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Books > Humanities > Archaeology
A mammoth and successful endeavour by Richard Frost, Ancient
Greece: Its Principal Gods and Minor Deities offers Greek mythology
enthusiasts a comprehensive 'who's who' dictionary for quick
reference to the myriad gods and goddesses of ancient Greece.
Produced and expanded from the author's original student notebook,
and intended primarily to aid others studying the subject, it is an
ideal companion to classical studies for both the curious and the
connoisseur.
This book discusses erotic and magical goddesses and heroines in
several ancient cultures, from the Near East and Asia, and
throughout ancient Europe; in prehistoric and early historic
iconography, their magical qualities are often indicated by a
magical dance or stance. It is a look at female display figures
both cross-culturally and cross-temporally, through texts and
iconography, beginning with figures depicted in very early
Neolithic Anatolia, early and middle Neolithic southeast
Europe--Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia--continuing through the late
Neolithic in East Asia, and into early historic Greece, India, and
Ireland, and elsewhere across the world. These very similar female
figures were depicted in Anatolia, Europe, Southern Asia, and East
Asia, in a broad chronological sweep, beginning with the
pre-pottery Neolithic, ca. 9000 BCE, and existing from the
beginning of the second millennium of this era up to the present
era. This book demonstrates the extraordinary similarities, in a
broad geographic range, of depictions and descriptions of magical
female figures who give fertility and strength to the peoples of
their cultures by means of their magical erotic powers. This book
uniquely contains translations of texts which describe these
ancient female figures, from a multitude of Indo-European, Near
Eastern, and East Asian works, a feat only possible given the
authors' formidable combined linguistic expertise in over thirty
languages. The book contains many photographs of these
geographically different, but functionally and artistically
similar, female figures. Many current books (academic and
otherwise) explore some of the female figures the authors discuss
in their book, but such a wide-ranging cross-cultural and
cross-temporal view of this genre of female figures has never been
undertaken until now. The "sexual" display of these female figures
reflects the huge numinosity of the prehistoric divine feminine,
and of her magical genitalia. The functions of fertility and
apotropaia, which count among the functions of the early historic
display and dancing figures, grow out of this numinosity and
reflect the belief in and honoring of the powers of the ancient
divine feminine.
Olynthus, an ancient city in northern Greece, was preserved in an
exceptionally complete state after its abrupt sacking by Phillip II
of Macedon in 348 B.C., and excavations in the 1920s and 1930s
uncovered more than a hundred houses and their contents. In this
book Nicholas Cahill analyzes the results of the excavations to
reconstruct the daily lives of the ancient Greeks, the organization
of their public and domestic space, and the economic and social
patterns in the city. Cahill compares the realities of daily life
as revealed by the archaeological remains with theories of ideal
social and household organization espoused by ancient Greek
authors. Describing the enormous variety of domestic arrangements,
he examines patterns and differences in the design of houses, in
the occupations of owners, and in the articulations between
household and urban economies, the value of land, and other aspects
of ancient life throughout the city. He thus challenges the
traditional view that the Greeks had one standard household model
and approach to city planning. He shows how the Greeks reconciled
conflicting demands of ideal and practice, for instance between
egalitarianism and social inequality or between the normative roles
of men and women and roles demanded by economic necessities. The
book, which is extensively illustrated with plans and photographs,
is supported by a Web site containing a database of the
architecture and finds from the excavations linked to plans of the
site.
Building Colonialism draws together the relationship between
archaeology and history in East Africa using techniques of
artefact, building, spatial and historical analyses to highlight
the existence of, and accordingly the need to conserve, the urban
centres of Africa's more recent past. The study does this by
exploring the physical remains of European activity and the way
that the construction of harbour towns directly reflects the
colonial mission of European powers in the nineteenth century in
Tanzania and Kenya. Based on fieldwork which recorded and analysed
the buildings and monuments within these towns it compares the
European creations to earlier Swahili urban design and explores the
way European commercial trade systems came to dominate East Africa.
Based on the kind of Urban Landscape Analyses carried out in the UK
and Ireland, Building Colonialism looks at the social and spatial
implications of the towns on the Indian Ocean coast which contain
centres of derelict and unused buildings dating from East Africa's
nineteenth-century colonial era. The book begins by concentrating
upon towns in Tanzania and Kenya which were the key entry points
into Africa for the nineteenth-century colonial regimes and
compares these to later French and Italian colonies and discusses
contemporary approaches to the conservation of colonial built
heritage and the difficulties faced in ensuring valid participatory
protection of the urban heritage resource.
The recent crisis in the world of antiquities collecting has
prompted scholars and the general public to pay more attention than
ever before to the archaeological findspots and collecting
histories of ancient artworks. This new scrutiny is applied to
works currently on the market as well as to those acquired since
(and despite) the 1970 UNESCO Convention, which aimed to prevent
the trafficking in cultural property. When it comes to famous works
that have been in major museums for many generations, however, the
matter of their origins is rarely considered. Canonical pieces like
the Barberini Togatus or the Fonseca bust of a Flavian lady appear
in many scholarly studies and virtually every textbook on Roman
art. But we have no more certainty about these works'
archaeological contexts than we do about those that surface on the
market today. This book argues that the current legal and ethical
debates over looting, ownership and cultural property have
distracted us from the epistemological problems inherent in all
(ostensibly) ancient artworks lacking a known findspot, problems
that should be of great concern to those who seek to understand the
past through its material remains.
