Ricerc@Sapienza

Pottery is one of the most commonly recovered artefacts from archaeological sites. Despite more than a century of relative dating based on typology and seriation1, accurate dating of pottery using the radiocarbon dating method has proven extremely challenging owing to the limited survival of organic temper and unreliability of visible residues2–4. Here we report a method to directly date archaeological pottery based on accelerator mass spectrometry analysis of 14C in absorbed food residues using palmitic (C16:0) and stearic (C18:0) fatty acids purified by preparative gas chromatography5–8.

The Early Bronze IVB (EB IVB, c. 2300-2000 BC) pottery horizon of Western Inland Syria has been object of intense study for decades, and it is well known, being attested at a large number of sites spanning east-west from the Orontes Valley to the Jabbul. However, until less than a decade ago, internal periodization of this period was possible only by referring to Hama, the only site that had provided a long EB IVB stratigraphic and ceramic sequences excavated in the 1930s.

Scholarly tradition has connected the second half of the third millennium BC with the question of contacts between the northern and southern Levant suggested by the spread in the south of given elements of material culture inspired by northern prototypes.

The investigations at Veii Macchiagrande revealed the presence of a permanent settlement dating from the
Iron Age to late antiquity. In recent years further studies completed excavation data with information needed
to better define chronologies of this urban sector. In this preliminary paper results from these new revision
are presented, as an anticipation of a forthcoming final edition about our twenty-year research.

A considerable amount of new data, both archaeological and epigraphic, were discovered during the Italian excavations at the site of Barāqish (ancient Minaean Yathil). The present paper discusses the most relevant additions to our knowledge base as a result of those excavations, particularly in relation to the succession of kings in Maʿīn during the 5th and 4th centuries BC. At this time, the kingdom arrived at its apogee under the reigns of Abīyadaʿ Yathaʿ and his son, Waqihʾil Riyām.

The necropolis of Piano at Navelli was excavated during 2013-2014 by the University of Chieti-Pescara “G. d’Annunzio”. In this area, still scarcely known from the archaeological point of view, the campaign brought to light a hundred graves dated between the end of the 7th and the 4th-3rd century BC, deployed around two female burials, whose grave goods (dated to the end of the 7th century BC) suggest an emerging role for the women buried. The 6th century graves are characterized by a certain pattern of grave good composition.

The comparison of two sites of Tell es-Sultan and Tall al-Ḥammām, facing each other on the
opposite sides of the Jordan, needs a reliable cultural and chronological correlation. Something which
has been pursued by archaeologists with different methods and approaches: synchronization in time
and culture is never easy. This leads to the issue of relative and absolute chronology. A recent reassessment
of Early Bronze Age absolute chronology of Syria-Palestine, stemmed from a reexamination

Sapienza University of Rome and the Palestinian MoTA-DACH have been committed since 1997 to theprotection, scientific re-evaluation and tourist rehabilitation of Tell es-Sultan, ancient Jericho. Excavations, surveys,and restorations over 15 field seasons allow an update of our knowledge on the history of this long-lived site of theancient Near East, as well as making it possible to match data collected by three previous expeditions within a singlecomprehensive picture