Cave

Cave
Author: Ralph Crane
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2015-04-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1780234600

Shortlisted for the Tratman Award 2015 To enter caves is to venture beyond the realm of the everyday. From huge vaulted caverns to impassable, water-filled passages; from the karst topography of Guilin in China to the lava tubes of Hawaii; from tiny remote pilgrimage sites to massive tourism enterprises, caves are places of mystery. Dark spaces that remain largely unexplored, caves are astonishing wonders of nature and habitats for exotic flora and fauna. This book investigates the natural and cultural history of caves and considers the roles caves have played in the human imagination and experience of the natural world. It explores the long history of the human fascination with caves, across countries and continents, examining their dual role as spaces of both wonder and fear. It tells the tales of the adventurers who pioneered the science of caves and those of the explorers and cave-divers still searching for new, unmapped routes deep into the earth. This book explores the lure of the subterranean world by examining caving and cave tourism and by looking to the mythology, literature, and art of caves. This lavishly illustrated book will appeal to general readers and experts alike interested in the ecology and use of caves, or the extraordinary artistic responses earth’s dark recesses have evoked over the centuries.

Plato's Caves

Plato's Caves
Author: Rebecca Lemoine
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2020
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190936983

Months before the 2016 United States presidential election, universities across the country began reporting the appearance of white nationalist flyers featuring slogans like "Let's Become Great Again" and "Protect Your Heritage" against the backdrop of white marble statues depicting figures such as Apollo and Hercules. Groups like Identity Evropa (which sponsored the flyers) oppose cultural diversity and quote classical thinkers such as Plato in support of their anti-immigration views. The traditional scholarly narrative of cultural diversity in classical Greek political thought often reinforces the perception of ancient thinkers as xenophobic, and this is particularly the case with interpretations of Plato. While scholars who study Plato reject the wholesale0dismissal of his work, the vast majority tend to admit that his portrayal of foreigners is unsettling. From student protests over the teaching of canonical texts such as Plato's Republic to the use of images of classical Greek statues in white supremacist propaganda, the world of the ancient Greeks is deeply implicated in a heated contemporary debate about identity and diversity. 0In Plato's Caves, Rebecca LeMoine defends the bold thesis that Plato was a friend of cultural diversity, contrary to many contemporary perceptions. LeMoine shows that, across Plato's dialogues, foreigners play a role similar to that of Socrates: liberating citizens from intellectual bondage. Through close readings of four Platonic dialogues-Republic, Menexenus, Laws, and Phaedrus-LeMoine recovers Plato's unique insight into the promise, and risk, of cross-cultural engagement. Like the Socratic "gadfly" who stings the "horse" of Athens into wakefulness, foreigners can provoke citizens to self-reflection by exposing contradictions and confronting them with alternative ways of life.

Caves in Context

Caves in Context
Author: Knut Andreas Bergsvik
Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9781842174746

Caves in Context provides the thriving inter-disciplinary field of cave studies with a European-scale survey of current research in cave archaeology. It is unified by a contemporary theoretical emphasis on the cultural significance and diversity of caves over space and time. Caves and rockshelters are found all over Europe, and have frequently been occupied by human groups, from prehistory right up to the present day. Some appear to have only traces of short occupations, while others contain deep cultural deposits, indicating longer and multiple occupations. Above all, there is great variability in their human use, both secular and sacred. The aim of this book is to explore the multiple significances of these natural places in a range of chronological, spatial, and cultural contexts across Europe. The volume demonstrates, through a diversity of archaeological approaches and examples, that cave studies, whist necessarily focussed, can also be of significance to wider, contemporary, archaeological research agendas, particularly when a contextual approach is adopted. The book is also of relevance to other scholars working in the related fields of speleology, earth sciences, landscape studies, and anthropology, which together comprise the inter-disciplinary field of cave studies.

Caves and Culture

Caves and Culture
Author: Linda B. Spurlock
Publisher:
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN:

A collection of the last forty years of research on Ohio's caves and rockshelters Caves and Culture seeks to address a number of important problems, specifically the use of rockshelters by humans through time and transcontinental continuities. It presents new and updated, unreported research from such Ohio caves and rockshelters as Stow Rockshelter (Stow), Peters Cave (Ross County), Hendricks Cave (Wyandotte County), and Chesser Cave (Athens), among others. Caves and Culture is primarily focused on the archaeological research of Dr. Olaf H. Prufer and his associates as they investigated and explored caves in Ohio since 1964. Spurlock and her co-editors report, sometimes reclaim, and frequently reinterpret data that will be useful to the understanding of Ohio archaeology for decades to come. Anyone with interest in local or regional (Midwestern or midcontinental) prehistory will appreciate this exploration into Ohio's history.

Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit

Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit
Author: David S. Whitley
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2009-09-25
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1615920560

Whitley, one of the world's leading experts on cave paintings, rewrites the understanding of shamanism and its connection with artistic creativity, myth, and religion by interweaving archaeological evidence with the latest findings of cutting-edge neuroscience.

