Lucia Mori | Università degli Studi "La Sapienza" di Roma (original) (raw)

Papers by Lucia Mori

a. LVI, n. 1-2. giugno-dicembre 2016, 2016

paesaggi agrari e scelte alimentari: orzo e sesamo nella mesopotamia del bronzo antico Introduzio... more paesaggi agrari e scelte alimentari: orzo e sesamo nella mesopotamia del bronzo antico Introduzione La produzione di cibo e il suo controllo, sia in termini di accumulo sia in termini di redistribuzione in contesti cerimoniali e amministrati, furono fattori determinanti nelle società centralizzate emergenti originatesi in Bassa Mesopotamia nel corso del IV millennio a.C. e culminate nel processo di urbanizzazione che portò alla formazioni delle "grandi organizzazioni" templari e palatine e alla costituzione delle più antiche formazioni statali 1. La cerealicoltura ne costituì indubbiamente la fondamentale base di sussistenza, scandita, nell'alluvio bassomesopotamico, dal ciclo dell'orzo, da una parte, e dall'altra dalla produzione di olio e di lana (cibo, igiene del corpo e vesti), che costituivano i tre elementi di base per la sopravvivenza di un potere centrale che si fondava su un'economia di carattere redistributivo 2. Indubbiamente i risultati di un approccio archeologico interdisciplinare, in cui analisi paleobotaniche, archeozoologiche, chimiche e genetiche insieme a ricognizioni geoarcheologiche sono state affiancate a studi sui materiali e i contesti antichi, hanno portato in anni recenti a risultati innovativi sulle potenzialità di ricostruzione della produzione agricola e 1

“I Passed over Difficult Mountains” Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Mario Liverani Edited by Francesco Di Filippo, Lucio Milano and Lucia Mori, 2023

Nei momenti in cui il regno dell'umano mi sembra condannato alla pesantezza, penso che dovrei vol... more Nei momenti in cui il regno dell'umano mi sembra condannato alla pesantezza, penso che dovrei volare come Perseo in un altro spazio. Non sto parlando di fughe nel sogno o nell'irrazionale. Voglio dire che devo cambiare il mio approccio, devo guardare il mondo con un'altra ottica, un'altra logica, altri metodi di conoscenza e di verifica". 1

Il villaggio di Fehwet \ue8 situato nella piccola oasi omonima, posta ca. 10 km a sud Ghat, in Li... more Il villaggio di Fehwet \ue8 situato nella piccola oasi omonima, posta ca. 10 km a sud Ghat, in Libia sud-occidentale. Il sito archeologico \ue8 stato oggetto di scavo nel corso delle campagne 2002- 2006 della Missione Archeologica Italo-Libica diretta da Savino di Lernia e condotta da Sapienza Universit\ue0 di Roma e Dipartimento di Archeologia di Tripoli. La maggior parte dei reperti ha mostrato buono stato di conservazione. Dai dati raccolti emerge una larga predominanza di Tamarix (153 reperti-77%) che include T. tetragyna Ehrenb. (97 reperti), T. aphylla Karst. (26 reperti), e Tamarix sp. (30 reperti). Pure significativa \ue8 la presenza di Phoenix dactylifera L. (43 reperti - 22%), mentre rari sono Acacia sp. (1 reperto) e cf. Nerium oleander L. (1 reperto)

This paper aims at presenting the results of recent investigations on the Early Iron Age at Arsla... more This paper aims at presenting the results of recent investigations on the Early Iron Age at Arslantepe/Malatya (SE Turkey), which yielded important new data on the rise and collapse of a local power that used figurative representation at the town’s gate to express its authority. The 12th century BCE was one of the most relevant periods of transformation in the Syro-Anatolian region, which saw the decline of the Hittite Empire and the emergence of independent polities that re-elaborated the imperial tradition in original ways. The breakdown of the empire was not a generalized event, rather a process developing in an uneven temporal and geographic range. The Arslantepe case shows that the collapse was delayed, as it was contained by the rising of a local elite, which adopted strategies of territorial control and manifestation of power through the use of monumental buildings and sculptured reliefs. The archaeological evidence from Arslantepe will be presented and correlated with the Late Bronze Age epigraphic sources from Emar and the land of Aštata. These texts describe rituals illustrating the importance of city-gates as performance spaces in festivals involving the entire community and document the increasing financial support of the local kings. The festivals might have been also an instrument to establish or legitimate a stronger role of a previous “limited kingship” within the community after the Hittite conquest. The association of visual representations and rituals performed at the city-gates offer some reflections about the development of the Syro-Anatolian societies, as well as the role of the ruling class during the late Bronze Age

Burials, Migration and Identity in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond, 2019

The chapter presents Garamantian mortuary landscapes of Southern Fazzan (Libyan Sahara), in compa... more The chapter presents Garamantian mortuary landscapes of Southern Fazzan (Libyan Sahara), in comparison with data from Karma, in order to investigate the similarities and differences form the two areas. The identity of the ancient Garamantes are discussed on the bases of the most recent archaeological data

