This book presents a collection of archaeological and anthropological writings by Li Chi, the founding father of modern archaeology in China. It is divided into two parts, the first of which traces back the rise of Chinese civilization, as well as the origins of the Chinese people; in turn, the second part reviews the rise of archaeology in China as a scientific subject that combines fieldwork methods from the West with traditional antiquarian studies. Readers who are interested in Chinese civilization will find fascinating information on the excavations of Yin Hsu (the ruins of the Yin Dynasty), including building foundations, bronzes, chariots, pottery, stone and jade, and thousands of oracle bones, which are vividly shown in historical pictures. These findings transformed the Yin Shang culture from legend into history and thus moved China's history forward by hundreds of years, shocking the world. In turn, the articles on anthropology include Li Chi's reflections on central problems in Chinese anthropology and are both enlightening and thought-provoking.

The North American fur trade left an enduring material legacy of the complex interactions between natives and Europeans. From the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, the demand for pelts and skins transformed America, helping to fuel the Age of Discovery and, later, Manifest Destiny. By synthesizing its social, economic, and ideological effects, Nassaney reveals how this extractive economy contributed to the American experience. Including research from historical archaeologists and a case study of the Fort St. Joseph trading post in Michigan, this innovative work highlights the fur trade's role in the settlement of the continent and its impact, persisting even today, on social relations.

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.

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 offers an overview of the emergence of Bodh Gaya as a sacred site within Gaya Dharmaksetra. It contextualizes the different encounters, incidents, and legends connected to the Buddha's experiences shortly before and after he attained Bodhi - when, spiritually speaking, he was extremely lonely and was trying to carve a place for himself in the highly competitive Gaya Dharmaksetra. Further, the book examines the role of various personalities and institutions contributed towards the emergence of Mahabodhi Temple. It incorporates a wealth of research on the role of the Victorian Indologists as well as the colonial administrators, the Giri mahants, and Anagarika Dharmapala, to understand the material milieu pertaining not only to its identity but also access to spiritual resources as its conservation and development. This book is an indispensable read for students and scholars of history, cultural studies, and art and architecture as well as practitioners of Buddhism and Hinduism.

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.

Explore the entire history of the ancient Egyptian state from 3000 B.C. to 400 A.D. with this authoritative volume The newly revised Second Edition of A History of Ancient Egypt delivers an up-to-date survey of ancient Egypt's history from its origins to the Roman Empire's banning of hieroglyphics in the fourth century A.D. The book covers developments in all aspects of Egypt's history and their historical sources, considering the social and economic life and the rich culture of ancient Egypt. Freshly updated to take into account recent discoveries, the book makes the latest scholarship accessible to a wide audience, including introductory undergraduate students. A History of Ancient Egypt outlines major political and cultural events and places Egypt's history within its regional context and detailing interactions with western Asia and Africa. Each period of history receives equal attention and a discussion of the problems scholars face in its study. The book offers a foundation for all students interested in Egyptian culture by providing coverage of topics like: A thorough introduction to the formation of the Egyptian state between the years of 3400 B.C. and 2686 B.C. An exploration of the end of the Old Kingdom and First Intermediate period, from 2345 B.C. to 2055 B.C. An analysis of the Second Intermediate Period and the Hyksos between 1700 B.C. and 1550 B.C. A discussion of Greek and Roman Egypt between 332 B.C. and A.D. 395. Perfect for students of introductory courses in ancient Egyptian history and as background material for students of courses in Egyptian art, archaeology, and culture, A History of Ancient Egypt will also earn a place in the libraries of students taking surveys of the ancient world and those seeking a companion volume to A History of the Ancient Near East.

Private associations organized around a common cult, occupation, ethnic identity, neighborhood or family were among the principal means of organizing social and economic life in the ancient Mediterranean. They offered opportunities for sociability, cultic activities, mutual support and contexts in which to display and recognize virtuous achievement. This volume collects 140 inscriptions and papyri from Ptolemaic and early Roman Egypt, along with translations, notes, commentary, and analytic indices. The dossier of association-related documents substantially enhances our knowledge of the extent, activities, and importance of private associations in the ancient Mediterranean, since papyri, unavailable from most other locations in the Mediterranean, preserve a much wider range of data than epigraphical monuments. The dossier from Egypt includes not only honorific decrees, membership lists, bylaws, dedications, and funerary monuments, but monthly accounts of expenditures and income, correspondence between guild secretaries and local officials, price and tax declarations, records of legal actions concerning associations, loan documents, petitions to local authorities about associations, letters of resignation, and many other papyrological genres. These documents provide a highly variegated picture of the governance structures and practices of associations, membership sizes and profiles, and forms of interaction with the State.

