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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.The Worlds of the Moche on the North Coast of Peru
Par Elizabeth P. Benson. 2012
The Moche, or Mochica, created an extraordinary civilization on the north coast of Peru for most of the first millennium…
AD. Although they had no written language with which to record their history and beliefs, the Moche built enormous ceremonial edifices and embellished them with mural paintings depicting supernatural figures and rituals. Highly skilled Moche artisans crafted remarkable ceramic vessels, which they painted with figures and scenes or modeled like sculpture, and mastered metallurgy in gold, silver, and copper to make impressive symbolic ornaments. They also wove textiles that were complex in execution and design. A senior scholar renowned for her discoveries about the Moche, Elizabeth P. Benson published the first English-language monograph on the subject in 1972. Now in this volume, she draws on decades of knowledge, as well as the findings of other researchers, to offer a grand overview of all that is currently known about the Moche. Touching on all significant aspects of Moche culture, she covers such topics as their worldview and ritual life, ceremonial architecture and murals, art and craft, supernatural beings, government and warfare, and burial and the afterlife. She demonstrates that the Moche expressed, with symbolic language in metal and clay, what cultures in other parts of the world presented in writing. Indeed, Benson asserts that the accomplishments of the Moche are comparable to those of their Mesoamerica contemporaries, the Maya, which makes them one of the most advanced civilizations of pre-Columbian America.The Maya and Teotihuacan: Reinterpreting Early Classic Interaction
Par Geoffrey E. Braswell. 2003
Since the 1930s, archaeologists have uncovered startling evidence of interaction between the Early Classic Maya and the great empire of…
Teotihuacan in Central Mexico. Yet the exact nature of the relationship between these two ancient Mesoamerican civilizations remains to be fully deciphered. Many scholars have assumed that Teotihuacan colonized the Maya region and dominated the political or economic systems of certain key centers--perhaps even giving rise to state-level political organizations. Others argue that Early Classic rulers merely traded with Teotihuacan and skillfully manipulated its imported exotic goods and symbol sets to increase their prestige.The Art And Archaeology of the Moche: An Ancient Andean Society of the Peruvian North Coast
Par Steve, Jones, Bourget, Kimberly L.. 2008
Renowned for their monumental architecture and rich visual culture, the Moche inhabited the north coast of Peru during the Early…
Intermediate Period (AD 100-800). Archaeological discoveries over the past century and the dissemination of Moche artifacts to museums around the world have given rise to a widespread and continually increasing fascination with this complex culture, which expressed its beliefs about the human and supernatural worlds through finely crafted ceramic and metal objects of striking realism and visual sophistication. In this standard-setting work, an international, multidisciplinary team of scholars who are at the forefront of Moche research present a state-of-the-art overview of Moche culture. The contributors address various issues of Moche society, religion, and material culture based on multiple lines of evidence and methodologies, including iconographic studies, archaeological investigations, and forensic analyses. Some of the articles present the results of long-term studies of major issues in Moche iconography, while others focus on more specifically defined topics such as site studies, the influence of El Niño/Southern Oscillation on Moche society, the nature of Moche warfare and sacrifice, and the role of Moche visual culture in decoding social and political frameworks.To Be Like Gods: Dance in Ancient Maya Civilization
Par Looper, Matthew G.. 2009
The Maya of Mexico and Central America have performed ritual dances for more than two millennia. Dance is still an…
essential component of religious experience today, serving as a medium for communication with the supernatural. During the Late Classic period (AD 600-900), dance assumed additional importance in Maya royal courts through an association with feasting and gift exchange. These performances allowed rulers to forge political alliances and demonstrate their control of trade in luxury goods. The aesthetic values embodied in these performances were closely tied to Maya social structure, expressing notions of gender, rank, and status. Dance was thus not simply entertainment, but was fundamental to ancient Maya notions of social, religious, and political identity. Using an innovative interdisciplinary approach, Matthew Looper examines several types of data relevant to ancient Maya dance, including hieroglyphic texts, pictorial images in diverse media, and architecture. A series of case studies illustrates the application of various analytical methodologies and offers interpretations of the form, meaning, and social significance of dance performance. Although the nuances of movement in Maya dances are impossible to recover, Looper demonstrates that a wealth of other data survives which allows a detailed consideration of many aspects of performance. To Be Like Gods thus provides the first comprehensive interpretation of the role of dance in ancient Maya society and also serves as a model for comparative research in the archaeology of performance.Community and Identity in Ancient Egypt
Par Deborah Vischak. 2015
This book examines a group of twelve ancient Egyptian tombs (ca. 2300 BCE) in the elite Old Kingdom cemetery of…
