Moche murals of northern Peru represent one of the great, yet still largely unknown, artistic traditions of the ancient Americas. Created in an era without written scripts, these murals are key to understandings of Moche history, society, and culture. In this first comprehensive study on the subject, Lisa Trever develops an interdisciplinary methodology of “archaeo art history” to examine how ancient histories of art can be written without texts, boldly inverting the typical relationship of art to archaeology. Trever argues that early coastal artistic traditions cannot be reduced uncritically to interpretations based in much later Inca histories of the Andean highlands. Instead, the author seeks the origins of Moche mural art, and its emphasis on figuration, in the deep past of the Pacific coast of South America. Image Encounters shows how formal transformations in Moche mural art, before and after the seventh century, were part of broader changes to the work that images were made to perform at Huacas de Moche, El Brujo, Pañamarca, and elsewhere in an increasingly complex social and political world. In doing so, this book reveals alternative evidentiary foundations for histories of art and visual experience.

Sardis, in western Turkey, was one of the great cities of the Aegean and Near Eastern worlds for almost a millennium-a political keystone with a legendary past. Recent archeological work has revealed how the city was transformed in the century following Alexander's conquests from a traditional capital to a Greek polis, setting the stage for its blossoming as a Roman urban center. This integrated collection of essays by more than a dozen prominent scholars illuminates a crucial stage, from the early fourth century to 189 BCE, when it became one of the most important political centers of Asia Minor. The contributors to this volume are members of the Hellenistic Sardis Project, a research collaboration between long-standing expedition members and scholars keenly interested in the site. These new discussions on the pre-Roman history of Sardis restore the city in the scholarship of the Hellenistic East and will be enlightening to scholars of classical archaeology.

Ranging widely over the fields of sculpture, vase painting, and the minor arts, this book provides a brilliant and original introduction to the art of archaic and classical Greece. By looking closely at the social and cultural contexts in which the rich diversity of Greek arts were produced, Robin Osborne shows how artistic developments were both a product of, and contributed to, the intensely competitive life of the Greek city.

In history, this grand arterial 1500-mile waterway was always seen as the natural frontier between the northern provinces of the Iranian empires and the outer Turanian lands. It was for centuries central to Achaemenid and later Persian power. But, as the author shows, it has a prehistory which goes very much further back: and a succession of skilled yet still elusive Bronze Age cultures flourished here well before the rise of Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BCE. This richly illustrated book explores the fascinating history, art and archaeology of the region, including its primal trade in silk and foodstuffs; the mineral wealth of the Oxus basin; its exotic myths and beliefs; and the converging tribes and peoples which led to a new stability, economic growth and urbanism. The volume contains 150 full-colour photographs of notable artefacts, including silver decorated vessels, inlaid stone pots, agate beads and 25 'Bactrian Princesses': remarkable statuettes made in chlorite and limestone. Most of these rare objects have never been seen, let alone published, before.

Presented in very clear and accessible language, "Roman Art" offers new and fascinating insights into the evolution of the forms and meanings of Roman art. Traditional studies of Roman art have sought to identify an indigenous style distinct from Greek art and in the process have neglected the large body of Roman work that creatively recycled Greek artworks. In this fresh assessment the author offers instead a cultural history of the functions of the visual arts, the messages that these images carried, and the values that they affirmed in late Republican Rome and the Empire. The analysis begins at the point at which the characteristic features of Roman art started to emerge, when the Romans were exposed to Hellenistic culture through their conquest of Greek lands in the third century BCE. As a result, the values and social and political structure of Roman society changed, as did the functions and characters of the images it generated.

While Celtic art includes some of the most famous archaeological artefacts in the British Isles, such as the Battersea shield or the gold torcs from Snettisham, it has often been considered from an art historical point of view. Technologies of Enchantment? Exploring Celtic Art attempts to connect Celtic art to its archaeological context, looking at how it was made, used, and deposited. Based on the first comprehensive database of Celtic art, it brings together current theories concerning the links between people and artefacts found in many areas of the social sciences. The authors argue that Celtic art was deliberately complex and ambiguous so that it could be used to negotiate social position and relations in an inherently unstable Iron Age world, especially in developing new forms of identity with the coming of the Romans.
Placing the decorated metalwork of the later Iron Age in a long-term perspective of metal objects from the Bronze Age onwards, the volume pays special attention to the nature of deposition and focuses on settlements, hoards, and burials -- including Celtic art objects' links with other artefact classes, such as iron objects and coins. A unique feature of the book is that it pursues trends beyond the Roman invasion, highlighting stylistic continuities and differences in the nature and use of fine metalwork.

