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Heroic Offerings: The Terracotta Plaques From The Spartan Sanctuary Of Agamemnon And Kassandra
Par Gina Salapata. 2014
Heroic Offerings sheds light on the study of religion in Sparta, one of Greece's most powerful city-states and the long-term rival…
of Athens. Sparta's history is well known, but its archaeology has been much less satisfactorily explored. Through the comprehensive study of a distinctive class of terracotta votive offerings from a specific sanctuary, Gina Salapata explores both coroplastic art and regional religion. By integrating archaeological, historical, literary, and epigraphic sources, she provides important insights into the heroic cults of Lakonia and contributes to an understanding of the political and social functions of local ritual practice. This volume focuses on a large group of decorated terracotta plaques, from the sixth to fourth centuries BCE. These molded plaques were discovered with other offerings in a sanctuary deposit excavated near Sparta more than fifty years ago, but they have remained unpublished until now. They number over 1,500 complete and fragmentary pieces. In technique, style, and iconography they form a homogeneous group unlike any other from mainland Greece. The large number of plaques and variety of types reveal a stable and vigorous coroplastic tradition in Lakonia during the late Archaic and Classical period. Heroic Offerings will be of interest to students and scholars of Greek history, art, and archaeology, to those interested in ancient religious practice in the Mediterranean, and to all inspired by Athens' chief political rival, Sparta. This volume received financial support from the Archaeological Institute of America.Death and the Classic Maya Kings
Par James L., Fitzsimmons. 2009
Like their regal counterparts in societies around the globe, ancient Maya rulers departed this world with elaborate burial ceremonies and…
lavish grave goods, which often included ceramics, red pigments, earflares, stingray spines, jades, pearls, obsidian blades, and mosaics. Archaeological investigation of these burials, as well as the decipherment of inscriptions that record Maya rulers' funerary rites, have opened a fascinating window on how the ancient Maya envisaged the ruler's passage from the world of the living to the realm of the ancestors. Focusing on the Classic Period (AD 250-900), James Fitzsimmons examines and compares textual and archaeological evidence for rites of death and burial in the Maya lowlands, from which he creates models of royal Maya funerary behavior. Exploring ancient Maya attitudes toward death expressed at well-known sites such as Tikal, Guatemala, and Copan, Honduras, as well as less-explored archaeological locations, Fitzsimmons reconstructs royal mortuary rites and expands our understanding of key Maya concepts including the afterlife and ancestor veneration.The Prehistory of Asia Minor
Par Bleda S. Düring. 2011
In this book, Bleda Düring offers an archaeological analysis of Asia Minor, the area equated with much of modern-day Turkey,…
from 20,000 to 2,000 BC. During this period human societies moved from small-scale hunter-gatherer groups to complex and hierarchical communities with economies based on agriculture and industry. Dr Düring traces the spread of the Neolithic way of life, which ultimately reached across Eurasia, and the emergence of key human developments, including the domestication of animals, metallurgy, fortified towns and long-distance trading networks. Situated at the junction between Europe and Asia, Asia Minor has often been perceived as a bridge for the movement of technologies and ideas. By contrast, this book argues that cultural developments followed a distinctive trajectory in Asia Minor from as early as 9,000 BC.Art and Archaeology of Challuabamba, Ecuador
Par Terence Grieder. 2009
Challuabamba (chī-wa-bamba)--now a developing suburb of Cuenca, the principal city in the southern highlands of Ecuador--has been known for a…
century as an ancient site that produced exceptionally fine pottery in great quantities. Suspecting that Challuabamban ceramics might provide a link between earlier, preceramic culture and later, highly developed Formative period art, Terence Grieder led an archaeological investigation of the site between 1995 and 2001. In this book, he and the team of art historians and archaeologists who excavated at Challuabamba present their findings, which establish the community's importance as a center in a network of trade and artistic influence that extended to the Amazon River basin and the Pacific Coast. Art and Archaeology of Challuabamba, Ecuador presents an extensive analysis of ceramics dating to 2100-1100 BC, along with descriptions of stamps and seals, stone and shell artifacts, burials and their offerings, human remains, and zooarchaeology. Grieder and his coauthors demonstrate that the pottery of Challuabamba fills a gap between early and late Formative styles and also has a definite connection with later highland styles in Peru. They draw on all the material remains to reconstruct the first clear picture of Challuabamba's prehistory, including agriculture and health, interregional contacts and exchange, red-banded incised ware and ceramic production, and shamanism and cosmology. Because southern Ecuador has received relatively little archaeological study, Art and Archaeology of Challuabamba, Ecuador offers important baseline data for what promises to be a key sector of the prehistoric Andean region.Monumental Ambivalence: The Politics of Heritage
Par Lisa Breglia. 2006
From ancient Maya cities in Mexico and Central America to the Taj Mahal in India, cultural heritage sites around the…
