This book reconstructs political history from the spatial organization of ancient society, challenging the approach favored by classicists.

Of all civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean, it is perhaps the Etruscans who hold the greatest allure. This is fundamentally because, unlike their Greek and Latin neighbours, the Etruscans left no textual sources to posterity. The only direct evidence for studying them and for understanding their culture is the archaeological, and to a much lesser extent, epigraphic record. The Etruscans must therefore be approached as if they were a prehistoric people; and the enormous wealth of Etruscan visual and material culture must speak for them. Yet they offer glimpses, in the record left by Greek and Roman authors, that they were literate and far from primordial: indeed, that their written histories were greatly admired by the Romans themselves. Applying fresh archaeological discoveries and new insights, A Short History of the Etruscans engagingly conducts the reader through the birth, growth and demise of this fascinating and enigmatic ancient people, whose nemesis was the growing power of Rome. Exploring the 'discovery' of the Etruscans from the Renaissance onwards, Corinna Riva discusses the mysterious Etruscan language, which long remained wholly indecipherable; the Etruscan landscape; the 6th-century growth of Etruscan cities and Mediterranean trade. Close attention is also paid to religion and ritual; sanctuaries and monumental grave sites; and the fatal incorporation of Etruria into Rome's political orbit.

The new definitive text on Etruscan terra-cottas

First published in 1924, this book examines the origins and growth of Etruscan power in Etruria and its gradual eclipse by the rise of Rome. Fell also assesses the Etruscan impact on Roman architecture and the condition of Etruria after the conquest of 264 BC. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Roman or Italian history.

In this significant study,Jill Bourne presents the corpus of all 70 surviving Kingston place-names, fromDevon to Northumberland, and investigates each one within its historical andlandscape context, in an attempt to answer the question, What is a Kingston?She addresses all previous published work on this recurrent place-name, bothscholarship with an etymological focus and contextual scholarship whichexamines the names within their wider context. The core of the work is thehypothesis that names of the type cyninges tun or cyning tun derivenot from independent coinages meaning 'manor/farm/enclosure of a king' in somegeneral sense, or in direct relation to the phrase cyninges tun, as itis sometimes assumed in the literature, as an equivalent to villa regia.The study explores connections between Kingstons and the cyninges-tuns andvill� regales of the documentary sources; considers the concept anddevelopment of early kingship and its possible origins, the laws of theearliest kings, the petty kingdoms, and emergence of the larger kingdoms forwhich the term Heptarchy was coined (but not used at the time); and paysparticular attention to Ancient Wessex, where more than half of the corpus ofKingston names are found, and to the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the Hwicceand Magons�te, where a further quarter lie.