Elephantine at Qubbet el-Hawa in modern Aswan. It develops an interdisciplinary approach to the material - drawing on methods from art history, archaeology, anthropology, and sociology, including agency theory, the role of style, the reflexive relationship between people and landscape, and the nature of locality and community identity. A careful examination of the architecture, setting, and unique text and image programs of these tombs in context provides a foundation for considering how ancient Egyptian provincial communities bonded to each other, developed shared identities within the broader Egyptian world, and expressed these identities through their personal forms of visual and material culture.The Italic People of Ancient Apulia
Par T. H. Carpenter K. M. Lynch, E. G. D. Robinson, T. H. Carpenter, K. M. Lynch. 2014
The focus of this book is on the Italic people of Apulia during the fourth century BC, when Italic culture…
seems to have reached its peak of affluence. Scholars have largely ignored these people and the region they inhabited. During the past several decades archaeologists have made significant progress in revealing the cultures of Apulia through excavations of habitation sites and un-plundered tombs, often published in Italian journals. This book makes the broad range of recent scholarship - from new excavations and contexts to archaeometric testing of production hypotheses to archaeological evidence for reconsidering painter attributions - available to English-speaking audiences. In it thirteen scholars from Italy, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Australia present targeted essays on aspects of the cultures of the Italic people of Apulia during the fourth century BC and the surrounding decades.Paleoindian Geoarchaeology of the Southern High Plains
Par Vance T. Holliday. 1997
The Southern High Plains of northwestern Texas and eastern New Mexico are rich in Paleoindian archaeological sites, including such well-known…
ones as Clovis, Lubbock Lake, Plainview, and Midland. These sites have been extensively researched over decades, not only by archaeologists but also by geoscientists, whose studies of soils and stratigraphy have yielded important information about cultural chronology and paleoenvironments across the region. In this book, Vance T. Holliday synthesizes the data from these earlier studies with his own recent research to offer the most current and comprehensive overview of the geoarchaeology of the Southern High Plains during the earliest human occupation. He delves into twenty sites in depth, integrating new and old data on site geomorphology, stratigraphy, soils, geochronology, and paleoenvironments. He also compares the Southern High Plains sites with other sites across the Great Plains, for a broader chronological and paleoenvironmental perspective. With over ninety photographs, maps, cross sections, diagrams, and artifact drawings, this book will be essential reading for geoarchaeologists, archaeologists, and Quaternary geoscientists, as well as avocational archaeologists who take part in Paleoindian site study throughout the American West.The Teotihuacan Trinity
Par Annabeth Headrick. 2007
Northeast of modern-day Mexico City stand the remnants of one of the world’s largest preindustrial cities, Teotihuacan. Monumental in scale,…
Teotihuacan is organized along a three-mile-long thoroughfare, the Avenue of the Dead, that leads up to the massive Pyramid of the Moon. Lining the avenue are numerous plazas and temples, which indicate that the city once housed a large population that engaged in complex rituals and ceremonies. Although scholars have studied Teotihuacan for over a century, the precise nature of its religious and political life has remained unclear, in part because no one has yet deciphered the glyphs that may explain much about the city’s organization and belief systems. In this groundbreaking book, Annabeth Headrick analyzes Teotihuacan’s art and architecture, in the light of archaeological data and Mesoamerican ethnography, to propose a new model for the city’s social and political organization. Challenging the view that Teotihuacan was a peaceful city in which disparate groups united in an ideology of solidarity, Headrick instead identifies three social groups that competed for political power—rulers, kin-based groups led by influential lineage heads, and military orders that each had their own animal insignia. Her findings provide the most complete evidence to date that Teotihuacan had powerful rulers who allied with the military to maintain their authority in the face of challenges by the lineage heads. Headrick’s analysis also underscores the importance of warfare in Teotihuacan society and clarifies significant aspects of its ritual life, including shamanism and an annual tree-raising ceremony that commemorated the Mesoamerican creation story.Re-Use-The Art and Politics of Integration and Anxiety
Par Subrata K Mitra, Julia A Hegewald. 2014
Presented here is a novel approach to understanding the relationship between the past and the present using the unique concept…
of re-use, wherein elements from the past are strategically adapted into the present, and thus become part of a new modernity. The book uses this method as a heuristic tool for analysing and interpreting cultural and political changes and the transnational flow of ideas, concepts and objects. The chapters apply this concept to South Asia but the concept of re-use and the method of its application are both general and amenable to cross-cultural and comparative analysis. Re-use is a collection of well-researched and lucidly written scholarly articles that apply the concept of re-use to different aspects of cultural, political and material life-from art, architecture and jewellery to religion, statesmen and legislatures. By not treating artistic, political, religious and cultural developments as linear evolutions, this book encourages readers to understand them as a continuous modification of the past and a periodic return to earlier forms. Beautifully illustrated with exquisite images, and containing a scholarly bibliography pointing in the direction of hitherto unexplored terrain, this new text will be a source of inspiration to the specialist and a source of delight to the general reader.