world are being drawn into the wave of privatization that has already swept through such economic sectors as telecommunications, transportation, and utilities. As nation-states decide they can no longer afford to maintain cultural properties—or find it economically advantageous not to do so in the globalizing economy—private actors are stepping in to excavate, conserve, interpret, and represent archaeological and historical sites. But what are the ramifications when a multinational corporation, or even an indigenous village, owns a piece of national patrimony which holds cultural and perhaps sacred meaning for all the country's people, as well as for visitors from the rest of the world?The Chora of Metaponto 4: The Late Roman Farmhouse at San Biagio
Par Erminia Lapadula. 2012
This volume in the Institute of Classical Archaeology’s series on rural settlements in the countryside (chora) of Metaponto presents the…
excavation of the Late Roman farmhouse at San Biagio. Located near the site of an earlier Greek sanctuary, this modest but well-appointed structure was an unexpected find from a period generally marked by large landholdings and monumental villas. Description of earlier periods of occupation (Neolithic and Greek) is followed by a detailed discussion of the farmhouse itself and its historical and socioeconomic context. The catalogs and analyses of finds include impressive deposits of coins from the late third and early fourth centuries AD. Use of virtual reality CAD software has yielded a deeper understanding of the architectural structure and its reconstruction. A remarkable feature is the small bath complex, with its examples of window glass. This study reveals the existence of a small but viable rural social and economic entity and alternative to the traditional image of crisis and decline during the Late Imperial period.Three-quarter Man
Par Sam Bramham. 2014
Bramham doesn't let a disability slow him down, or quell his larrikin streak. He's a force of nature, as famous…
for making mischief as for winning Paralympic medals in the pool. Despite an 'international incident' or two, Sam was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for being an inspiration and role model. With his competitive spirit still burning, Sam is on the road to Rio, determined to win gold for Australia in the first ever Paralympic triathlon.The Karankawa Indians of Texas: An Ecological Study of Cultural Tradition and Change
Par Robert A. Ricklis. 1996
Popular lore has long depicted the Karankawa Indians as primitive scavengers (perhaps even cannibals) who eked out a meager subsistence…
from fishing, hunting and gathering on the Texas coastal plains. That caricature, according to Robert Ricklis, hides the reality of a people who were well-adapted to their environment, skillful in using its resources, and successful in maintaining their culture until the arrival of Anglo-American settlers. The Karankawa Indians of Texas is the first modern, well-researched history of the Karankawa from prehistoric times until their extinction in the nineteenth century. Blending archaeological and ethnohistorical data into a lively narrative history, Ricklis reveals the basic lifeway of the Karankawa, a seasonal pattern that took them from large coastal fishing camps in winter to small, dispersed hunting and gathering parties in summer. In a most important finding, he shows how, after initial hostilities, the Karankawa incorporated the Spanish missions into their subsistence pattern during the colonial period and coexisted peacefully with Euroamericans until the arrival of Anglo settlers in the 1820s and 1830s. These findings will be of wide interest to everyone studying the interactions of Native American and European peoples.Negotiating for the Past: Archaeology, Nationalism, and Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1919-1941
Par James F. Goode. 2007
The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922 was a landmark event in Egyptology that was celebrated around the…
world. Had Howard Carter found his prize a few years earlier, however, the treasures of Tut might now be in the British Museum in London rather than the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. That's because the years between World War I and World War II were a transitional period in Middle Eastern archaeology, as nationalists in Egypt and elsewhere asserted their claims to antiquities discovered within their borders. These claims were motivated by politics as much as by scholarship, with nationalists seeking to unite citizens through pride in their ancient past as they challenged Western powers that still exercised considerable influence over local governments and economies. James Goode's analysis of archaeological affairs in Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq during this period offers fascinating new insight into the rise of nationalism in the Middle East, as well as archaeological and diplomatic history.The Chora of Croton 1: The Neolithic Settlement at Capo Alfiere
Par Jon Morter. 2010
It provides comprehensive documentation of the economy, material culture, and way of life in the central Mediterranean in the sixth…
and fifth millennia BC. Most notable are the remains of a wattle-and-daub hut enclosed within a massive stone wall. Unique for this area, this well-preserved structure may have been used for special purposes such as ritual, as well as for habitation. The presence of Stentinello wares shows that the range of this pottery type extended further east than previously thought and casts new light on the development of ceramics in the area.Ritual and Power in Stone: The Performance of Rulership in Mesoamerican Izapan Style Art
Par Julia Guernsey. 2006
The ancient Mesoamerican city of Izapa in Chiapas, Mexico, is renowned for its extensive collection of elaborate stone stelae and…
