Approaching Monumentality in Archaeology

Approaching Monumentality in Archaeology
Author: James F. Osborne
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2014-10-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1438453256

Interdisciplinary study of monumental art and architecture in human history. Monumentality is a human phenomenon that has occurred in nearly all times and places. Because of its ubiquity, monumentality is something that has been studied by a large number of disciplines and individuals. Approaching Monumentality in Archaeology explores the phenomenon of monumental art and architecture from humankind’s most ancient past to recent history, and does so using an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates the research of anthropological archaeologists, art historians, classicists, and sociologists working in a wide variety of historical and cultural contexts. The volume seeks to define what is meant by the terms “monument” and “monumentality,” and to understand the social and political significance of monument-building as it has manifested around the world. By advocating for a relational approach to the topic that seeks to find monumentality in the ongoing relationship between object and person, this book offers the opportunity to begin the process of uniting these varied interests into a unified discourse.

Size Matters

Size Matters
Author: Federico Buccellati
Publisher: Transcript Verlag, Roswitha Gost, Sigrid Nokel u. Dr. Karin Werner
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2019-08
Genre:
ISBN: 9783837645385

Bringing together researchers from fields such as archaeology, museology, history, sociology, Mesoamerican studies, and art history, this book discusses terminological and methodological approaches to momumentality in both theoretical contributions and case studies.

Size Matters - Understanding Monumentality Across Ancient Civilizations

Size Matters - Understanding Monumentality Across Ancient Civilizations
Author: Federico Buccellati
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2019-07-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 3839445388

When talking about monuments, size undeniably matters - or does it? But how else can we measure monumentality? Bringing together researchers from various fields such as archaeology, museology, history, sociology, Mesoamerican studies, and art history, this book discusses terminological and methodological approaches in both theoretical contributions and various case studies. While focusing on architectural aspects, this volume also discusses the social meaning of monuments, the role of forced and free labour, as well as textual monumentality. The result is a modern interdisciplinary take on an important concept which is notoriously difficult to define.

Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Ancient Greece

Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Ancient Greece
Author: Lisa Nevett
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2017-03-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0472122533

In the modern world, objects and buildings speak eloquently about their creators. Status, gender identity, and cultural affiliations are just a few characteristics we can often infer about such material culture. But can we make similar deductions about the inhabitants of the first millennium BCE Greek world? Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Ancient Greece offers a series of case studies exploring how a theoretical approach to the archaeology of this area provides insight into aspects of ancient society. An introductory section exploring the emergence and growth of theoretical approaches is followed by examinations of the potential insights these approaches provide. The authors probe some of the meanings attached to ancient objects, townscapes, and cemeteries, for those who created, and used, or inhabited them. The range of contexts stretches from the early Greek communities during the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, through Athens between the eighth and fifth centuries BCE, and on into present day Turkey and the Levant during the third and second centuries BCE. The authors examine a range of practices, from the creation of individual items such as ceramic vessels and figurines, through to the construction of civic buildings, monuments, and cemeteries. At the same time they interrogate a range of spheres, from craft production, through civic and religious practices, to funerary ritual.

Syro-Hittite Monumental Art and the Archaeology of Performance

Syro-Hittite Monumental Art and the Archaeology of Performance
Author: Alessandra Gilibert
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2011
Genre: Art
ISBN: 3110222256

The ceremonial centers of the Syro-Hittite city-states (1200-700 BC) were lavishly decorated with large-scale, open-air figurative reliefs - an original and greatly influential artistic tradition. But why exactly did the production of such an array of monumental images ever start? This volume explores how Syro-Hittite monumental art was used as a powerful backdrop to important ritual events, and opens up a new perspective by situating monumental art in the context of public performances and civic spectacles of great emotional impact, such as processions, royal triumphs, and dynastic funerals.

Plant Food Processing Tools at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe

Plant Food Processing Tools at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe
Author: Laura Dietrich
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2021-12-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1803270934

Plant Food Processing Tools at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe reconstructs plant food processing at this key Pre-Pottery Neolithic (9600-8000 BC) site, with an emphasis on cereals, legumes and herbs as food sources, on grinding and pounding tools for their processing, and on the vessels implied in the consumption of meals and beverages.