What was the 'Classical Revolution' in Greek art? What were its contexts, aims, achievements, and impact? This book introduces students to these questions and guides them towards the answers. Andrew Stewart examines Greek architecture, painting, and sculpture of the fifth and fourth centuries BC in relation to the great political, social, cultural, and intellectual issues of the period.

At age 65, Nerva assumed the role of emperor of Rome; just sixteen months later, his reign ended with his death. Nerva's short reign robbed his regime of the opportunity for the emperor's imperial image to be defined in building or monumental art, leaving seemingly little for the art historian or archaeologist to consider. In view of this paucity, studies of Nerva primarily focus on the historical circumstances governing his reign with respect to the few relevant literary sources. The Image of Political Power in the Reign of Nerva, AD 96-98, by contrast, takes the entire imperial coinage program issued by the mint of Rome to examine the "self-representation," and, by extension, the policies and ideals of Nerva's regime. The brevity of Nerva's reign and the problems of retrospection caused by privileging posthumous literary sources make coinage one of the only ways of reconstructing anything of his image and ideology as it was disseminated and developed at the end of the first century during the emperors lifetime. The iconography of this coinage, and the popularity and spread of different iconographic types - as determined by study of hoards and finds, and as targeted towards different ancient constituencies - offers a more positive take on a little-studied emperor. Across three chapters, Elkins traces the different reverse types and how they would have resonated with their intended audiences, concluding with an examination of the parallels between text and coin iconography with previous and subsequent emperors. The Image of Political Power in the Reign of Nerva, AD 96-98 thus offers significant new perspectives on the agents behind the selection and formulation of iconography in the late first and early second century, showing how coinage can act as a visual panegyric similar to contemporary laudatory texts by tapping into how the inner circle of Nerva's regime wished the emperor to be seen.

Illustrations remain one of the fundamental tools of archaeology, a means by which we share information and build ideas. Often treated as if they were neutral representations, archaeological illustrations are the convergence of science and the imagination. This volume, a collection of fourteen essays addressing the visual presentation of the Pre-Columbian past from the fifteenth century to the present day, explores and contextualizes the visual culture of archaeological illustration, addressing the intellectual history of the field and the relationship of archaeological illustration to other scientific disciplines and the fine arts.

Cataloging some hundred thousand examples of ancient Greek painted pottery held in collections around the world, the authoritative Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (Corpus of Ancient Vases) is the oldest research project of the Union Academique Internationale. Nearly four hundred volumes have been published since the first fascicule appeared in 1922. This new fascicule of the CVA-the tenth issued by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the first ever to be published open access-presents a selection of Attic red-figured column and volute kraters ranging from 520 to 510 BCE through the early fourth century BCE. Among the works included are a significant dinoid volute krater and a volute krater with the Labors of Herakles that is attributed to the Kleophrades Painter.

In 2008, the Berlin Antikensammlung initiated a project with the J. Paul Getty Museum to conserve a group of ancient funerary vases from southern Italy. Monumental in scale and richly decorated, these magnificent vessels were discovered in hundreds of fragments in the early nineteenth century at Ceglie, near Bari. Acquired by a Bohemian diplomat, they were reconstructed in the Neapolitan workshop of Raffaele Gargiulo, who was considered one of the leading restorers of antiquities in Europe. His methods exemplify what was referred to as "une perfection dangereuse," an approach to reassembly and repainting that made it difficult to distinguish what was ancient and what was modern. Bringing together archival documentation and technical analyses, this volume provides a comprehensive study of the vases and their treatment from the nineteenth century up to today. In addition to lavish illustrations, two in-depth essays on the history of the vases and on Gargiulo's work, as well as detailed conservation notes for each object, this publication also features the first English translation of Gargiulo's original text on his understanding as to how ancient Greek vases were manufactured. This is the companion volume to an exhibition on view at the Getty Villa, from November 19, 2014, to May 11, 2015, and then at the Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin from June 17, 2015, to June 18, 2017.

