To paraphrase L.P. Hartley, "The past is a different country." Stan L Abbott sets out to explore the visible clues to our mysterious past from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages: stone circles. Cumbria boasts more of these monuments than any other English county. Here, our tallest mountains are ringed by almost fifty circles and henges, most of them sited in the foothills or on outlying plateaux. Were these the earliest such monuments in Britain, placing Cumbria at the heart of Neolithic society? And what traces of that society remain today in the roads we travel, the food we eat, the words we speak, our work and play? By observing and comparing many sites in Cumbria and beyond, and researching many sources, a greater understanding emerges. Were some circles built for ritualistic purposes, or perhaps astronomical? Were they burial sites? Or were they just places for people to meet? Illustrated with linocut illustrations by artist Denise Burden, Ring of Stone Circles follows the search for the hidden stories these monuments guard - and might reveal if we get to know them.

The central purpose of this collection of essays is to make a creative addition to the debates surrounding the cultural heritage domain. In the 21st century the world faces epochal changes which affect every part of society, including the arenas in which cultural heritage is made, held, collected, curated, exhibited, or simply exists. The book is about these changes; about the decentring of culture and cultural heritage away from institutional structures towards the individual; about the questions which the advent of digital technologies is demanding that we ask and answer in relation to how we understand, collect and make available Europe's cultural heritage. Cultural heritage has enormous potential in terms of its contribution to improving the quality of life for people, understanding the past, assisting territorial cohesion, driving economic growth, opening up employment opportunities and supporting wider developments such as improvements in education and in artistic careers. Given that spectrum of possible benefits to society, the range of studies that follow here are intended to be a resource and stimulus to help inform not just professionals in the sector but all those with an interest in cultural heritage.

This book explores the sociopolitical contexts of heritage landscapes, paying special attention to sites with deep indigenous histories - Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and the Burrup Peninsula along the Pilbara Coast in Australia, the Altai Mountains of northwestern Mongolia, and Prince William Sound in Alaska. For many communities, landscapes such as these have long been associated with cultural identity and memories of important and difficult events, as well as political struggles related to nation-state boundaries, sovereignty, and knowledge claims. ,br> Drawing on the emerging field of critical heritage theory and the concept of "resource frontiers," Melissa Baird shows how these landscapes are sites of power and control and are increasingly used in development and extractive projects. As a result, heritage landscapes face social and ecological crises such as environmental degradation, ecological disasters, and structural violence. She describes how heritage experts, industries, government representatives, and descendant groups negotiate the contours and boundaries of these contested sites, and recommends ways such conversations can better incorporate a critical engagement with indigenous knowledge and agency.

Modern conventional wisdom knows Olympias as a pitiless and savage woman, practitioner of barbaric Dionysian rites compelled by jealousy and ruthless ambition to the murder of her rivals in order to secure her son's succession to the throne of Macedon. In this way she is credited for Alexander the Great's unprecedented achievements-yet the scale of her son's epic story has obscured her own.
Such critical accounts of Olympias' actions have made unforgiving and often unfounded judgments of her motivations. This myth however originates from later Hellenic texts, to which her strength and tenacity represented an abhorrent contradiction to contemporary gender roles. Later historians have all too often perpetrated this ancient sexual stereotyping by failing to question these sources.
In this, the first modern biography of Olympias, Elizabeth Carney penetrates myth, fictional and sexual politics to reveal a fascinating and wholly misunderstood figure. Through a close and critical assessment of the sources, Olympias is humanized as she is placed in the context ofhen own brutal political world.
Looking separately at:
- The role of Greek religion in Olympias' life,
- Literary and artistic traditions about Olympias found throughout the later ancient periods, and
- Varying representations of Olypias found in the major ancient sources
This book will be the definitive guide to the life of the first woman to play a major role in Greek political history as well as a compelling read for students, scholars and anyone with an interest in Greek, Classical or women's history.

Heritage, Tourism, and Race views heritage and leisure tourism in the Americas through the lens of race, and is especially concerned with redressing gaps in recognizing and critically accounting for African Americans as an underrepresented community in leisure. Fostering critical public discussions about heritage, travel, tourism, leisure, and race, Jackson addresses the underrepresentation of African American leisure experiences and links Black experiences in this area to discussions of race, place, spatial imaginaries, and issues of segregation and social control explored in the fields of geography, architecture, and the law. Most importantly, the book emphasizes the importance of shifting public dialogue from a singular focus on those groups who are disadvantaged within a system of racial hierarchy, to those actors and institutions exerting power over racialized others through practices of exclusion. Heritage, Tourism, and Race will be invaluable reading for academics and students engaged in the study of museums, as well as architecture, anthropology, public history, and a range of other disciplines. It will also be of interest to museum and heritage professionals and those studying the construction and control of space and how this affects and reveals the narratives of marginalized communities.