altars, which were carved during the Late Preclassic period (300 BC-AD 250). Many of these monuments depict kings garbed in the costume and persona of a bird, a well-known avian deity who had great significance for the Maya and other cultures in adjacent regions. This Izapan style of carving and kingly representation appears at numerous sites across the Pacific slope and piedmont of Mexico and Guatemala, making it possible to trace political and economic corridors of communication during the Late Preclassic period.Dancing at the Dawn of Agriculture
Par Yosef Garfinkel. 2003
As the nomadic hunters and gatherers of the ancient Near East turned to agriculture for their livelihood and settled into…
villages, religious ceremonies involving dancing became their primary means for bonding individuals into communities and households into villages. So important was dance that scenes of dancing are among the oldest and most persistent themes in Near Eastern prehistoric art, and these depictions of dance accompanied the spread of agriculture into surrounding regions of Europe and Africa. In this pathfinding book, Yosef Garfinkel analyzes depictions of dancing found on archaeological objects from the Near East, southeastern Europe, and Egypt to offer the first comprehensive look at the role of dance in these Neolithic (7000-4000 BC) societies. In the first part of the book, Garfinkel examines the structure of dance, its functional roles in the community (with comparisons to dance in modern pre-state societies), and its cognitive, or symbolic, aspects. This analysis leads him to assert that scenes of dancing depict real community rituals linked to the agricultural cycle and that dance was essential for maintaining these calendrical rituals and passing them on to succeeding generations. In the concluding section of the book, Garfinkel presents and discusses the extensive archaeological data—some 400 depictions of dance—on which his study is based.Lightning Warrior: Maya Art and Kingship at Quirigua
Par Matthew G. Looper. 2003
The ancient Maya city of Quirigua occupied a crossroads between Copan in the southeastern Maya highlands and the major centers…
of the Peten heartland. Though always a relatively small city, Quirigua stands out because of its public monuments, which were some of the greatest achievements of Classic Maya civilization. Impressive not only for their colossal size, high sculptural quality, and eloquent hieroglyphic texts, the sculptures of Quirigua are also one of the few complete, in situ series of Maya monuments anywhere, which makes them a crucial source of information about ancient Maya spirituality and political practice within a specific historical context.The Origin of Roman London
Par Lacey M. Wallace. 2014
In this book Dr Wallace makes a fundamental contribution to the study of urbanism in the Roman provinces. She attempts…
for the first time to present a detailed archaeological account of the first decade of one of the best-excavated cities in the Roman Empire. Delving into the artefact and structural reports from all excavations of pre-Boudican levels in London, she brings together vast quantities of data which are discussed and illustrated according to a novel methodology that address both the difficulties and complexity of 'grey literature' and urban excavation.Ancient Maya Commoners
Par Jon Lohse, Fred Valdez. 2004
Much of what we currently know about the ancient Maya concerns the activities of the elites who ruled the societies…
and left records of their deeds carved on the monumental buildings and sculptures that remain as silent testimony to their power and status. But what do we know of the common folk who labored to build the temple complexes and palaces and grew the food that fed all of Maya society? This pathfinding book marshals a wide array of archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic evidence to offer the fullest understanding to date of the lifeways of ancient Maya commoners. Senior and emerging scholars contribute case studies that examine such aspects of commoner life as settlement patterns, household organization, and subsistence practices. Their reports cover most of the Maya area and the entire time span from Preclassic to Postclassic. This broad range of data helps resolve Maya commoners from a faceless mass into individual actors who successfully adapted to their social environment and who also held primary responsibility for producing the food and many other goods on which the whole Maya society depended.Lightning Gods and Feathered Serpents
Par Rex Koontz. 2009
El Tajín, an ancient Mesoamerican capital in Veracruz, Mexico, has long been admired for its stunning pyramids and ballcourts decorated…
with extensive sculptural programs. Yet the city's singularity as the only center in the region with such a wealth of sculpture and fine architecture has hindered attempts to place it more firmly in the context of Mesoamerican history. In Lightning Gods and Feathered Serpents, Rex Koontz undertakes the first extensive treatment of El Tajín's iconography in over thirty years, allowing us to view its imagery in the broader Mesoamerican context of rising capitals and new elites during a period of fundamental historical transformations. Koontz focuses on three major architectural features-the Pyramid of the Niches/Central Plaza ensemble, the South Ballcourt, and the Mound of the Building Columns complex-and investigates the meanings of their sculpture and how these meanings would have been experienced by specific audiences. Koontz finds that the iconography of El Tajín reveals much about how motifs and elite rites growing out of the Classic period were transmitted to later Mesoamerican peoples as the cultures centered on Teotihuacan and the Maya became the myriad city-states of the Early Postclassic period. By reexamining the iconography of sculptures long in the record, as well as introducing important new monuments and contexts, Lightning Gods and Feathered Serpents clearly demonstrates El Tajín's numerous iconographic connections with other areas of Mesoamerica, while also exploring its roots in an indigenous Gulf lowlands culture whose outlines are only now emerging. At the same time, it begins to uncover a largely ignored regional artistic culture of which Tajín is the crowning achievement.Of Summits and Sacrifice
