Agriculture Articles

Agriculture was the foundation of the Ancient Greek economy. Nearly 80% of the population was involved in this activity. Agriculture permeated the Greek world to such an extent that it gave birth to a way of life which persisted throughout Antiquity.During the early part of Greek history, as shown in the Odyssey, Greek agriculture - and diet - was based... [continue reading]

The ancient Near East, and the Fertile Crescent in particular, is generally seen as the birthplace of agriculture. In the fourth millennium BC this area was more temperate than it is today, and it was blessed with fertile soil, two great rivers (the Euphrates and the Tigris), as well as hills and mountains to the north. The region was highly diverse... [continue reading]

Shortly after his retirement from a distinguished career in the Department of Archaeology at Edinburgh, the author gave the Rhind Lectures for 2009, bringing together his thoughts about the Neolithic revolution, and comparing Childe’s ideas with today’s. These lectures, summarised here, announced the modern vision to a wide audience. It... [continue reading]

In this dissertation, I examine the magical practices of Roman farmers, primarily through the Latin farming manuals; topics include the magical practices which the Roman agronomists recommend to farmers, the relationship of this material to other genres of magic such as curses and amulets, and how its inclusion in technical handbooks is part of the authors&rsquo... [continue reading]

In February 247A.D, Eirenaios the manager (phrontistes) of a unit of the large estate belonging to Aurelius Appianus in the Fayum part of Egypt recorded in his account book that for the month he had employed 500 days of labor from workers unaffiliated with the estate. He paid them 2 drachmae a day. Unlike payments made to permanent employees of the estate... [continue reading]

This study is based on the analysis of texts coming from several dispersed archives and collections referring to the activity pursued by private families in Mesopotamia during the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Periods. We chose to classify the documents according to types, taking for granted that documents referring to «goods» and “currency»... [continue reading]

This account of viticulture in Italy during the period from the Punic Wars to the crisis of the third century AD is written in the conviction that the ‘economic’ history of the ancient world will remain unacceptably impoverished if it is written in isolation from the social and cultural history of the same period. The orthodoxy which sees... [continue reading]

This overview examines the impact of horsepower on Old World society over the last 6,000 years. Analysis of man’s symbiosis with the domesticated horse necessarily takes the reader to regions remote from urban centers and pays special attention to mobile elements of nomadic society, too often deemed marginal or transitory. The discussion first grapples... [continue reading]

A number of cucurbits are mentioned and described in Mediterranean writings of the first and second centuries CE, including Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica, Columella’s De Re Rustica, Pliny’s Historia Naturalis, and the codices of Jewish law known as the Mishna and Tosefta. Images of cucurbits from the same region predating, contemporary... [continue reading]