Globalizing Mediterranean identities: the overlapping spheres of Egyptian, Greek and Roman worlds at Trimithis

This article furthers recent gains made in applying globalization perspectives to the Roman world by exploring two Romano-Egyptian houses that used Roman material culture in different ways within the city known as Trimithis (modern day Amheida, in Egypt). In so doing, I suggest that concepts drawn from globalization theory will help us to disentangle and interpret how homogeneous Roman Mediterranean goods may appear heterogeneous on the local level. This theoretical vantage is broadly applicable to other regions in the Roman Mediterranean, as well as other environments in which individuals reflected a multifaceted relationship with their local identity and the broader social milieu.

The destinies of literary manuscripts: past present and future

This essay reviews the ways in which literary manuscripts may be considered to be archivally unique, as well as valuable in all senses of the word, and gives a cautious appraisal of their future in the next ten to twenty years. It reviews the essential nature of literary manuscripts, and especially the ways in which they form “split collections”. This leads to an assessment of the work of the Diasporic Literary Archives network from 2012 to 2014, and some of the key findings. The essay closes with reflections on the future of literary manuscripts in the digital age – emerging trends, research findings, uncertainties and unknowns.

Counting in Egyptian children with Down Syndrome

This exploratory study is concerned with the performance of Egyptian children with Down syndrome on counting and error detection tasks and investigates how these children acquire counting. Observations and interviews were carried out to collect further information about their performance in a class context. Qualitative and quantitative analysis suggested a notable deficit in counting in Egyptian children with Down syndrome with none of the children able to recite the number string up to ten or count a set of five objects correctly. They performed less well on tasks which added more load on memory. The tentative finding of this exploratory study supported previous research findings that children with Down syndrome acquire counting by rote and links this with their learning experiences.

Chronology for the Aegean Late Bronze Age 1700-1400 BC

Radiocarbon (carbon-14) data from the Aegean Bronze Age 1700-1400 B.C. show that the Santorini (Thera) eruption must have occurred in the late 17th century B.C. By using carbon-14 dates from the surrounding region, cultural phases, and Bayesian statistical analysis, we established a chronology for the initial Aegean Late Bronze Age cultural phases (Late Minoan IA, IB, and II). This chronology contrasts with conventional archaeological dates and cultural synthesis: stretching out the Late Minoan IA, IB, and II phases by similar to 100 years and requiring reassessment of standard interpretations of associations between the Egyptian and Near Eastern historical dates and phases and those in the Aegean and Cyprus in the mid-second millennium B.C.