The third part of the four volume set which aims to make available the most important studies of Cornelius Vermeule, the formercurator of Classical Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. This volume contains studies published between 1974 and 1984 which cover a wide range of broad topics as well as including studies of specific artworks, mostly held in American collections. The many subjects include Graeco-Roman artworks in the East, the ram cults of Cyprus, numismatic art, Graeco-Roman sculpture, monuments and memorials, painting and mosaic, the Ara Pacis and Nero, Roman imperial art, crime and punishment and Alexander the Great's souvenirs. Contents: Preface Dated Monuments of Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman Popular Art in Asia Minor: Ionia, Lydia and Phrygia Recent Acquisitions. Aphrodite or a Nymph Ten Greek and Roman Portraits in Kansas City Cypriote Sculpture, the Late Archaic and Early Classical Periods: Towards a More Precise Understanding Greek, Roman and Etruscan Sculptures: The Benjamin and Lucy Rowland Collection The Ram Cults of Cyprus: Pastoral to Paphian at Morphou Medallions best reflect Renaissance creativity Neoclassic Sculpture in America: Greco-Roman sources and their results Numismatic Art in America Numismatic Art in America to 1796 Numismatics in Antiquity The Weary Herakles of Lysippos The Westmacott Jupiter Commodus, Caracalla and the Tetrarchs: Roman Emperors as Hercules Dated Monumens of Hellenistic and Greco-Roman Art in Asia Minor: Caria, Pamphylia, Pisidia and Lycaonia Greek and Roman Sculpture from the Northern Coasts of the Black Sea The Ancient Marbles at Petworth The Heroic Graeco-Roman Zeus from the Villa d'Este amd Marbury Hall Vita: Berenike II. Liberated Queen An Imperial Commemorative Monument Never Finished: A Possible Memorial of Trajan's Eastern Conquests at Salamis on Cyprus Athenian Eternity. Attic Funerary Stele, about 340 BC Ideal Portraiture at the Outset of the Hellenistic Age Interactions and Reflections of Painting, Mosaic and Sculpture. Complex Mythological Scenes in Greek and Roman Imperial Numismatic Art Roman Pictorial Mirrors The Imperial Shield as a Mirror of Roman Art on Medallions and Coins The Late Antonine and Severan Bronze Portraits from Southwest Asia Minor A Silver Cup of the Augustans or Julio-Claudian Period Bench and Table Supports: Roman Egypt and Beyond Greek and Roman Sculpture in the Holy Land The Ara Pacis and the Child Nero: Julio-Claudian Commemorative Reliefs in Italy and Elsewhere The Basis from Puteoli: Cities of Asia Minor in Julio-Claudian Italy Transmissions of Roman Historical Relief throughout the Empire, with Special Reference to Southern Italy and Sicily Alexander the Great, the Emperor Severus Alexander and the Aboukir Medallions The Mosaic from Montebello near Rome: An Early Manifestation of the Seasons in Roman Imperial Art Crime and Punishment in Antiquity From Halicarnassus to Alexandria in the Hellenistic Age: the Ares of Halicarnassus by Leochares The Horse and Groom Relief in Athens Souvenirs of Alexander the Great's March through Persia to India Victory in Death: Roman Triumphal Art and Private Life Index.

The pre-Hispanic Mixtec people of Mexico recorded political and religious history, including the biographies and genealogies of their rulers, in pictograms on hand-painted, screen-fold manuscripts known as codices. Functioning rather like movie production storyboards, the codices served as outlines of oral traditions to stimulate the memories of bards who knew the complete narratives, which were sung, danced, and performed at elite functions. Centuries later we have limited access to those original performances, and all that remains for our codex interpretation is what is painted on the pages-perhaps five to ten percent of their memory-encoded information. Continuing the pioneering interpretation he began in Lord Eight Wind of Suchixtlan and the Heroes of Ancient Oaxaca, Robert Lloyd Williams offers an authoritative guide to the entire contents of the codex in The Complete Codex Zouche-Nuttall. Although the reverse document (pages 42-84) has been described in previous literature, the obverse document (pages 1-41) has not been, and it has remained elusive as to narrative. The Complete Codex Zouche-Nuttall elucidates the three sections of the codex, defines them as to function and content, and provides interpretive and descriptive essays about the Native American history the codex recorded prior to the arrival of Europeans in Mexico and the New World generally. With a full-color reproduction of the entire Codex Zouche-Nuttall and Williams's expert guidance in unlocking its narrative strategies and structures, The Complete Codex Zouche-Nuttall opens an essential window into the Mixtec social and political cosmos.

Discussions of apocalyptic thought and its sources in the ancient Near East, particularly Mesopotamia, have a long scholarly history, with a renewed interest and focus in the recent decades. Outside Assyriological scholarship as well, studies of the apocalyptic give significant credit to the ancient Near East, especially Babylonia and Iran, as potential sources for the manifestations of this phenomenon in the Hellenistic period. The emphasis on kingship and empire in apocalyptic modes of thinking warrants special attention paid to the regal art of ancient Mesopotamia and adjacent areas in its potential to express the relevant notions. In this book, Mehmet-Ali Atac demonstrates the importance of visual evidence as a source for apocalyptic thought. Focusing on the so-called investiture painting from Mari, he relates it to parallel evidence from the visual traditions of the Assyrian Empire, ancient Egypt, and Hittite Anatolia.

