The study of late antiquity has undergone a remarkable renaissance in recent decades, generating a rich body of scholarship that has fundamentally recast a period once dismissed as one of decline and collapse into an era of transformation and continuity with the classical world. While historical and literary dimensions of the period have been amply served by multi-volume companions and handbooks, the archaeology of late antiquity has long occupied a more fragmented scholarly landscape. The visual culture of early Christianity in particular has attracted extensive attention, above all resulting in lavishly illustrated surveys of catacomb painting and ecclesiastical architecture, while the material culture of the post-Roman world more broadly has remained without a synthetic reference work commensurate with the field’s ambitions. The long dominance of Christian-centred frameworks is reflected in the monuments of the discipline: from the Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie compiled by F. Cabrol and H. Leclercq between 1907 and 1953 to P. Testini’s methodological introduction (Archeologia Cristiana, first published in 1958, expanded in 1980) and F.W. Deichmann’s Einführung in die christliche Archäologie (1983) – none of which, despite their considerable merits, offers more than marginal coverage of Jewish, pagan or early Islamic material culture, or extends the geographical horizons significantly beyond the Mediterranean core. It is exactly to balance out this disciplinary situation that the four editors of the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Late Antique Art and Archaeology have set themselves a deliberately broader task: to bring together contributions from more than 70 scholars from Europe, North America and beyond, and to produce a reference work that reflects the full geographical, chronological and cultural scope of the discipline as it stands today.

The choice of title is itself a statement of intent. By foregrounding ‘late antique art and archaeology’ rather than ‘early Christian archaeology’, the editors signal a decisive break with the confessional frameworks that, originating in the systematic exploration of the Roman catacombs in the late sixteenth century, conditioned archaeological interpretation of the period for so long – what the introduction aptly characterises as ‘theology through other means’ and ‘sacred archaeology’. This repositioning draws on a genealogy running from J|. Strzygowski’s Orient oder Rom (1901) – a provocation that required, in the editors’ words, a ‘battle cry’ (p. 2) rather than straightforward scholarly argument – through the growing recognition that even by the sixth century the Christianisation of the ancient world was far from complete and that Jewish communities in particular represented one of the most archaeologically visible minorities in the later Roman world. Its closest predecessors – the Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology (D.K. Pettegrew, W.R. Caraher and T.W. Davis [2019]) and the Eerdmans Encyclopedia of Early Christian Art and Archaeology (P.C. Finney [2017]) – organise the evidence around a confessional centre. This new encyclopaedia commits instead to treating pagan, Jewish, Christian and early Islamic material with equal analytical rigour and to integrating the archaeology of the city, the countryside, the frontier and the periphery within a single reference work. The result is a volume that reflects not merely the current range of late antique scholarship but also its more searching critical impulses.

The two volumes are organised into five parts. Part 1, which forms the backbone of Volume 1, covers architecture and iconography, and represents the traditional core of late antique archaeological studies. The thematic range is broad from the outset. The section opens, tellingly, with two chapters devoted to pagan late antiquity in both its architectural and iconographic dimensions: C.J. Goddard on the survival of pagan sacred architecture (Chapter 1), and S. Faust and T.M. Kristensen on pagan imagery (Chapter 2). The decision to begin here rather than with church building is a programmatic gesture that the subsequent chapters more than fulfil. Christian architecture proceeds through O. Brandt’s survey of church building (Chapter 3), K. Innemée’s treatment of monastic complexes (Chapter 4) and A.M. Yasin’s account of the material culture of saint veneration (Chapter 5), while Jewish architecture is represented by J. Magness’s study of late antique synagogues (Chapter 7). Secular and functional building types are addressed through G. Brands on civic monuments (Chapter 9), I. Baldini on private residential architecture (Chapter 10) and G. Davies on Byzantine military architecture (Chapter 11). A parallel focus on visual culture runs through the volume: R.M. Jensen addresses early Christian imagery (Chapter 6), while Z. Weiss examines Jewish visual traditions (Chapter 8). Funerary contexts receive sustained attention: V. Fiocchi Nicolai provides a detailed account of the Roman catacombs (Chapter 12), whose singularity warrants dedicated treatment, while B. Effros broadens the perspective with a survey of late antique burial more generally (Chapter 13).