The Devil's Book of Culture

The Devil's Book of Culture
Author: Benjamin Feinberg
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2003-12-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780292701908

Since the 1950s, the Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca, Mexico, has drawn a strange assortment of visitors and pilgrims—schoolteachers and government workers, North American and European spelunkers exploring the region’s vast cave system, and counterculturalists from hippies (John Lennon and other celebrities supposedly among them) to New Age seekers, all chasing a firsthand experience of transcendence and otherness through the ingestion of psychedelic mushrooms “in context” with a Mazatec shaman. Over time, this steady incursion of the outside world has significantly influenced the Mazatec sense of identity, giving rise to an ongoing discourse about what it means to be “us” and “them.” In this highly original ethnography, Benjamin Feinberg investigates how different understandings of Mazatec identity and culture emerge through talk that circulates within and among various groups, including Mazatec-speaking businessmen, curers, peasants, intellectuals, anthropologists, bureaucrats, cavers, and mushroom-seeking tourists. Specifically, he traces how these groups express their sense of culture and identity through narratives about three nearby yet strange discursive “worlds”—the “magic world” of psychedelic mushrooms and shamanic practices, the underground world of caves and its associated folklore of supernatural beings and magical wealth, and the world of the past or the past/present relationship. Feinberg’s research refutes the notion of a static Mazatec identity now changed by contact with the outside world, showing instead that identity forms at the intersection of multiple transnational discourses.

Sacred Darkness

Sacred Darkness
Author: Holley Moyes
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 607
Release: 2012-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1457117509

Caves have been used in various ways across human society but despite the persistence within popular culture of the iconic caveman, deep caves were never used primarily as habitation sites for early humans. Rather, in both ancient and contemporary contexts, caves have served primarily as ritual spaces. In Sacred Darkness, contributors use archaeological evidence as well as ethnographic studies of modern ritual practices to envision the cave as place of spiritual and ideological power and a potent venue for ritual practice. Covering the ritual use of caves in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, Mesoamerica, and the US Southwest and Eastern woodlands, this book brings together case studies by prominent scholars whose research spans from the Paleolithic period to the present day. These contributions demonstrate that cave sites are as fruitful as surface contexts in promoting the understanding of both ancient and modern religious beliefs and practices. This state-of-the-art survey of ritual cave use will be one of the most valuable resources for understanding the role of caves in studies of religion, sacred landscape, or cosmology and a must-read for any archaeologist interested in caves.

Cave Temples of Mogao at Dunhuang

Cave Temples of Mogao at Dunhuang
Author: Roderick Whitfield
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1606064452

The Mogao grottoes in China, situated near the town of Dunhuang on the fabled Silk Road, constitute one of the world’s most significant sites of Buddhist art. The hundreds of caves carved into rock cliffs at the edge of the Gobi desert preserve one thousand years of exquisite art. Founded by Buddhist monks as an isolated monastery in the late fourth century, Mogao evolved into an artistic and spiritual mecca whose renown extended from the Chinese capital to the Western Kingdoms of the Silk Road. Among its treasures are miles of stunning wall paintings, more than two thousand statues, magnificent works on silk and paper, and thousands of ancient manuscripts, such as sutras, poems, and prayer sheets. In this new expanded edition, Cave Temples of Mogao at Dunhuang, first published in 2000, combines lavish color photographs of the caves and their art with the fascinating history of the Silk Road to create a vivid portrait of this remarkable site. Chapters narrate the development of Dunhuang and the Mogao cave temples, the iconography of the wall paintings, and the extraordinary story of the rare manuscripts—including the oldest printed book in existence, a ninth-century copy of the Diamond Sutra. The book also discusses the collaboration between the Getty Conservation Institute and Chinese authorities in conservation projects at Mogao, and the ways in which the site can be visited today.

The Cave Book

The Cave Book
Author: Emil Silvestru
Publisher: New Leaf Publishing Group
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2008
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780890514962

DISCOVER JUST HOW LONG IT REALLY TAKES FOR A CAVE TO FORM

Decorating a Room of One's Own

Decorating a Room of One's Own
Author: Susan Harlan
Publisher: ABRAMS
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2018-10-09
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 1683353420

What would Little Women be without the charms of the March family’s cozy New England home? Or Wuthering Heights without the ghost-infested Wuthering Heights? Getting lost in the setting of a good book can be half the pleasure of reading, and Decorating a Room of One’s Own brings literary backdrops to the foreground in this wryly affectionate satire of interior design reporting. English professor and humorist Susan Harlan spoofs decorating culture by reimagining its subject as famous fictional homes and “interviews” the residents who reveal their true tastes: Lady Macbeth’s favorite room in the castle, or the design inspiration behind Jay Gatsby’s McMansion of unfulfilled dreams. Featuring 30 entries of notable dwellings, sidebars such as “Setting Up an Ideal Governess’s Room,” and four-color spot illustrations throughout, Decorating a Room of One’s Own is the ideal book for readers who appreciate fine literature and a good end table.