Abstract

This year’s issue brings together papers that examine political, geographical, socio-cultural, and technological boundaries in the Nile Valley and the Mediterranean from late prehistory to medieval times. It explores the complexity of these boundaries through the concept of the ‘borderscape’, understood here as the political, cultural, physical, mental, intellectual, and spiritual geography in which boundaries exist and where both tangible and intangible practices of boundary-making and boundary-maintenance occur. The focus is on how boundaries are actively constructed and negotiated in specific locations – even when these places are not materially delineated. The study of physical and non-physical boundaries has long been central to archaeological inquiry, and various theoretical approaches have been developed to address this topic. However, the notion of the borderscape remains relatively new to archaeology, even if it has a more established presence in Critical Border Studies and related disciplines.