Part 2 marshals the diverse categories of late antique material culture into an effective and well-structured sequence of chapters, each devoted to a specific class of objects. M. Prusac-Lindhagen addresses portraiture (Chapter 14), J. Dresken-Weiland sarcophagi (Chapter 15), M. Braconi, D. Cascianelli and G. Ferri wall painting (Chapter 16), M. Bonifay and P. Reynolds pottery (Chapter 17), C. Höpken and S. Nagel glass (Chapter 18), N. Bhalla ivory (Chapter 19) and M. Mundell Mango and B. Fourlas metalwork (Chapter 20). Among these, the synthesis on late antique ceramic production stands out for the dexterity with which it crosses regional, cultural and chronological boundaries, and for its refusal to subordinate the rich evidence of local and regional wares to the better-travelled African Red Slip Ware, whose typochronology has long cast a disproportionate shadow over the field. The most significant additions to the standard handbook template are the chapters devoted to categories of material rarely accorded this kind of sustained treatment: S. Schrenk on dress and furnishing textiles (Chapter 21), M.P. Brown on illuminated manuscripts (Chapter 22), A. Felle on epigraphy (Chapter 23), A. Burnett on coinage (Chapter 24), C. Adams and M. Gibbs on travel and communication (Chapter 25), S. Cuomo on technology (Chapter 26) and B. Kiilerich on spolia (Chapter 27). The last of these is especially worth noting: rather than treating the reuse of architectural elements merely as a form of pragmatic recycling, as earlier scholarship had tended to do, Kiilerich’s chapter situates the phenomenon within a coherent historical and aesthetic framework, restoring to spolia much deserved interpretative weight.

Volume 2 opens with Part 3, which shifts the focus to settlements and regions, addressing both the celebrated centres of late antique urbanism and the challenge of the periphery. The major cities are treated individually: P. Liverani on Rome (Chapter 28), S. Bassett on Constantinople (Chapter 29), M. Venit (†) and J. Marchand on Alexandria (Chapter 30), G. Brands and A.U. De Giorgi on Antioch (Chapter 31), O. Gutfeld on Jerusalem (Chapter 32), R. Miles on Carthage (Chapter 33), D. Mauskopf Deliyannis on Ravenna (Chapter 34) and W. Weber on Trier (Chapter 35). The selection reflects the geographical balance of East and West with reasonable care, covering the principal nodes of the late antique world without unduly privileging the western tradition. The section then broadens its scope to encompass smaller urban settlements and rural landscapes: N. Christie surveys cities in the West (Chapter 36) and H. Saradi cities in the East (Chapter 37), while C. Grey (Chapter 38), S. Mitchell (†) (Chapter 39) and A. Leone (Chapter 40) address the countryside of the Western Empire, Eastern Empire and North Africa respectively, with R.J. Pillinger’s contribution concluding the section by means of an overview of urban and rural patterns in the Balkans (Chapter 41). Read as a group, these chapters do much to correct the persistent imbalance between urban and rural coverage in handbooks of this kind, extending the encyclopaedia’s scope into landscapes that have too often served merely as backdrop to the study of monumental centres.

Part 4 represents one of the encyclopaedia’s more innovative departures from the template of earlier handbooks in the field, directing close attention to questions of ethnicity and cultural identity. G. Halsall examines the peoples of northern Europe (Chapter 42), F. Curta those of eastern Europe (Chapter 43) and E. Loosley Leeming those of Syria, with particular attention to the limestone villages of northern Syria (Chapter 44). J. Cromwell and M. Gibbs explore the multifaceted reality of late antique Egypt (Chapter 45), while C. Maranci’s contribution on Armenia (Chapter 46) and M. Milwright’s on the early Islamic world (Chapter 47) are especially valuable for integrating two traditions frequently left at the margins of surveys of this kind. Milwright’s argument for continuity between the late antique Mediterranean world and the early Islamic one is not advanced as a thesis of principle but grounded in specific empirical observations. The ceramic record of the seventh century shows relatively minimal divergence from the pre-conquest period; Greek was retained as the language of official documents across formerly Byzantine Egypt and Greater Syria; and the caliphate inherited its bureaucratic structures from the preceding empires. In the eighth century new mosques were sited within existing urban commercial frameworks; Umayyad palatial architecture drew directly on Roman and Sasanian prototypes; and market construction followed late antique building conventions. A more marked shift away from late antique patterns emerges only in the ninth century, most clearly exemplified by the 836 foundation of Samarra under the Abbasid caliph al-Muʿtasim and the development of distinctly Abbasid ornamental programmes such as the bevelled style of stucco carving. This periodisation considerably sharpens the encyclopaedia’s broader argument about transformation and continuity, grounding it in stratigraphy and ceramic sequences rather than historical narrative alone. Maranci’s chapter on Armenia performs a comparable function for the eastern frontier, demonstrating that the visual and material culture of this often-marginalised region is not peripheral to late antique studies but central to any adequate understanding of the period’s geographical and cultural complexity.

