This study focuses on cultural exchange and aspects of acculturation, which go back to the Greek settlement in Lower Italy and Sicily and result from the coexistence of the Italic and Sicilian population and the Greek settlers. The development of tomb types, funerary goods and funeral rites is used to study diverse influences such as the relations between the colony and the motherland, among the colonies themselves as well as between the colonies and their surrroundings and the people living nearby. The study uses three case studies – the Euboean settlements Pithecoussai and Kyme in Campania, the Achaean colony Metapontion and the Spartan city of Taras in Lower Italy, and the Rhodian-Cretan colonies Gela and Akragas in Sicily.

This volume covers the conference “The Ancient City in Transition,” which was held in May 2006 in Darmstadt, Germany. The central theme is the change and design of urban space during Late Antiquity, a period particularly marked by upheavals. In dealing with the urban space, the questions of space design and change, of how to deal with older structures and their importance, of exploring new paths in the design of public and private living space, and of urban structural changes and site-specific developments of Roman cities were explored. Particularly significant here was the heterogeneous development generated in each city.