Heritage, Tourism, and Race views heritage and leisure tourism in the Americas through the lens of race, and is especially concerned with redressing gaps in recognizing and critically accounting for African Americans as an underrepresented community in leisure. Fostering critical public discussions about heritage, travel, tourism, leisure, and race, Jackson addresses the underrepresentation of African American leisure experiences and links Black experiences in this area to discussions of race, place, spatial imaginaries, and issues of segregation and social control explored in the fields of geography, architecture, and the law. Most importantly, the book emphasizes the importance of shifting public dialogue from a singular focus on those groups who are disadvantaged within a system of racial hierarchy, to those actors and institutions exerting power over racialized others through practices of exclusion. Heritage, Tourism, and Race will be invaluable reading for academics and students engaged in the study of museums, as well as architecture, anthropology, public history, and a range of other disciplines. It will also be of interest to museum and heritage professionals and those studying the construction and control of space and how this affects and reveals the narratives of marginalized communities.

Without realizing, most archaeologists shift within a scale of interpretation of material culture. Material data is interpreted from the scale of an individual in a specific place and time, then shifted to the complex dynamics of cultural groups spread over time and place. This book discusses the cultural, social and spatial aspects of scale and its impact on archaeology, and shows how an improved awareness of scale offers new and exciting interpretations.

Drawing on archaeological findings from the Maya lowlands, War Owl Falling shows how innovation and creativity led to social change in ancient societies. Markus Eberl discusses the ways eighth-century Maya (and Maya commoners in particular) reinvented objects and signs that were associated with nobility, including scepters, ceramic vessels, ballgame equipment, and the symbol of the owl. These inventions, he argues, reflect assertions of independence and a redistribution of power that contributed to the Maya collapse in the Late Classic period. Eberl emphasizes that individual decision-making - the ability to imagine alternate worlds and to act on that vision - plays a large role in changing social structure over time. Pinpointing where and when these Maya inventions emerged, how individuals adopted them and why, War Owl Falling connects technological and social change in a novel way.

Heritage Sites in Contemporary China: Cultural Policies and Management Practices focuses on cultural heritage policies in China emerging in the period of the 11th and 12th Five Year Plans. Various important Chinese sites across China are investigated, including Luoyang Sui, Daming Gong, Niuheliang, Xinjiang, and Nanyuewang through the dual perspective of archaeological debate and as a case study of policy making. It explores the relationship between policy and the institutional and administrative conditions, such as budgeting and land concerns, which affect it. Building on the research project implemented by the China Academy for Cultural Heritage (CACH) from 2012-2014, which focused on the impact of the Dayizhi Policy for Great Archaeological Sites, the book provides an interdisciplinary insider's approach to viewing archaeological discoveries; policies and emerging practices in site and archaeological management; and public administration in China. Featuring contributions from experts within CACH and from the Chinese community of archaeologists, and including numerous tables, data and maps, it will appeal to researchers and scholars in disciplines such as archaeology, heritage management, public administration, and policy making.

This book offers global perspectives from Mediterranean, Asian, Australian, and American cultures on sacred sites and their related stories in regional history. Contemporary society witnesses many travelers visiting sacred sites (temples, mountains, castles, churches, houses) throughout the world. These visits often involve discovery of new historical facts through the origin stories of the associated tribe, region, or nation. The transmission of oral tradition and myth carries on the significant meaning of those religious sites. This volume unveils multi-angle perspectives of symbolic and mystical places. The contributors describe the religio-political experiences of each regional case, and analyze the religiosity of local people as a lens through which readers can re-examine the concept of iconography, syncretism, and materialism. In addition, contributors interpret the growth of new religions as the alternative perspectives of anti-traditional religions. This new approach offers significant insight into comprehending the practical agony and sorrow of regional people in the context of contemporary history.

Museum Thresholds is a progressive, interdisciplinary volume and the first to explore the importance and potential of entrance spaces for visitor experience. Bringing together an international collection of writers from different disciplines, the chapters in this volume offer different theoretical perspectives on the nature of engagement, interaction and immersion in threshold spaces, and the factors which enable and inhibit those immersive possibilities. Organised into themed sections, the book explores museum thresholds from three different perspectives. Considering them first as a problem space, the contributors then go on to explore thresholds through different media and, finally, draw upon other subjects and professions, including performance, gaming, retail and discourse studies, in order to examine them from an entirely new perspective. Drawing upon examples that span Asia, North America and Europe, the authors set the entrance space in its historical, social and architectural contexts. Together, the essays show how the challenges posed by the threshold can be rethought and reimagined from a variety of perspectives, each of which have much to bring to future thinking and design. Combining both theory and practice, Museum Thresholds should be essential reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in museum studies, digital heritage, architecture, design studies, retail studies and media studies. It will also be of great interest to museum practitioners working in a wide variety of institutions around the globe.

This volume brings together scholars to reflect on the work of Professor A. Bernard Knapp and on some of the challenges thrown down in his extensive scholarship. Knapp is a central figure in the pre and proto-history of the Mediterranean in the last generation, and the essays in this volume will be of interest and attention to a wide range of scholars and students of Mediterranean pre- and proto-history. Topics include studies of sites, places, materials and texts in the Levant, Cyprus, Crete, Greece and Sicily and wider theory and method critiques address connectivity and mobility, maritime archaeology, landscapes, climate and environment, and publication history and practice in the overall Mediterranean field. The authors comprise a mixture of senior, mid-career, and rising junior scholars - from various backgrounds, in order to offer a broad range of perspectives on the state and future of the archaeology of Cyprus and the wider Mediterranean.