Monumental Topography

The study focuses on the monumental elements of the 4th-3rd centuries BC cemeteries of Kallatis: the use of large tumuli, the implementation of a systematized network of funerary plots, the extent of the burial grounds, the discovery of a series of built chamber tombs under tumuli with elements of decorated architecture, including mural paintings and exceptional presence of a statue topping a tumulus. The detection and morphological characterization of archaeological features and the recovering of the funerary landscapes' spatial layout were based on historiographic study, remote-sensing and geophysical investigations.

This paper is discussing a fountain structure, known only from written sources and located within one of the sanctuaries of ancient Thessaloniki, attempting to shed some light upon a rather obscure monument. During rescue excavations in the late 1930s, in Dioiketeriou Str., a dedicatory inscription (IG X, 2.1, 83) was recovered recording a hydreion (ὑδρῆον) in correlation with the Sanctuary of Isis and Sarapis in Thessaloniki.

Relatively small (compared to their forerunners in Giza) pyramids of four Abusir kings give very little incentive to suppose that their builders played a major role in the history of Egypt. Yet there is no doubt that the reign of one of them, the Fifth Dynasty king Nyuserra, represents a major yet very brief and quite specific periods of the Old Kingdom period during which profound changes in many components of the society and state took place. To understand the mechanism of the principal changes throughout Egyptian history, it has been suggested elsewhere to apply a modified version of punctuated equilibrium theory which seems to explain quite conveniently many of the facts and processes which can be identified over the three millennia of Egyptian history. Perhaps most important of all, this approach is able to uncover strong dynamics of historical development, a feature that quite often has been suppressed as a consequence of more traditional attitudes to view and study Egyptian history.
The theory of punctuated equilibria is based on long-term observations that major changes and modifications of or within a given society display a tendency to happen in specific, clearly distinguished and historically very brief periods of time which are separated by rather uneventful and long periods of stasis when seemingly no significant development takes place. For the third millennium Egypt, for instance, such periods could be identified in connection with the reign of Den, Netjerykhet, Sneferu, Shepseskaf/Userkaf or Nyuserra. As will be shown, Nyuserra’s reign represents particularly prominent example of this theory.
The king Nyuserra has always been standing somewhat in the shadow with regard to more popular subjects or personalities of modern Egyptological research. However, it is without doubt that it was the reign of this particular king that turned out to be one of the most decisive ones for the way in which the Old Kingdom began to navigate towards its demise. During Nyuserra’s reign, many vital changes that exemplified profound impact on the society of the day took place.