Robert Mahler, Changing Life in Egyptian Alexandria: The
Testimony of the Islamic Cemetery on Kom el-Dikka,
(=Polish Publications in Mediterranean Archaeology 3),
Leuven–Paris–Bristol: Peeters Publishers

Peeters Publishers has released another volume of the
Polish Publications in Mediterranean Archaeology series.
It is a monograph authored by Robert Mahler of the Polish
Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw,
focused on the analysis of bioarchaeological data from the
cemetery at the Kom el-Dikka site in Alexandria, Egypt.
The book is available in Open Access.

The volume is a study of a massive set of funerary data
from an important site in a city in Egypt, Alexandria,
that remains comparatively little known archaeologically
for the Islamic period. More than 60 years of research
at the cemetery on Kom el-Dikka, carried out by a couple
of generations of Polish researchers, have resulted in
the exploration of up to 1000 graves, yielding more than
2500 skeletons for anthropological examination.

The bioarchaeological data have been analyzed comprehensively
in search of evidence for the quality of life in Alexandria
between the 9th and 12th centuries. The changing living
conditions of the local population, observed over some
400 years, are discussed in the context of historical and
archaeological evidence, supplying a useful frame for
putting into perspective the results, minor and major, of
the osteological study. The author also addresses the
controversial issue of the phasing of the cemetery,
delivering a conclusive argument for distinguishing just
two phases of burial at Kom el-Dikka in the Islamic period.

Link to the PDF can be found here:

[pcma.uw.edu.pl]