Par Thomas Besom. 2009
In perhaps as few as one hundred years, the Inka Empire became the largest state ever formed by a native…
people anywhere in the Americas, dominating the western coast of South America by the early sixteenth century. Because the Inkas had no system of writing, it was left to Spanish and semi-indigenous authors to record the details of the religious rituals that the Inkas believed were vital for consolidating their conquests. Synthesizing these arresting accounts that span three centuries, Thomas Besom presents a wealth of descriptive data on the Inka practices of human sacrifice and mountain worship, supplemented by archaeological evidence. Of Summits and Sacrifice offers insight into the symbolic connections between landscape and life that underlay Inka religious beliefs. In vivid prose, Besom links significant details, ranging from the reasons for cyclical sacrificial rites to the varieties of mountain deities, producing a uniquely powerful cultural history.Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq
Par Magnus T. Bernhardsson. 2005
The looting of the Iraqi National Museum in April of 2003 provoked a world outcry at the loss of artifacts…
regarded as part of humanity's shared cultural patrimony. But though the losses were unprecedented in scale, the museum looting was hardly the first time that Iraqi heirlooms had been plundered or put to political uses. From the beginning of archaeology as a modern science in the nineteenth century, Europeans excavated and appropriated Iraqi antiquities as relics of the birth of Western civilization. Since Iraq was created in 1921, the modern state has used archaeology to forge a connection to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and/or Islamic empires and so build a sense of nationhood among Iraqis of differing religious traditions and ethnicities.Prehistory of the Rustler Hills: Granado Cave
Par Donny L. Hamilton. 2001
The Northeastern Trans-Pecos region of Texas is an unforgiving environment for anyone living off the land, yet nomadic hunters and…
gatherers roamed its deserts and mountains and sheltered in caves and sinkholes from around AD 200 to 1450. This book provides detailed insights into the lifeways of these little-known prehistoric peoples. It places their occupation of the region in a wider temporal and cultural framework through a comprehensive description and analysis of the archaeological remains excavated by Donny L. Hamilton at Granado Cave in 1978. Hamilton begins with a brief overview of the geology and environment of the Granado Cave area and reviews previous archaeological investigations. Then he and other researchers present detailed analyses of the burials and other material remains found in the cave, as well as the results of radiocarbon dating. From these findings, he reconstructs the subsistence patterns and burial practices of these Native Americans, whom he identifies as a distinct group that was pushed into the environment by surrounding peoples. He proposes that they should be represented by a new archaeological phase, thus helping to clarify the poorly understood late prehistory of the Trans-Pecos. Donny L. Hamilton is Associate Head of the Department of Anthropology at Texas A & M University.My Life of Language: A Memoir
Par Paul W. Ogden. 2017
Paul W. Ogden has dedicated his life to educating young deaf and hard of hearing people and raising awareness of…
what it means to be deaf in a hearing world. He has taught and mentored a generation of teachers, and his classic volume, The Silent Garden, has served as a guide for parents and educators for over thirty years. Now he tells his personal story of challenges faced and lessons learned, revealing that the critical, guiding factors for him have always been language and successful communication. Born in a time when many deaf children had no access to language, Paul learned spoken and written language skills at a young age through the painstaking efforts of his mother. His tight-knit family, which included one deaf and two hearing older brothers, facilitated open and constant communication using a variety of methods. His father was a pastor who was involved in the civil rights movement. Despite the family’s closeness, his father struggled with depression, an illness that would take the life of one of Paul’s brothers. As a student at a residential deaf school where the use of American Sign Language (ASL) was suppressed, Paul continued to build on the speech and lipreading skills he had learned at home. He returned home for high school and graduated as co-valedictorian—unaware of the standing ovation he received as he walked to the podium. Following a rewarding experience as an undergraduate at Antioch College, Paul went on to earn a PhD from the University of Illinois, a rare accomplishment for a deaf person at that time. During his graduate studies, he finally had the opportunity to learn ASL. As an award-winning professor of Deaf Studies at California State University, Fresno, he successfully petitioned for the university to recognize ASL as a language, and he established the Silent Garden program, which has grown into a flourishing provider of training and resources to support the Deaf community. In My Life of Language, Paul offers eloquent reflections on both the joyful and difficult periods of his life as he navigated relationships, faced discrimination, questioned his faith, and found great happiness in his marriage.