Migration and migrant identities in the Near East from antiquity to the Middle Ages / edited by Justin Yoo, Andrea Zerbini and Caroline Barron.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This book brings together recent developments in modern migration theory, a wide range of sources, new and old tools revisited (from GIS to epigraphic studies, from stable isotope analysis to the study of literary sources) and case studies from the ancient Eastern Mediterranean which illustrate how new theories and techniques are helping to give a better understanding of migratory flows and diaspora communities in the ancient Near East. A geographical gap has emerged in studies of historical migration as recent works have focused on migration and mobility in the western part of the Roman Empire and thus fail to bring a significant contribution to the study of diaspora communities in the Eastern Mediterranean. Bridging this gap represents a major scholarly desideratum and, by drawing upon the experiences of previously neglected migrant and diaspora communities in the eastern Mediterranean from the Hellenistic period to the early medieval world, this collection of essays approaches migration studies with new perspectives and methodologies, shedding light not only on the study of migrants in the ancient world, but also on broader issues concerning the rationale for mobility and the creation and features of diaspora identities.

Migration theory and historiography -- Mobility in the Roman world : new concepts, new perspectives / Claudia Moatti -- Language, identity and migrant communities : Cyrenaeans in Hellenistic Egypt / Rachel Mairs -- Documenting migrant flows -- Inscribing Near Eastern mobility in the Hellenistic and Roman Period / L.E. Tacoma and R.A. Tybout -- Migration in late antiquity : stories from Syria / Andrea U. De Giorgi -- The presentation of migration and mobility in Strabo's Mesopotamia / Hamish Cameron -- Mapping the Jewish communities of the Byzantine Empire using GIS / Gethin Rees, Alexander Panayotov, and Nicholas de Lange -- Migration and physical anthropology -- Stable isotope analysis and human migration in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East / Tracy Prowse, Robert Stark, and Matthew Emery -- Anatomy of restlessness : strontium isotopes and human migration in the Graeco-Roman Near East / Megan Perry -- Migrant identities -- A long way from home : meshworks of migration, memory and emotion in the Roman Empire / Anna Collar -- Pots on the border: ceramics, identity, and mobility in North Mesopotamia between Rome and the East / Rocco Palermo -- Migration to and within Palestine in the Early Islamic Period : two archaeological paradigms / Itamar Taxel -- "Maugre li Polein" : European migration to the Latin East and the construction of an oriental identity in the Crusader States / Jan Vandeburie -- Epilogue -- Making ancient mobility visible / Elena Isayev.