1. Ancient empires on the ground: provincial and peripheral perspectives Bleda S. Düring and Tesse Stek; Part I. The Transformation of Rural Societies and Landscapes: 2. Engineering empire: a provincial perspective on the Middle Assyrian empire Bleda S. Düring; 3. The creation of the Assyrian heartland: new data from the 'land behind Nineveh' Daniele Morandi Bonacossi; 4. Pioneers of the Western Desert: the Kharga Oasis in the Achaemenid Empire Henry Colburn; 5. Power at a distance: the Hellenistic rural exploitation of the 'farther' chora of Chersonesos (Crimea, Ukraïne) from the perspective of the Džarylgaè survey project Peter Attema; 6. Early Roman colonization beyond the Romanizing agro-town: village patterns of settlement and highland exploitation in the Abruzzo, Central Italy Tesse D. Stek; Part II. The Transformation of Peripheral Societies and Landscapes: 7. Negotiation, violence, and resistance: Urartu's frontiers in the Iron Age Caucasus Lauren Ristvet; 8. The archaeology of imperial borderlands: a view from Roman Egypt and Sudan Anna Lucille Boozer; 9. Living on the edge: the Roman Empire in the North Mesopotamian Steppe Lidewijde de Jong and Rocco Palermo; 10. On the edge: Butrint on the western frontier of the Byzantine Empire Joanita Vroom; Part III. Comparing Repertoires of Rule in Rural and Peripheral Regions: 11. Strategies of empire expansion J. Daniel Rogers; 12. What's the big picture? Comparative perspectives on the archaeology of empire Bradley J. Parker; 13. Towards a patchwork perspective of ancient empires Tesse D. Stek and Bleda S. Düring; Index.