thought.

Intertextual linkages between Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions and mythological narratives have significantly contributed to our understanding of royal self-presentation and historicization. Less explored, however, are how such linkages may be interpreted and visualized within royal art. In this paper, I propose an intervisual connection between Ninurta mythologies and Assyrian royal lion hunts by unpacking modes of display and interaction embedded between image, text, and lived experience in the palace art of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. Intervisuality was arguably deployed as an innovative strategy to craft a sophisticated connection between royal and divine kingship. I explore how Anzû, a mythological adversary of Ninurta that embodies chaos and disorder, was conceptualized and manifested across media, including cylinder seals and in relief art. Consequently, the paper displaces the typical focus given to the Assyrian king by instead investigating the roles of animals and monsters in upholding royal narratives. I argue that the form and actions of Anzû as embodied and performed in objects act as powerful symbolic referents that anchor its transformed image in royal hunt narratives. In conclusion, I consider why Ashurbanipal may have employed visual references to Anzû in his palace art.

This study examines the organization of large-scale chert biface production in the Maya Lowlands, focusing on Took’ Witz, an architectural group of El Palmar in Campeche, Mexico. Excavations and debitage analysis at three plazuelas and a major debitage deposit revealed a complex lithic industry. The results identified segmented production activities in households, from sourcing materials and early-stage reduction to late-stage biface production. The production scale far exceeded household consumption, probably supporting intensive agriculture in the region. The results provide insight into the variable settings and organization of the biface industry throughout the Maya Lowlands.

En el recinto sagrado de Mexico-Tenochtitlan, capital del imperio mexica (Azteca), se han recuperado 18 vasijas trípodes con aletas al interior de diversos contextos rituales. El estudio cuidadoso de sus atributos iconográficos, formales y contextuales revela que estos objetos estaban vinculados directamente con el pulque (una bebida alcohólica producida con la savia fermentada del maguey) y sus deidades, además de descifrar su función ritual dentro del discurso simbólico de este importante espacio de la ciudad. Se concluye que estas vasijas reflejan dos aspectos simbólicos del pulque, los cuales están determinados por la materia prima con la que fueron elaboradas. Las vasijas de cerámica se vinculan con la fertilidad, la vida, la música y los juegos; mientras que las de piedra verde están relacionadas con la noche, la muerte, el sacrificio y la guerra. Estas vasijas fueron un símbolo estandarizado entre la sociedad mexica, además que fueron ampliamente reproducidas en manuscritos y otros objetos arqueológicos, resaltando su importancia y el vínculo constante con las deidades del pulque.

Indigenous archaeology and archaeology of Indigeneity are paramount in the contemporary world. We certainly need more of it across the archaeological scale and across the archaeological globe. Archaeology’s unhealthy attachment to colonialism, colonial administration and imperialism keeps on affecting our discipline on all levels. It is therefore encouraging to read Felix Acuto’s call for an engaged and activist Indigenous archaeology of Latin America. It is certainly needed, but depressing to learn about the recurrent atrocities against Indigenous peoples in Argentina.

This report discusses recent excavations in a residential neighborhood of Palenque and the broader implications of a preliminary analysis of chert and obsidian flaked stone. We argue that the high relative frequency of obsidian blades, chert drills, cores, and primary core shaping debitage from one residential group is evidence for multicrafting and intensified production beyond the immediate needs of the household.

This paper investigates how Assyrian kings protected their material legacies for posterity and why in some prominent instances such protections failed, with a particular focus on the palaces of Kalḫu and Nineveh during the Sargonid Period. I approach this question through the lens of intergenerational reciprocity; Assyrian worldviews provided various channels through which past, present, and future kings could engage with one another in reciprocal and coercive relationships across time. Unlike curses and blessings, which were relatively easy for Assyrian kings to disregard, these reciprocal relationships provided more compelling incentives for rulers to honour and preserve their predecessors’ material legacies. However, practical or ideological concerns would sometimes result in the need to alter buildings in ways that damaged the material legacy of a past ruler. In some of these instances, steps were taken to symbolically compensate the past ruler in question for this damage. In this fashion, rulers were able to negotiate the ideological tension between tradition and innovation to preserve historical memory while adapting living cultural heritage to meet current needs.