The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines

The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines
Author: Timothy Insoll
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 961
Release: 2017
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN: 0199675619

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The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines is the first text to offer a comparative survey of figurines from across the globe, bringing together myriad contemporary research approaches to provide invaluable insights into their function, context, meaning, and use, as well as past thinking on the human body, gender, and identity.

The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines

The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines
Author: Timothy Insoll
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1123
Release: 2017-04-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191663107

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Figurines dating from prehistory have been found across the world but have never before been considered globally. The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines is the first book to offer a comparative survey of this kind, bringing together approaches from across the landscape of contemporary research into a definitive resource in the field. The volume is comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible, with dedicated and fully illustrated chapters covering figurines from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia and the Pacific laid out by geographical location and written by the foremost scholars in figurine studies; wherever prehistoric figurines are found they have been expertly described and examined in relation to their subject matter, form, function, context, chronology, meaning, and interpretation. Specific themes that are discussed by contributors include, for example, theories of figurine interpretation, meaning in processes and contexts of figurine production, use, destruction and disposal, and the cognitive and social implications of representation. Chronologically, the coverage ranges from the Middle Palaeolithic through to areas and periods where an absence of historical sources renders figurines 'prehistoric' even though they might have been produced in the mid-2nd millennium AD, as in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The result is a synthesis of invaluable insights into past thinking on the human body, gender, identity, and how the figurines might have been used, either practically, ritually, or even playfully.

The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean

The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean
Author: Eric H. Cline
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 968
Release: 2012-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 019024075X

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The Greek Bronze Age, roughly 3000 to 1000 BCE, witnessed the flourishing of the Minoan and Mycenean civilizations, the earliest expansion of trade in the Aegean and wider Mediterranean Sea, the development of artistic techniques in a variety of media, and the evolution of early Greek religious practices and mythology. The period also witnessed a violent conflict in Asia Minor between warring peoples in the region, a conflict commonly believed to be the historical basis for Homer's Trojan War. The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean provides a detailed survey of these fascinating aspects of the period, and many others, in sixty-six newly commissioned articles. Divided into four sections, the handbook begins with Background and Definitions, which contains articles establishing the discipline in its historical, geographical, and chronological settings and in its relation to other disciplines. The second section, Chronology and Geography, contains articles examining the Bronze Age Aegean by chronological period (Early Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age). Each of the periods are further subdivided geographically, so that individual articles are concerned with Mainland Greece during the Early Bronze Age, Crete during the Early Bronze Age, the Cycladic Islands during the Early Bronze Age, and the same for the Middle Bronze Age, followed by the Late Bronze Age. The third section, Thematic and Specific Topics, includes articles examining thematic topics that cannot be done justice in a strictly chronological/geographical treatment, including religion, state and society, trade, warfare, pottery, writing, and burial customs, as well as specific events, such as the eruption of Santorini and the Trojan War. The fourth section, Specific Sites and Areas, contains articles examining the most important regions and sites in the Bronze Age Aegean, including Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, Knossos, Kommos, Rhodes, the northern Aegean, and the Uluburun shipwreck, as well as adjacent areas such as the Levant, Egypt, and the western Mediterranean. Containing new work by an international team of experts, The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean represents the most comprehensive, authoritative, and up-to-date single-volume survey of the field. It will be indispensable for scholars and advanced students alike.

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion
Author: Timothy Insoll
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1135
Release: 2011-10-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 019923244X

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A comprehensive overview, by period and region, of the archaeology of ritual and religion. The coverage is global, and extends from the earliest prehistory to modern times. Written by over sixty renowned specialists, the Handbook presents the very best in current scholarship, and will also stimulate further research.

The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe

The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe
Author: Chris Fowler
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 856
Release: 2015-03-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191666882

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The Neolithic —a period in which the first sedentary agrarian communities were established across much of Europe—has been a key topic of archaeological research for over a century. However, the variety of evidence across Europe, the range of languages in which research is carried out, and the way research traditions in different countries have developed makes it very difficult for both students and specialists to gain an overview of continent-wide trends. The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe provides the first comprehensive, geographically extensive, thematic overview of the European Neolithic —from Iberia to Russia and from Norway to Malta —offering both a general introduction and a clear exploration of key issues and current debates surrounding evidence and interpretation. Chapters written by leading experts in the field examine topics such as the movement of plants, animals, ideas, and people (including recent trends in the application of genetics and isotope analyses); cultural change (from the first appearance of farming to the first metal artefacts); domestic architecture; subsistence; material culture; monuments; and burial and other treatments of the dead. In doing so, the volume also considers the history of research and sets out agendas and themes for future work in the field.

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant
Author: Margreet L. Steiner
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 912
Release: 2014-01-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191662550

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This Handbook aims to serve as a research guide to the archaeology of the Levant, an area situated at the crossroads of the ancient world that linked the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. The Levant as used here is a historical geographical term referring to a large area which today comprises the modern states of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, western Syria, and Cyprus, as well as the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula. Unique in its treatment of the entire region, it offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of the current state of the archaeology of the Levant within its larger cultural, historical, and socio-economic contexts. The Handbook also attempts to bridge the modern scholarly and political divide between archaeologists working in this highly contested region. Written by leading international scholars in the field, it focuses chronologically on the Neolithic through Persian periods - a time span during which the Levant was often in close contact with the imperial powers of Egypt, Anatolia, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia. This volume will serve as an invaluable reference work for those interested in a contextualised archaeological account of this region, beginning with the 'agricultural revolution' until the conquest of Alexander the Great that marked the end of the Persian period.