Part 5 closes the second volume with a series of thematic essays of a more interpretative character, and the results are uneven in a revealing way. J. Poblome’s contribution on the economy of the later Roman Empire (Chapter 48) is explicitly described by its author as ‘mainly an archaeological paper’ (p. 839) – a methodological positioning that signals deliberate resistance to approaches based primarily on textual proxies or macro-economic modelling. Poblome insists on the structural importance of micro-regional variation, arguing through case studies drawn from northern Gaul, Iberia, central Adriatic Italy, Boeotia and south-west Asia Minor that regionalism is a constitutive feature of the later Roman productive landscape rather than a symptom of fragmentation or decline. The chapter’s refusal of a teleological narrative – its insistence that the later Roman economy should not be read backwards from the perspective of its eventual contraction, nor compared unfavourably with the high imperial period as if the latter were the natural baseline – acts as a useful check on the eschatological undertow that still runs through much writing on the period. Poblome’s explicit cross-referencing to other chapters on pottery, technology and urbanism also reinforces a sense of coherence across the two volumes. S. Ristow’s analysis of the spread of Christianity (Chapter 49) complements this picture by foregrounding the methodological limits of the archaeological record, emphasising both the difficulty of identifying Christian material culture with certainty and the uneven, often discontinuous character of Christianisation across regions. P. Heather’s treatment of barbarians and migrations (Chapter 50) occupies explicitly contested disciplinary ground and makes no pretence of neutrality. After surveying the archaeological and historical evidence for Slavic expansion, Anglo-Saxon settlement and Gothic migration, Heather maps three current scholarly positions and aligns himself with the third of these, which he articulates with particular clarity: accepting large-scale population movement where the source base genuinely warrants it, while resisting both the older invasion hypothesis in its unreconstructed form and the a priori rejection of significant migration that, in his view, has led to a preference for less-attested sources over better-documented ones. His observation that a determination to avoid anything resembling the invasion hypothesis results in ‘counterintuitive methodological choices’ (p. 898) is pointed and, within the conventions of encyclopaedia writing, unusually candid – just the kind of evaluative engagement that a reference work of this ambition ought to sustain. W. Bowden’s closing essay on the archaeology of late antique identity (Chapter 51) is theoretically the most ambitious contribution in the volume, drawing on F. Barth’s model of ethnic boundary maintenance and A. Gardner’s application of A. Giddens’s structuration theory to argue that the study of late antiquity is, at its core, the study of identity – specifically, of the gradual dissolution of Romanitas and its replacement by other, more localised forms. Bowden acknowledges the practical difficulties of investigating identity through an archaeological record skewed towards the built environment and the urban elite, and in a significant parenthesis notes that this skew is partly reproduced in the structure and emphases of this volume – a moment of reflexive critical intelligence that distinguishes this encyclopaedia from more anodyne reference works, and a reminder that the discipline still has some way to go before its evidence base reflects the diversity of the populations it purports to study.

A recurrent concern across multiple contributions is the reshaping of the field by scientific methodologies. The editors and contributors draw attention to 3D imaging in the study of the Roman catacombs, laser-based conservation and the removal of calcareous encrustations from wall paintings, radiocarbon dating, ground-penetrating radar, isotope analysis and palaeoclimatic reconstruction. Worth noting separately is the measured discussion of archaeogenetics and ancient DNA – described in the introduction as the ‘third revolution’ (p. 4) in archaeology –, where appropriate caution is exercised about results so far available while acknowledging the transformative potential of ongoing collaborative projects, including HistoGenes and Genetic Legacies, for the study of migration, ethnicity and community identity. Heather’s chapter takes up this promise directly, engaging with both the limitations of stable isotope analysis for identifying first-generation migrants and with the longer-term prospects of next-generation sequencing, noting that meaningful results will require a broad European genetic database against which individual projects can be assessed. Poblome similarly calls for approaches that extend beyond the traditional dialogue between history and archaeology to encompass demography, economic modelling and geo-scientific proxies. The encyclopaedia’s attention to the ongoing digitisation of key resources – notably the databases of late antique statuary and early Christian epigraphy – further reflects the energy of a field still working through its own assumptions about what counts as evidence.

An encyclopaedia of this breadth is never without gaps or points where editorial decisions could prompt disagreement. The editors acknowledge a relative lack of engagement with theoretical archaeology – phenomenological approaches to built space, the archaeology of the senses and landscape phenomenology –, and this is perhaps the most consequential lacuna for readers with a strong methodological investment in these frameworks, particularly given Bowden’s closing call for approaches that attend more rigorously to the experiences of all inhabitants of the late antique world rather than to the physical fabric of elite contexts alone. The thematic balance between the two volumes is not entirely even: Parts 1 and 2, covering architecture, iconography and artefacts, constitute the encyclopaedia’s most thoroughly worked-out dimension, while Parts 3, 4 and 5, though genuinely valuable, occasionally read as appendices to the typological core rather than as fully equal partners to it. The absence of a dedicated treatment of port archaeology represents a missed opportunity, given the centrality of maritime infrastructure to late antique connectivity and commerce. These are, however, the kinds of gaps that are inevitable in any reference work of finite length, and they indicate directions for future scholarship rather than failures of editorial judgement.

This encyclopaedia is a work of genuine consequence. It is likely to remain the essential first point of reference for scholars, students and other readers seeking reliable, current and expert guidance on the material culture of the later Roman and post-classical world. Its central argument – that late antique archaeology must be understood as the archaeology of an entire material world and not of any single religious community – is stated with clarity in the introduction and enacted with consistency across both volumes. Coverage is wide without being superficial, contributors are in general among the leading specialists in their respective areas, and the editorial apparatus is coherent and carefully designed. The encyclopaedia marks a genuine advance on its predecessors, and scholarship in this area has gained considerably from its appearance.