Journal of Arid Environments, 2017

We describe a combined geoarchaeological and archaeobotanical approach applied to the study of fi... more We describe a combined geoarchaeological and archaeobotanical approach applied to the study of firing activities that have been carried out at Fewet, a Garamantian compound in the Central Sahara (Libya), between the 3 rd century BC and the 1 st century AD. The archaeological stratigraphy of the site has been sealed by several mud-brick wall collapses, preserving an interesting sequence of living floors, whose micromorphological study is unique for the Central Sahara. This investigation together with the mineralogical analysis of sediments, confirms the field attribution of archaeological features as domestic fireplaces, and identified the living floors as areas devoted to animal penning, probably subjected to periodical firing. The investigation also highlights an exceptional concentration of gypsum pedofeatures, presumably determined by the wood type selected for fuel. The archaeobotanical study identified a good quantity of charcoal and other plant remains in the same layers. Most of the charcoal has been identified as Central Tamarix, which is the most common tree living in the oasis today. This suggests that tamarisk wood was the most exploited tree for fuel, and its combustion led to the dispersion of gypsum from the plant tissue, later recrystallized in the shape of microcrystalline nodules, lenses, and euhedral crystals.

Water History, 2020

Water and its availability are among the main concerns of the contemporary world, with water cris... more Water and its availability are among the main concerns of the contemporary world, with water crisis being recurrently mentioned among the main risks of more significant concern of our modern times in the “Global Risk Report” of the World Economic Forum in the last years. Sustainability and water management are currently perceived as crucial challenges the modern timeframe has to face. As a consequence, research and preservation of hydro-cultural landscapes rooted in the past, especially in arid countries, has received much attention in recent years. The ancient Near East represents undoubtedly a rich field of research as far as ancient systems of water management are concerned, and a field providing fervid stimuli for theoretical discussion on the crucial “water and power” relation. The present paper aims to present different developments in the debate on models dealing with ancient Near Eastern water systems, from the hydraulic society depicted by Wittfogel in 1957 to the more fragmented and multi-disciplinary perspectives of contemporary researchers.

Food and History, 2014

The present paper deals with baking techniques and tools for the production of bread from Ancient... more The present paper deals with baking techniques and tools for the production of bread from Ancient Near Eastern archaeological contexts. The aim is to understand when grain doughs started to be cooked in the Near East, how they were produced and what they looked like. Ingredients, ancient utensils, and baking techniques are investigated as well as ethnographic analogies suggested. The analysis is further enriched by a comparison with techniques and tools attested in historical periods and in ancient texts, including baking moulds and recipes. This contributes to the identification and understanding of the technological differences between varying bread-baking installations existing in the Ancient Near East that often are not differentiated in the literature, for which we instead suggest distinct contexts of use.

Journal of African Archaeology, 2005

In 1997, the .Joint Italian-Libyan Archaeological Mission in the Akakus and Messak (Libyan Sahara... more In 1997, the .Joint Italian-Libyan Archaeological Mission in the Akakus and Messak (Libyan Sahara)., presently directed by Savino di Lernia, started a program of historical archaeology aimed at recovering remains of the Garamantian period, ca 800 BC to 350 AD. One of the selected sites is Fewet, a small but well nucleated oasis some 10 km SW of Ghat. After a first sounding in 2001, part of the settlement was excavated in 2002-2003, and the adjacent necropolis was surveyed in 2003. The excavated settlement is a rounded compound, with a perimeter wall of stones and mud bricks and a series of small dwelling units, with partition walls in mud bricks, around a central empty space and a communal well. One half of the compound is well preserved, with smashed pottery and remains of carbonized seeds and basketry on the sandy floors. The site is radiocarbon dated to the 2nd-1st centuries BC. The necropolis, including ca 1000 tumuli (but the survey is not yet complete) extends over the entire ...

The article compares epigraphic data from the ancient Syrian settlements of Emar, Ekalte and Basi... more The article compares epigraphic data from the ancient Syrian settlements of Emar, Ekalte and Basiru with the archaeological data from the excavated sites in order to reconstruct both urban and rural features of the ancient town and its surroundings. The paper deals especially with the shape and location of hoses, ruins and fields

The article presents a brief overview of the recent discoveries at the site of Arslantepe (Malaty... more The article presents a brief overview of the recent discoveries at the site of Arslantepe (Malatya, SE Turkey), from the archaeological campaigns carried out in the years 2017-2019. The fieldwork mainly concentrated in two excavation areas dated to the Late Chalcolithic and Iron Age. The architecture, pottery, sealings, archaeometallurgy and anthropologic remains retrieved are here presented

