REVIEW of Katja Mueller, Settlements of the Ptolemies

Katja Mueller, Settlements of the Ptolemies. City Foundations and New Settlement in the Hellenistic World. Studia Hellenistica 43. Leuven: Peeters, 2006. Pp. 249. ISBN 978-90-429-170-5. €59.00 (pb).


Reviewed by Sara Saba, The Australian National University (Sara.Saba@anu.edu.au)
Word count: 1474 words

Katja Mueller's monograph is a most welcome and dense work that approaches the topic of Ptolemaic strategy for implanting and fostering settlements through the analysis of papyrological, epigraphical, and archeological material derived from all the regions that had been under Ptolemaic rule. This, however, is often filtered and interpreted through a methodology borrowed from Geographical Studies, with which the expected audience may not be familiar. The book is certainly very informative, informed, and interesting, but it claims the undivided attention of the reader at all times.

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K. Mueller, Settlements of the Ptolemies: City Foundations and New Settlement in the Hellenistic World

Settlements of the Ptolemies
City Foundations and New Settlement in the Hellenistic World


Series:
Studia Hellenistica, 43

Authors: Mueller K.

Year: 2006
ISBN: 90-429-1709-1
Pages: XVIII-249 p.
Price: 59 EURO


"Summary:
New settlement, relocation and migration have been part of human life right from the beginning. It is an essential ingredient of socio-economic life in antiquity and in the modern world. This book tells the history of new cities and settlement under the Ptolemies (332 to 30 BC). The Ptolemies ruled Egypt, numerous Aegean Islands, large stretches of the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts for three centuries. They up-rooted, transferred, replanted and attracted people to new and old settlements throughout their realm. Departing from the traditional emphasis on Egypt only, or outside Egypt only, and bridging the scholarly divides between Egyptologists, Classicists, Archaeologists and Geographers, this study offers an innovative framework for understanding the structure of and processes underlying new Ptolemaic settlement. By assessing topics such as bilingual toponyms, spatial settlement networks and the rural impact of new foundations, population size, urban differentiation, politics and programmes that facilitated new settllement, the author draws the first comprehensive and multivariant picture of the basis for Ptolemaic power: land, people and cities."

Source: WorldCat