El-Amarna is the site of the largest surviving ancient Egyptian city, dating to the middle of the fourteenth century BC and occupied by a population of over 20,000. This article takes as its starting point the question ‘What would have constituted a desirable residence or neighbourhood?’ and attempts to reach an understanding of the social aspirations of the Egyptians of the pharaonic period by analyzing the residential areas of el-Amarna in the context of contemporary texts and ethnographic parallels. The results of this analysis suggest that Egyptian attitudes to material success and the ‘country estate’ are eloquently expressed in the variability of their mud-brick housing at different levels of society.

An analysis of art-historians' and archaeologists' characterizations of art reveals two paradigms. In the earlier paradigm, art-historical appreciation and archaeological explanation were mutually exclusive, if mutually implicated, endeavours. In the more recent paradigm, art-history and archaeology converge in the interpretation of material-culture texts and eschew the explanation of broader social processes. An alternative characterization of art as expressive symbolism is advocated, drawing upon the sociological theory of Talcott Parsons. A case study of classical Greek portraiture shows how aesthetic innovation may contribute to the growth of social systems.

This article explores the relationship between design structure and meaning in Middle Assyrian seals. In a discussion of style and meaning in art a structural distinction is proposed between designs which convey a message and designs which affirm reality. The development of the seals of the thirteenth century BC is described, and a change in the composition of the scenes is interpreted through a linguistic analogy. At first, the seals bore a specific message about the victory of predators over prey; later, the same design elements were used in random combinations to produce a reduced range of meanings.

Archaeologists have been naive to expect that symbolic behaviour can be inferred more or less directly from the characteristics of an archaeological record. This article examines various construals of symbolism and its relationship to signs, indexes and style that are derived from more fully axiomatized theories of cognition in psychology, anthropology, linguistics and primatology. The authors' intent is to develop a more adequate operational definition of symbolism, and to determine whether our more stringent criteria for inferring symbolic behaviour can be met in ‘pre-modern’ contexts. A review of the archaeopalaeontological record suggests that the roots of symbolism can be traced to the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, but that evidence for a robust pattern documenting its presence is not found until the Upper Palaeolithic. It is argued that symbolism had adaptive significance, but that it probably developed in contexts distinct from those in which it is manifest today.