The sunset of Gortyn: amphorae in 7th –8th centuries AD

Gortyn (A. Di Vita [ed.] 2000-01), some new contexts, more delimited and reliable, allow us to define better circulation, developments, and local use of amphorae in the last periods of urban life of the Cretan city. Two contexts of the mid-late 7th and late 7th-8th centuries are briefly analysed, coming from different quarters of the town (the Old Agora and the Early Byzantine houses near the “Praetorium”), and resulting from different formative processes, which could represent the circulation trends just before, and in the re-occupation phase after the earthquake that dismembered the Late Roman urban layout at the end of the 7th/early 8th century. They display a variety of imports from transmarine regions (N-Africa, Egypt, Palestina/Lebanon, Greece and Asia Minor, N-Syria and Cyprus) still in mid-7th century, showing after a drastic restraint. Then some containers of the “family” labelled Byzantine Globular Amphorae/BGA prevail, both imported from diverse, small- scale production centres spread in the Aegean/Byzantine areas, and manufactured in Crete. In general, we detect in the latest Cretan production a tendency to imitate the “international” types LRA 1, LRA 2 and their derivatives, and the dismissal of the traditional “Late Roman” local types (TRC2-4) for the derivative types TRC7-10 and TRC12 (one of the local equivalents of the BGA), produced beside the older types TRC5-6. For the important questions, yet to be answered, about the different Cretan workshops, beside some archaeometric and archaeological studies on the Early Byzantine wares from Pseira and Eleutherna, we will have at our disposal the database of the Cretan clays created by N. Poulou and E. Nodarou within the “Pythagoras II” project

Infected pancreatic necrosis: outcomes and clinical predictors of mortality. A post hoc analysis of the MANCTRA-1 international study

: The identification of high-risk patients in the early stages of infected pancreatic necrosis (IPN) is critical, because it could help the clinicians to adopt more effective management strategies. We conducted a post hoc analysis of the MANCTRA-1 international study to assess the association between clinical risk factors and mortality among adult patients with IPN. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression models were used to identify prognostic factors of mortality. We identified 247 consecutive patients with IPN hospitalised between January 2019 and December 2020. History of uncontrolled arterial hypertension (p = 0.032; 95% CI 1.135-15.882; aOR 4.245), qSOFA (p = 0.005; 95% CI 1.359-5.879; aOR 2.828), renal failure (p = 0.022; 95% CI 1.138-5.442; aOR 2.489), and haemodynamic failure (p = 0.018; 95% CI 1.184-5.978; aOR 2.661), were identified as independent predictors of mortality in IPN patients. Cholangitis (p = 0.003; 95% CI 1.598-9.930; aOR 3.983), abdominal compartment syndrome (p = 0.032; 95% CI 1.090-6.967; aOR 2.735), and gastrointestinal/intra-abdominal bleeding (p = 0.009; 95% CI 1.286-5.712; aOR 2.710) were independently associated with the risk of mortality. Upfront open surgical necrosectomy was strongly associated with the risk of mortality (p < 0.001; 95% CI 1.912-7.442; aOR 3.772), whereas endoscopic drainage of pancreatic necrosis (p = 0.018; 95% CI 0.138-0.834; aOR 0.339) and enteral nutrition (p = 0.003; 95% CI 0.143-0.716; aOR 0.320) were found as protective factors. Organ failure, acute cholangitis, and upfront open surgical necrosectomy were the most significant predictors of mortality. Our study confirmed that, even in a subgroup of particularly ill patients such as those with IPN, upfront open surgery should be avoided as much as possible. Study protocol registered in ClinicalTrials.Gov (I.D. Number NCT04747990)

Goodbye Hartmann trial: a prospective, international, multicenter, observational study on the current use of a surgical procedure developed a century ago

Background: Literature suggests colonic resection and primary anastomosis (RPA) instead of Hartmann's procedure (HP) for the treatment of left-sided colonic emergencies. We aim to evaluate the surgical options globally used to treat patients with acute left-sided colonic emergencies and the factors that leading to the choice of treatment, comparing HP and RPA. Methods: This is a prospective, international, multicenter, observational study registered on ClinicalTrials.gov. A total 1215 patients with left-sided colonic emergencies who required surgery were included from 204 centers during the period of March 1, 2020, to May 31, 2020. with a 1-year follow-up. Results: 564 patients (43.1%) were females. The mean age was 65.9 ± 15.6 years. HP was performed in 697 (57.3%) patients and RPA in 384 (31.6%) cases. Complicated acute diverticulitis was the most common cause of left-sided colonic emergencies (40.2%), followed by colorectal malignancy (36.6%). Severe complications (Clavien-Dindo ≥ 3b) were higher in the HP group (P < 0.001). 30-day mortality was higher in HP patients (13.7%), especially in case of bowel perforation and diffused peritonitis. 1-year follow-up showed no differences on ostomy reversal rate between HP and RPA. (P = 0.127). A backward likelihood logistic regression model showed that RPA was preferred in younger patients, having low ASA score (≤ 3), in case of large bowel obstruction, absence of colonic ischemia, longer time from admission to surgery, operating early at the day working hours, by a surgeon who performed more than 50 colorectal resections. Conclusions: After 100 years since the first Hartmann's procedure, HP remains the most common treatment for left-sided colorectal emergencies. Treatment's choice depends on patient characteristics, the time of surgery and the experience of the surgeon. RPA should be considered as the gold standard for surgery, with HP being an exception