Breaking Images

Breaking Images
Author: Gianluca Miniaci
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2023-02-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789259169

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Archaeological remains are ‘fragmented by definition’: apart from exceptional cases, the study of the human past takes into account mainly traces, ruins, discards, and debris of past civilizations. It is rare that things have been preserved as they were originally made and conceived in the past. However, not all the ancient fragmentary objects were the ‘leftovers’ from the past. A noticeable portion of them was part and parcel of the ancient materiality already in the form of a fragment or damaged item. In 2000, John Chapman, with his volume Fragmentation in Archaeology, attracted the attention of scholars on the need to reconsider broken artifacts as the result of the deliberate anthropic process of physical fragmentation. The phenomenon of fragmentation can be thus explored with more outcomes for a category of objects that played an important role inside the society: the figurines. Due to their portability and size, figurines are particularly entangled and engaged in social, spatial, temporal, and material relations, and – more than other artifacts – can easily accommodate acts of embodiment and dismemberment. The act of creation symmetrically also involves the act of destruction, which in turn is another act of creation, since from the fragmentation comes a new entity with a different ontology. Breaking contains the paradigms of life: creation and reparation, destruction and regeneration. The scope of this volume is to search for traces of any voluntary and intentional fragmentation of ancient artifacts, creating, improving, and sharpening the methods and principles for a scientific investigation that goes beyond single author impression or sensitivity. The comparative lens adopted in this volume can allow the reader to explore different fields taken from ancient societies of how we can address, assess, detect, and even discuss the action of breaking and mutilation of ancient figurines.

Tragedy's Endurance

Tragedy's Endurance
Author: Erika Fischer-Lichte
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199651639

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This volume sets out a novel approach to theatre historiography, presenting the history of performances of Greek tragedies in Germany since 1800 as the history of the evolving cultural identity of the educated middle class throughout that period. Philhellenism and theatromania took hold in this milieu amidst attempts to banish the heavily French-influenced German court culture of the mid-eighteenth century, and by 1800 performances of Greek tragedies had effectively become the German answer to the French Revolution. Tragedy's subsequent endurance on the German stage is mapped here through the responses of performances to particular political, social, and cultural milestones, from the Napoleonic Wars and the Revolution of 1848 to the Third Reich, the new political movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification. Images of ancient Greece which were prevalent in the productions of these different eras are examined closely: the Nazi's proclamation of a racial kinship between the Greeks and the Germans; the politicization of performances of Greek tragedies since the 1960s and 1970s, emblematized by Marcuse's notion of a cultural revolution; the protest choruses of the GDR and the subsequent new genre of choric theatre in unified Germany. By examining these images and performances in relation to their respective socio-cultural contexts, the volume sheds light on how, in a constantly changing political and cultural climate, performances of Greek tragedies helped affirm, destabilize, re-stabilize, and transform the cultural identity of the educated middle class over a volatile two hundred year period.

Petrification Processes in Matter and Society

Petrification Processes in Matter and Society
Author: Sophie Hüglin
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2021-08-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030693880

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Petrification is a process, but it also can be understood as a concept. This volume takes the first steps to manifest, materialize or “petrify” the concept of “petrification” and turn it into a tool for analyzing material and social processes. The wide array of approaches to petrification as a process assembled here is more of a collection of possibilities than an attempt to establish a firm, law-generating theory. Divided into three parts, this volume’s twenty-plus authors explore petrification both as a theoretical concept and as a contextualized material and social process across geological, prehistoric and historic periods. Topics connecting the various papers are properties of materials, preferences and choices of actors, the temporality of matter, being and becoming, the relationality between actors, matter, things and space (landscape, urban space, built space), and perceptions of the following generations dealing with the petrified matter, practices, and social relations. Contributors to this volume study specifically whether particular processes of petrification are confined to the material world or can be seen as mirroring, following, triggering, or contradicting changes in social life and general world views. Each of the authors explores – for a period or a specific feature – practices and changes that led to increased conformity and regularity. Some authors additionally focus on the methods and scrutinize them and their applications for their potential to create objects of investigation: things, people, periods, in order to raise awareness for these or to shape or “invent” categories. This volume is of interest to archaeologists, geologists, architectural historians, conservationists, and historians.

Figurine Makers of Prehistoric Cyprus

Figurine Makers of Prehistoric Cyprus
Author: Edgar Peltenburg
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 873
Release: 2019-07-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 178925020X

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The Chalcolithic period in Cyprus has been known since Porphyrios Dikaios’ excavations at Erimi in the 1930s and through the appearance in the antiquities market of illicitly acquired anthropomorphic cruciform figures, often manufactured from picrolite, a soft blue-green stone. The excavations of the settlement and cemetery at Souskiou Laona reported on in this volume paint a very different picture of life on the island during the late 4th and early 3rd millennia BC. Burial practices at other known sites are generally single inhumations in intramural pit graves, only rarely equipped with artifacts. At Souskiou, multiple inhumations were interred in deep rock-cut tombs clustered in extra-mural cemeteries. Although the sites were also subjected to extensive looting, excavations have revealed complex multi-stage burial practices with arrangements of disarticulated and articulated burials accompanied by a rich variety of grave goods. Chief among these are a multitude of cruciform figurines and pendants. This unusual treatment of the dead, which has not been recorded elsewhere in Cyprus, shifts the focus from the individual to the communal, and provides evidence for significant changes involving kinship group links to common ancestors. Excavations at the Laona settlement have furnished evidence suggesting that it functioned as a specialised center for the procurement and manufacture of picrolite during its early phase. The subsequent decline of picrolite production and the earliest known occurrence of new types of ornaments, such as faience beads and copper spiral pendants, attest to important changes involving the transformation of personal and social identities during the first centuries of the 3rd millennium BC, a topic that forms a central theme of this final report on the site.