In years 1999 and 2002 the Yale University Tell Leilan Project, directed by Prof. Harvey Weiss, f... more In years 1999 and 2002 the Yale University Tell Leilan Project, directed by Prof. Harvey Weiss, focussed the excavation fieldwork on Tell Leilan Acropolis upon the Akkadian occupation of the site. The exposure now comprises 1200 square meters, and has provided new perspectives on Akkadian imperialism and Subarian adaptations. A 600 square meter unit was opened in 1999 in the Northwest Acropolis area, to the east of the 1993 excavation area, which had produced important data on the occupation in periods Leilan IIa (preAkkadian) and Leilan IIb (Akkadian) (Weiss 1997; Weiss et al. 2002; Ristvet _ Weiss 2004). In year 2002 the excavation was further enlarged northwards, 600 square meters were added to the already exposed area, and produced a complex Akkadian administrative centre across the street from an Akkadian administrative building, shedding light on the Akkadian imperialization of Tell Leilan and its environs. In particular, in square 44 W 16 the retrieval of school tablets assoc...

ABSTRACT This chapter provides an overview of the historical and socio-economic rea-lity of a sma... more ABSTRACT This chapter provides an overview of the historical and socio-economic rea-lity of a small oasis in the wider frame of the Saharan history in the chronological span which saw a deep transition in subsistence strategies. The introduction of agriculture and related irrigation techniques, the development of long distance trade with dromedary as pack animal and the emergence of a hierarchical complex society in the region of Fezzan are among the main radical changes which occurred in the Central Sahara from the early first millennium BC. Changes that brought to the flourishing of the Garaman-tian kingdom and the development of the first urbanisation and state formation by the end of that millennium and the first centuries AD. The core of this process was the Wadi el-Ajal. Wadi Tanezzuft experienced a parallel but original development, sharing some similar cultural traits but also differences in socio-economic and political features. For the good state of preservation of the archaeological evidence, Fewet represents a key site in exploring the formative phases of sedentarisation of the pastoral groups in the area and the later development of the settlements and necropolis facing the impact of a greater polity, centered at Garama, and the spread of a trans and intra-Saharan trade. Moreover the analysis of the skeletal remains from the Fewet necropolis provides a vivid picture of the life conditions of the Fewet inhabitants and of the population dynamics in southern Fezzan in the early-historical times.

Mixtures of factor analyzers are becoming more and more popular in the area of model based cluste... more Mixtures of factor analyzers are becoming more and more popular in the area of model based clustering of high-dimensional data. According to the likelihood approach in data modeling, it is well known that the unconstrained log-likelihood function may present spurious maxima and singularities and this is due to specific patterns of the estimated covariance structure, when their determinant approaches 0. To reduce such drawbacks, in this paper we introduce a procedure for the parameter estimation of mixtures of factor analyzers, which maximizes the likelihood function in a constrained parameter space. We then analyze and measure its performance, compared to the usual non-constrained approach, via some simulations and applications to real data sets.

a. LVI, n. 1-2. giugno-dicembre 2016, 2016

“I Passed over Difficult Mountains” Studies on the Ancient Near East in Honor of Mario Liverani Edited by Francesco Di Filippo, Lucio Milano and Lucia Mori, 2023

Burials, Migration and Identity in the Ancient Sahara and Beyond, 2019

Journal of Arid Environments, 2017

Water History, 2020

Food and History, 2014

Journal of African Archaeology, 2005

Proceedings of the conference "Donne d'Oriente", held in Rome, 6th december 2013. Published as a ... more Proceedings of the conference "Donne d'Oriente", held in Rome, 6th december 2013.
Published as a Theme Section in Henoch 38/2 (2016)

Water is a central topic in the ancient Near Eastern studies: more than 60 years have passed and ... more Water is a central topic in the ancient Near Eastern studies: more than 60 years have passed and much has been done since the 1957 “hydraulic society” model, presented by Karl Wittfogel in his “Oriental Despotism”, but still in 2012, the late Tony Wilkinson, wrote that “Too often the archaeology of water is studied as a footnote to other areas of the ancient cultural record, or, simply presented as an interesting diversion from the ‘real’ archaeology of buildings, burials or artefacts.” (Water History 4: 155-176). Pointing to the importance of field research especially dedicated to the topic of water, he continued by underlying the need to generate an overall conceptual framework for dealing with ancient water systems and, to shift the focus away from the “water and power” perspective, towards a more nuanced understanding of water management, which would re-consider the effective role of the local management of water resources.
The workshop aims at presenting and discussing the recent perspectives on water studies in the ancient Near East in an interdisciplinary perspective, which should contribute to the development of new interpretative models, able to enrich the long debate on where, how and when technologies related to water management in dry areas took place and which may be their role in the modern world, where water is considered as the key to a sustainable future. In particular, the presence and even the absence of water is a cultural and social cause that deeply influenced and affected the birth and development of settlements and urban centres: different waters co-existed and worked in the change of the environmental conditions of villages and cities, creating aquatic wet areas characterized by peculiar flora and fauna that are reflected in the economical, social and religious aspects of material culture.

Roma, 4-5 giugno 2015, Sala del Refettorio, Palazzo San Macuto (Biblioteca parlamentare)