Archeologist Tesse Stek's most recent book "The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes. A Comparative Study of Empires in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean World ", has just been published by Cambridge University Press. It examines the transformation of rural landscapes and societies that formed the backbone of ancient empires in the Near East and Mediterranean. Tesse Stek is currently at NIAS to study early Roman colonization and imperialism.
About the Book
Through a comparative approach to archaeological data, The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes analyses the patterns of transformation in widely differing imperial contexts in the ancient world. Bringing together a range of studies by an international team of scholars, the volume shows that empires were dynamic, diverse, and experimental polities, and that their success or failure was determined by a combination of forceful interventions, as well as the new possibilities for those dominated by empires to collaborate and profit from doing so. By highlighting the processes that occur in rural and peripheral landscapes, the volume demonstrates that the archaeology of these non-urban and literally eccentric spheres can provide an important contribution to our understanding of ancient empires. The ‘bottom up’ approach to the study of ancient empires is crucial to understanding how these remarkable socio-political organisms developed, and questions conventional assumptions about their impact on peripheral areas and peoples.
"The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes. A Comparative Study of Empires in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean World" edited by B.S. Düring and Tesse .D. Stek.