Critical approaches to public archaeology have been in use since
the 1980s, however only recently have archaeologists begun using
critical theory in conjunction with public archaeology to challenge
dominant narratives of the past. This volume brings together
current work on the theory and practice of critical public
archaeology from Europe and the United States to illustrate the
ways that implementing critical approaches can introduce new
understandings of the past and reveal new insights on the present.
Contributors to this volume explore public perceptions of museum
interpretations as well as public archaeology projects related to
changing perceptions of immigration, the working classes, and race.
This volume expands understandings of crafting practices, which in
the past was the major relational interaction between the social
agency of materials, technology, and people, in co-creating an
emergent ever-changing world. The chapters discuss different ways
that crafting in the present is useful in understanding crafting
experiences and methods in the past, including experiments to
reproduce ancient excavated objects, historical accounts of
crafting methods and experiences, craft revivals, and teaching
historical crafts at museums and schools. Crafting in the World is
unique in the diversity of its theoretical and multidisciplinary
approaches to researching crafting, not just as a set of techniques
for producing functional objects, but as social practices and
technical choices embodying cultural ideas, knowledge, and multiple
interwoven social networks. Crafting expresses and constitutes
mental schemas, identities, ideologies, and cultures. The multiple
meanings and significances of crafting are explored from a great
variety of disciplinary perspectives, including anthropology,
archaeology, sociology, education, psychology, women's studies, and
ethnic studies. This book provides a deep temporal range and a
global geographical scope, with case studies ranging from Europe,
Africa, and Asia to the Americas and a global internet website for
selling home crafted items.
Over its venerable history, Hadrian’s Wall has had an undeniable
influence in shaping the British landscape, both literally and
figuratively. Once thought to be a soft border, recent research has
implicated it in the collapse of a farming civilisation centuries
in the making, and in fuelling an insurgency characterised by
violent upheaval. Examining the everyday impact of the Wall over
the three centuries it was in operation, Matthew Symonds sheds new
light on its underexplored human story by discussing how the
evidence speaks of a hard border scything through a previously open
landscape and bringing dramatic change in its wake. The Roman
soldiers posted to Hadrian’s Wall were overwhelmingly recruits
from the empire’s occupied territories, and for them the frontier
could be a place of fear and magic where supernatural protection
was invoked during spells of guard duty. Since antiquity, the Wall
has been exploited by powers craving the legitimacy that came with
being accepted as the heirs of Rome: it helped forge notions of
English and Scottish nationhood, and even provided a model of
selfless cultural collaboration when the British Empire needed
reassurance. It has also inspired creatives for centuries,
appearing in a more or less recognisable guise in works ranging
from Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill to George R. R.
Martin’s A Game of Thrones. Combining an archaeological analysis
of the monument itself and an examination of its rich legacy and
contemporary relevance, this volume presents a reliable, modern
perspective on the Wall.
This handbook is unique in its consideration of social and cultural
contributions to sustainable oceans management. It is also unique
in its deconstruction of the hegemonic value attached to the oceans
and in its analysis of discourses regarding what national
governments in the Global South should prioritise in their oceans
management strategy. Offering a historical perspective from the
start, the handbook reflects on the confluence of (western)
scientific discourse and colonialism, and the impact of this on
indigenous conceptions of the oceans and on social identity. With
regard to the latter, the authors are mindful of the
nationalisation of island territories worldwide and the impact of
this process on regional collaboration, cultural exchange and the
valuation of the oceans. Focusing on global examples, the handbook
offers a nuanced, region relevant, contemporary conceptualisation
of blue heritage, discussing what will be required to achieve an
inclusive oceans economy by 2063, the end goal date of the African
Union's Agenda 2063. The analysis will be useful to established
academics in the field of ocean studies, policymakers and
practitioners engaged in research on the ocean economy, as well as
graduate scholars in the ocean sciences.
The SURCOUF submarine met disaster on the night of Feb. 18, 1942.
As a result, 130 people died. At the time, it was the worst
submarine disaster ever. But decades later, people continue to
argue about what happened to the mammoth submarine, which belonged
to the free French. Written by Capt. Julius Grigore Jr., the
foremost expert on the disaster, this scholarly work examines
details about how $245 million in gold may have played a role in
the disaster; questions about a possible double agent who may have
plotted to block the Panama Canal and blow up SURCOUF; events that
led President Roosevelt to threaten to deploy a battleship against
SURCOUF; roles that women played before and after the disaster.
Learn the real story behind one of the most misunderstood submarine
disasters in history. Written for history buffs, servicemen and
servicewomen, and anyone interested in a good mystery, "The SURCOUF
Conspiracy" examines one of the strangest submarine stories of all
time.
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