Archaeology

A joint effort between Oxford University Press and the renowned American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), this comprehensive work analyzes the archaeological and linguistic data that pertain to the broad cultural milieu of the ancient Near East, the crossroads of three of the world's most influential religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Ranging from prehistoric times up to the early centuries of the rise of Islam, the work covers the civilizations of Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Iran, Arabia, Cyprus, Egypt, and the coastal regions of North and East Africa.

With 1,100 entries written by 560 contributors from more than two dozen countries, the scope of the encyclopedia is wide and provides a full range of perspectives and approaches to archaeological endeavors. Articles span from Bahrain to Libraries and Archives to Ziggurats and offer cultural, historical, and religious perspectives to a wide range of topics of interest to both scholars and lay people.

Over 4,500 entries

This dictionary is the most wide-ranging and comprehensive of its kind, covering the essential vocabulary for everyday archaeological work in the English language. There is coverage of principles, theories, techniques, artefacts, materials, people, places, monuments, equipment, and descriptive terms.

The dictionary focuses especially on Europe, the Old World, and the Americas, and covers legislation relating to the United Kingdom and the USA, though this third edition does add a fair number of entries relating to the Near East and Asia. These include Angara Style, Donghulin Culture, Hasanlu, Samarra Culture, and Tel Tsaf, as well as a new appendix listing Chinese rulers and dynasties.

Written by a leading authority, the dictionary’s detailed but clear entries provide an essential reference source for students, teachers, professionals, and enthusiasts alike.

This dictionary comprises authoritative, highly accessible entries on people, places, and artefacts relating to archaeological finds throughout the world. These entries are supplementary to other archaeology titles in the Quick Reference collection, and are written by specialist authors. The dictionary is an ongoing project, and more entries will be added over time.

Over 750 entries

Since its publication in 1996, the Oxford Companion to Archaeology has firmly established itself as the standard reference work in the field of archaeology, remaining a favorite among students, scholars, and anyone interested in archaeology. In close to 800 entries, the second edition provides thorough coverage of historical archaeology, the development of archaeology as a field of study, and the ways the discipline works to explain the past. In addition to these theoretical entries, other entries describe the major excavations, discoveries, and innovations, from the discovery of the cave paintings at Lascaux to the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics and the use of luminescence dating.

Much has changed in the field since 1996. Recent developments in methods and analytical techniques (e.g., laser-based mapping and survey systems, new applications of the scanning electron microscope) have revolutionized the ways excavations are performed. Cultural tourism, cultural resource management, heritage, and conservation have been redefined as areas within archaeology, and have been newly emphasized by scholars and administrators. Major site discoveries have expanded our understanding of prehistory and human developments through time.

The second edition explores each of these advances in the field, adding approximately 150 entries. In addition to significant expansion, first-edition entries have been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the progress that has been made in the last decade and a half.

The difficulties of exploring African history, especially for earlier periods, have spurred the development of a wide range of methodologies and approaches, such that Wyatt McGaffey once termed it “the decathlon of the social sciences.” Historians have long utilized archaeology, ethnography, historical linguistics, and oral traditions, but are only beginning to explore the possibilities of genetics or many of the new techniques used by archaeology and other sciences. And as digital sources—from historical documents and statistics to cartographic, climatic, demographic, and environmental modeling—proliferate, so do the problems in using them. The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Historiography: Methods and Sources discusses these sources and methods, and examines how these developments have influenced the scholarship that historians produce. Such methods continue to evolve, demanding that historians develop basic understandings of them. Thus, the Encyclopedia builds a theoretical foundation for the field, expanding the ways that Africa can be studied, and recovering the histories of the continent that often appear outside of the documentary record.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology represents a new way of conceiving of the relationship between archaeology and biblical studies that allows the results of a wide cross-section of excavations and regional studies to contribute to the interpretation of the biblical text through an elucidation of the lifeways of the ancient world.

The connection between archaeology and the Bible was forged by the discoveries of the nineteenth century, and archaeological finds became the primary catalyst for changes in biblical studies throughout the twentieth century. A distinct subfield, "Biblical Archaeology," as conceived by William Albright, arose to cope with the explosion in information recovered from expeditions of importance for biblical studies.

For many years, under Albright's influence, the hybrid field of Biblical Archaeology had a life of its own in the United States and was considered a coherent discipline. But many outside of Albright's sphere were unsure whether this field was a division of biblical studies or part of the broader world of general archaeology and saw these two pursuits in some disciplinary tension. At the same time, biblical scholars grew increasingly skeptical that archaeology could provide context for the specific events of the biblical text. Individual excavations persisted, but work ceased to be framed by research designs derived from the questions of "Biblical Archaeology."

Yet archaeologists of the last twenty years have continued to produce material for biblical studies that is too critical to be ignored: inscriptions such as the Tel Dan stele or Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon, debates on the chronology and stratigraphy of the 10th century BCE or the stratigraphy of the Shechem temple, and publications such as those of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem or Herodian Jericho. Shifts in archaeological theory and biblical scholarship now present new potential for rapprochement between archaeology and the Bible. Recent archaeological work has uncovered the lifeways of the biblical world and begun to suggest how understanding these lifeways transforms the reading of the biblical text.

By going beyond mere architecture and chronology into the social organization of biblical society, the Encyclopedia is an important methodological breakthrough for the study of the Bible and archaeology.