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.

Deconstructing Prehumanity is an investigation into the role of archaeological perception in the construction of race. It explores how social knowledge and disciplinary subjectivity have shaped our organization of the human past and how this organization and its lexicon have fueled racialism. The idea of an African prehuman hierarchy powers American race relations in a damaging way. Scientific physical distinctions used in ethnological studies quantified and qualified physical and "racial" differences among so-called African prehumans, all of which plague human social relations as they extend harmful ideas about peoples of African descent. This book delves into the evolution of terms and utilizes Africana studies to present the systematic reconstruction of a black past. By reviewing ethnological studies, nomenclature, and how such processes play a role in conceiving African origins, the multidisciplinary work supplies explanations about notions of African nature, culture, and race as prehuman. It explicates paleoanthropological categories and connects them to racialized inferences. Deconstructing Prehumanity is intended for readers looking to understand how perceptions about human origins add to racialization as it proffered a utilitarian past.

Entranced by history and myth, captivated by the wonders of nature, Damian Le Bas explores the meaning we find in sunken ruins around the world.

Thousands of years ago, an island off the Straits of Gibraltar went to war with ancient Athens. The battle was lost, and an earthquake cleaved the land in two. Overnight the island sank beneath the waves – or so legend tells.

As a young boy, Damian Le Bas was captivated by the story of the lost city of Atlantis. As an adult, he dreams of diving to discover its ruins. After the death of his father, torn between his lifelong desire and the taboo his Romany culture places on the ocean, he comes by chance across a dive shop. He can’t help but go in.

Under the waves, Damian enters a breathtaking world. As he masters the skills of this exhilarating sport, diving with seals in the Farne Islands, exploring submerged Roman ruins in Naples and mapping the sunken city of Port Royal in Jamaica, he is entranced anew, by wonders both man-made and natural.

Plato's writings on Atlantis were a parable about the hubris of humankind; in witnessing our effects on oceans and ocean communities, Damian finds echoes of this in the modern world.

A spellbinding love letter to diving, The Drowned Places is also a profound examination of the power that myth has over us, and what happens when it crosses over into reality.

This book is an introduction to a new branch of archaeology that scrutinises landscapes to find evidence of past human activity. Such evidence can be hard to detect at ground-level, but may be visible in remote sensing (RS) imagery from aerial platforms and satellites. Drawing on examples from around the world as well as from her own research work on archaeological sites in India (including Nalanda, Agra, Srirangapatna, Talakadu, and Mahabalipuram), the author presents a systematic process for integrating this information with historical spatial records such as old maps, paintings, and field surveys using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to gain new insights into our past. Further, the book highlights several instances where these insights are actionable -- they have been used to identify, understand, conserve, and protect the fragile remnants of our past. This book will be of particular interest not only to researchers in archaeology, history, art history, and allied fields, but to governmental and non-governmental professionals working in cultural heritage protection and conservation.

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.

While household archaeologists view the home as a social unit, few move their investigations ""beyond the walls"" when contextualizing a household in its community. Even exterior aspects of a dwelling-its plant life, yard spaces, and trash heaps-uncover issues of domination and resistance, gender relations, and the effects of colonialism. This innovative volume examines historical homes and their wider landscapes to more fully address social issues of the past. The contributors, leading archaeologists using various interpretive frameworks, analyze households across time periods and diverse cultures in North America. Including case studies of James Madison's Montpelier, George Washington's Ferry Farm, Chinese immigrants in a Nevada mining town, Hawaiian ranching communities, and Southern plantations, Beyond the Walls offers a new avenue for archaeological study of domestic sites.

Historical and archaeological records show that racism and white supremacy defined the social fabric of the northeastern states as much as they did the Deep South. This collection of essays looks at both new sites and well-known areas to explore race, resistance, and supremacy in the region. With essays covering farm communities and cities from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century, the contributors examine the marginalization of minorities and use the materialculture to illustrate the significance of race in understanding daily life. Drawing on historical resources and critical race theory, they highlight the context of race at these sites, noting the different experiences of various groups, such as African American and Native American communities. This cutting-edge research turns with new focus to the dynamics of race and racism in early American life and demonstrates the coming of age of racialization studies.