Una “nuova” Livia da Leptis Magna: osservazioni sul contributo delle botteghe attiche nell’elaborazione e diffusione dell’immaginario imperiale

the paper focuses on a very fine peplophoros from leptis Magna, now in the local archaeological Museum, which was briefly mentioned in two wide-ranging studies about the iconography of livia (Freyerschauenburg 1982, Bartman 1999), but more recently omitted by a. alexandridis (2004) as unidentifiable. in spite of difficulties in respect of the lack of provenance or restoration record (it was probably found during the “new excavations” conducted by E. Vergara Caffarelli 1954-1960), stylistic and some iconographic details confirm that the body and portrait head can belong together. the head combines a very idealized, classical face with a hairstyle which is a Typenklitterung of two portrait types of livia, i.e. mingles the Noduszopf- and the Mittelscheitelfrisur. While the head was personalized by using the well-known Nodus motif, the body was also adapted to an iconic subject by substituting calcei muliebres for sandals and adding an inserted portrait head. it is one of the earliest copies of the “Demeter Capitolina” type and surely of attic workmanship, as certain stylistic features and the (Pentelic) marble used for the body confirm. Given livia’s prominence at leptis at the very beginning of tiberius’s reign, the likeness is identifiable as Julia augusta (mater patriae) in formam Cereris. several copies, most probably of attic workmanship, of statues of divinities from the Classical period, combined with portrait heads, are known from Greece and italy (especially Campania), as for example those of the agorakritan types Nemesis and Munich-syon house. they confirm how attractive the iconography of such fifth-century athenian models was to the Julio-Claudian artists, allowing them to depict virtues and female excellence by pairing roman princesses and Greek goddesses. this encomiastic formula could have originated in athens itself, alongside the reshaping of civic and cultic topography, in the attempt to integrate the imperial power and its representatives into the local religious landscape. the cultic association of emperors and their relatives with traditional deities (more frequently expressed through inscriptions and epitheta in the Greek world) probably provided the background for the recreation and successful dissemination of classical iconographic models by attic sculpture workshops, as in this classicizing statue from a far-away North african city, from as early as the beginning of the tiberian period

Conoscenza e valorizzazione del patrimonio archeologico. Dare senso e prendere senso dai resti del passato: il caso di Agrigento

Il contributo tratta del senso attuale della valorizzazione, da basare imprescindibilmente sulla conoscenza e vincolare agli interessi e istanze della società contemporanea

Euergetikotatos.. kai philodoxotatos eis tous Hellenas. Riflessioni sui rapporti fra Ierone II e il mondo greco

The paper analyzes the testimonia (literary and epigraphical sources, archaeological data) referring to the euergetism of the king Hieron II

306 a.C. Agatocle di Siracusa. Il carisma di Agatocle

La figura di Agatocle, tiranno e poi re di Siracusa, compare a più riprese nella tradizione letteraria circonfusa di un carisma (spesso presentato sotto una luce di biasimo, dalla storiografia avversa) che riflette alcuni cliché del modello inaugurato da Alessandro Magno. Imprese belliche e loro commemorazione figurativa, teatralità, lusso, con l'astuzia e l'audacia, caratterizzano il personaggio e lo impongono nell'immaginario degli antichi

Prefazione - Saccheggi e recuperi dei reperti archeologici: il caso siciliano

importance of the promotion and enhancement of the Sicilian cultural heritage, recovered from the illicit trafficking of archaeological assets, through its inclusion in the context of origi

Reshaping civic space: some remarks on the transformations of the towns of Roman Sicily in the late Republic and early Empire

Recent scholarship pointed out how the towns of Sicily experienced wide urbanistic and architectural transformations during the Hellenistic period. After the long debate on the chronology of the phenomena of material growth and dense urbanization shown by the archaeological record, that previously had been assigned exclusively to the Early Hellenistic period, it’s now generally accepted that several cities, especially in North-Western Sicily, reshaped their urban panoplia after the Roman conquest of the island, in the 2nd-1st centuries B.C., renovating extensively both civic and private buildings. Less known are the further transformations of the urban landscape between the late Republican and early Imperial times, because of the gaps of the evidence and the limited attention payed to this by the historians and the archaeologists. The paper aims to explore such evolution of the urban landscape through some examples (Segesta, Solunto, Halaesa, Agrigento, Tyndaris), trying to pinpoint tendencies, agents and purposes that lay behind the different achievements