Archaeologies of Text

Archaeologies of Text
Author: Matthew T. Rutz
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2014-12-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1782977678

Scholars working in a number of disciplines – archaeologists, classicists, epigraphers, papyrologists, Assyriologists, Egyptologists, Mayanists, philologists, and ancient historians of all stripes – routinely engage with ancient textual sources that are either material remains from the archaeological record or historical products of other connections between the ancient world and our own. Examining the archaeology-text nexus from multiple perspectives, contributors to this volume discuss current theoretical and practical problems that have grown out of their work at the boundary of the division between archaeology and the study of early inscriptions. In 12 representative case-studies drawn from research in Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, and Mesoamerica, scholars use various lenses to critically examine the interface between archaeology and the study of ancient texts, rethink the fragmentation of their various specialized disciplines, and illustrate the best in current approaches to contextual analysis. The collection of essays also highlights recent trends in the development of documentation and dissemination technologies, engages with the ethical and intellectual quandaries presented by ancient inscriptions that lack archaeological context, and sets out to find profitable future directions for interdisciplinary research.

Rough Cilicia

Rough Cilicia
Author: Michael C. Hoff
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 503
Release: 2013-05-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782970606

The region of Rough Cilicia (modern area the south-western coastal area of Turkey), known in antiquity as Cilicia Tracheia, constitutes the western part of the larger area of Cilicia. It is characterised by the ruggedness of its territory and the protection afforded by the high mountains combined with the rugged seacoast fostered the prolific piracy that developed in the late Hellenistic period, bringing much notoriety to the area. It was also known as a source of timber, primarily for shipbuilding. The twenty-two papers presented here give a useful overview on current research on Rough Cilicia, from the Bronze Age to the Byzantine period, with a variety of methods, from surveys to excavations. The first two articles (Yağcı, Jasink and Bombardieri), deal with the Bronze and Iron Ages, and refer to the questions of colonisation, influences, and relations. The following four articles (Tempesta, de Souza, Tomaschitz, Rauh et al.) concern the pirates of Cilicia and Isauria who were a big problem, not only for the region but throughout the Mediterranean and Aegean during the late Hellenistic and especially Roman periods. Approaching the subject of Roman Architecture, Borgia recalls Antiochus IV of Commagene, a king with good relations to Rome. Six papers (Spanu, Townsend, Giobbe, Hoff, Winterstein, and Wandsnider) publish work on Roman architecture: architectural decoration, council houses, Roman temples, bath architecture, cenotaph, and public buildings. Ceramics is not neglected and Lund provides a special emphasis on ceramics to demonstrate how pottery can be used as evidence for connections between Rough Cilicia and northwestern Cyprus. Six contributions (Varinliog(lu, Ferrazzoli, Jackson, Elton, Canevello and Özy?ld?r?m, Honey) deal with the Early Christian and Byzantine periods and cover rural habitat, trade, the Kilise Tepe settlement, late Roman churches, Seleucia, and the miracles of Thekla. The final article (Huber) gives insight into methods applied to the study of architectural monuments.

The Early Bronze Age in Western Anatolia

The Early Bronze Age in Western Anatolia
Author: Laura K. Harrison
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2021-04-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1438481799

Bringing together expert voices and key case studies from well-known and newly excavated sites, this book calls attention to the importance of western Anatolia as a legitimate, local context in its own right. The study of Early Bronze Age cultures in Europe and the Mediterranean has been shaped by a focus on the Levant, Europe, and Mesopotamia. Geographically, western Anatolia lies in between these regions, yet it is often overlooked because it doesn't fit neatly into existing explanatory models of Bronze Age cultural development and decline. Instead, the tendency has been to describe western Anatolia as a bridge between east and west, a place where ideas are transmitted and cultural encounters among different groups occur. This narrative has foregrounded discussions of outside innovations in the prehistory of the region while diminishing the role of local, endogenous developments and individual agency. The contributors to this book offer a counternarrative, ascribing a local impetus for change rather than a metanarrative of cultural diffusion. In doing so, they offer fresh observations about the chronology and delineation of regional cultural groups in western Anatolia; the architecture, settlement, and sociopolitical organization of the Early Bronze Age; and the local characteristics of material culture assemblages. Offering multiple authoritative studies on the archaeology of western Anatolia, this book is an essential resource for area research in western Anatolia, a key reference for comparative studies, and essential reading for college courses in the archaeology and anthropology of sociopolitical complexity, European and Mediterranean prehistory, and ancient Anatolia.