In the second and third quarters of the fifth century BC, when Athens became both politically and culturally dominant in the Greek world, Pericles was the leading figure in the city's public life. At this time Athens developed an empire of a kind which no Greek city had had before, and its politics were reshaped by the new institution of democracy. These changes inspired religious developments, while the sophists revolutionised philosophy, analysed human affairs in human terms, and Athenian tragedy became the principal Greek poetic form. This volume's illustrations further show the numerous artistic and sculptural developments in Pericles' time, as the building programmes attracted architects, builders and sculptors to Athens, and Athenian red-figure pottery reached new heights of skill in the scenes painted on it. This concise and accessible introduction guides students through the key aspects of this most-studied period of ancient Greek history, focusing on the major developments, political and cultural, that took place in Pericles' time.

Much like our own time, the ancient Greek world was constantly expanding and becoming more connected to global networks. The landscape was shaped by an ecology of city-states, local formations that were stitched into the wider Mediterranean world. While the local is often seen as less significant than the global stage of politics, religion, and culture, localism, argues historian Hans Beck has had a pervasive influence on communal experience in a world of fast-paced change. Far from existing as outliers, citizens in these communities were deeply concerned with maintaining local identity, commercial freedom, distinct religious cults, and much more. Beyond these cultural identifiers, there lay a deeper concept of the local that guided polis societies in their contact with a rapidly expanding world. Drawing on a staggering range of materials----including texts by both known and obscure writers, numismatics, pottery analysis, and archeological records--Beck develops fine-grained case studies that illustrate the significance of the local experience. Localism and the Ancient Greek City-State builds bridges across disciplines and ideas within the humanities and shows how looking back at the history of Greek localism is important not only in the archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean, but also in today's conversations about globalism, networks, and migration.

The eleven studies reprinted here were published by Professor Kauffmann over a period of twenty years, and reflect his interest in Romanesque and Gothic art in England and Europe. They include a number of studies on panel paintings, and a highly influential article on the art of the Bury Bible. The Bible in British Art is the catalogue to an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, reprinted here in full, and Professor Kauffmann's work in the field of English Romanesque book illumination is represented in two other papers. The author has contributed additional notes, updating these studies, and a preface and index. Contents include: Preface; Manuscript Illumination at Worcester in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries; The Bury Bible; English Romanesque Book Illumination: Changes in the Field 1974-1984; Vidal Mayor: An Illuminated Law Book of the 13th Century; Barnaba da Modena and the Flagellants of Genoa; An Altar-piece of the Apocalypse; The Altarpiece of St. George from Valencia; The Legend of St. Ursula; An Early Sixteenth-Century Genealogy of Anglo-Saxon Kings; Swiss Stained Glass Designs of the Reformation; The Bible in British Art; Additional Notes; Index.

"Tool marks" and "joins," "Cycladic" and "Daedalic styles," and "kouroi" and "kanephoroi" are among the many terms pertaining to the study of classical stone sculpture that are succinctly described in this latest addition to the popular Looking At series. Presented in glossary format, this superbly illustrated book gives concise definitions of the words and phrases most frequently encountered by museum visitors in exhibition labels and texts. Throughout the book, the author focuses on the technical aspects of sculpting that influenced the style and character of the finished works.
An introductory essay underscores the importance of understanding why and how ancient stone sculpture was produced, allowing readers to gain a greater appreciation of the aesthetic value of individual works. Featuring numerous illustrations of ancient stone sculptures, many from the collections of the Getty Museum, Looking at Greek and Roman Sculpture in Stone is a valuable guide for students, scholars, and all who wish to heighten their enjoyment of this classical art.

The Art and Archaeology of the Aegean Bronze Age offers a comprehensive chronological and geographical overview of one of the most important civilizations in human history. Jean-Claude Poursat's volume provides a clear path through the rich and varied art and archaeology of Aegean prehistory, from the Neolithic period down to the end of the Bronze Age. Charting the regional differences within the Aegean world, his study covers the full range of material evidence, including architecture, pottery, frescoes, metalwork, stone, and ivory, all lucidly arranged by chapter. With nearly 300 illustrations, this volume is one of the most lavishly illustrated treatments of the subject yet published. Suggestions for further reading provide an up-to-date entry point to the full richness of the subject. Originally published in French, and translated by the author's collaborator Carl Knappett, this edition makes Poursat's deep knowledge of the Aegean Bronze Age available to an English-language audience for the first time.