[PDF] The Zakro Master And His Place In Prehistory eBook

Author : Jane B. Carter
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 592 pages
File Size : 15,58 MB
Release : 2013-12-18
Category : History
ISBN : 0292733763

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Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey have fascinated listeners and readers for over twenty-five centuries. In this volume of original essays, collected to honor the distinguished career of Emily T. Vermeule, thirty-four leading experts in Homeric studies and related fields provide up-to-date, multidisciplinary accounts of the most current issues in the study of Homer. The book is divided into three sections. The first section treats the Bronze Age setting of the poems (around 1200 B.C.), using archaeological evidence to reveal how poetic memory preserves, distorts, and invents the past. The second section explores the early Iron Age, in which the poems were written (c. 800-500 B.C.), using the strategies of comparative philology and mythology, literary theory, historical linguistics, anthropology, and iconography to determine how the poems took shape. The final section traces the use of Homer for literary and artistic inspiration by classical Greece and Rome.

Author : Bruce Rimell
Publisher : Xibalba Books
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 26,96 MB
Release : 2021-01-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN :

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The art and iconography of the Minoan civilisation of Bronze Age Crete is rightly described as having a refreshing vitality with a fortunate combination of stylisation and spontaneity in which the artist is able to transform conventional imagery into a personal expression. The dynamism, torsion and naturalism evident in Minoan art stands in stark contrast to the hieratic rigidity of other ancient civilisations, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the iconography of the Minoan Epiphany, a set of mainly glyptic (rings, seals, and seal impression) images which appear to depict religious celebrants experiencing direct and seemingly ecstatic encounters with deities. This collection of essays explores this central aspect of Minoan religion, taking a strongly archaeological focus to allow the artefacts to speak for themselves, and moving from traditional ‘representational’ interpretations into ‘embodied’ perspectives in which the ecstatic capabilities of the human body throw new light on Aegean Bronze Age ritual practices. Such ideas challenge rather passive assumptions modern Western observers hold about the nature of religious feelings and experiences, in particular the depictions of altered states of consciousness in ancient art, and the visionary potential of dance gestures. Speculative asides on the potential for a Minoan origin for Classical Greek humanism, and hints in the imagery on ancient Cretan conceptions of the cosmos, are set against sound archaeological theories to explain this lively and dynamic corpus of images. Beautifully illustrated with images and sketches of the relevant artefacts, this wide-ranging volume will stimulate audiences with archaeological, prehistorical and spiritual interests, as well as historians of religion and art. ‘The Minoan Epiphany’ also represents an influential antecendent to the Visionary Humanist philosophy which forms the majority of Bruce’s current independent research interests.

Author : Giorgos Vavouranakis
Publisher : Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 31,30 MB
Release : 2019-01-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1789690463

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This volume features a group of select peer-reviewed papers by an international group of authors, both younger and senior academics and researchers, on the frequently neglected popular cult and other ritual practices in prehistoric and ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean.

Author : Jean-Claude Poursat
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 994 pages
File Size : 23,7 MB
Release : 2022-06-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1108571190

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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.

Author : Ellen Adams
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 365 pages
File Size : 44,22 MB
Release : 2017-09-07
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1108190766

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Neopalatial Crete - the 'Golden Age' of the Minoan Civilization - possessed palaces, exquisite artefacts, and iconography with pre-eminent females. While lacking in fortifications, ritual symbolism cloaked the island, an elaborate bureaucracy logged transactions, and massive storage areas enabled the redistribution of goods. We cannot read the Linear A script, but the libation formulae suggest an island-wide koine. Within this cultural identity, there is considerable variation in how the Minoan elites organized themselves and others on an intra-site and regional basis. This book explores and celebrates this rich, diverse and dynamic culture through analyses of important sites, as well as Minoan administration, writing, economy and ritual. Key themes include the role of Knossos in wider Minoan culture and politics, the variable modes of centralization and power relations detectable across the island, and the role of ritual and cult in defining and articulating elite control.

Author : David Wengrow
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 37,25 MB
Release : 2020-04-28
Category : Art
ISBN : 0691202397

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It has often been claimed that "monsters"--supernatural creatures with bodies composed from multiple species--play a significant part in the thought and imagery of all people from all times. The Origins of Monsters advances an alternative view. Composite figurations are intriguingly rare and isolated in the art of the prehistoric era. Instead it was with the rise of cities, elites, and cosmopolitan trade networks that "monsters" became widespread features of visual production in the ancient world. Showing how these fantastic images originated and how they were transmitted, David Wengrow identifies patterns in the records of human image-making and embarks on a search for connections between mind and culture. Wengrow asks: Can cognitive science explain the potency of such images? Does evolutionary psychology hold a key to understanding the transmission of symbols? How is our making and perception of images influenced by institutions and technologies? Wengrow considers the work of art in the first age of mechanical reproduction, which he locates in the Middle East, where urban life began. Comparing the development and spread of fantastic imagery across a range of prehistoric and ancient societies, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and China, he explores how the visual imagination has been shaped by a complex mixture of historical and universal factors. Examining the reasons behind the dissemination of monstrous imagery in ancient states and empires, The Origins of Monsters sheds light on the relationship between culture and cognition.

Author : Marta Ameri
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 524 pages
File Size : 36,49 MB
Release : 2018-05-03
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1108173519

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Studies of seals and sealing practices have traditionally investigated aspects of social, political, economic, and ideological systems in ancient societies throughout the Old World. Previously, scholarship has focused on description and documentation, chronology and dynastic histories, administrative function, iconography, and style. More recent studies have emphasized context, production and use, and increasingly, identity, gender, and the social lives of seals, their users, and the artisans who produced them. Using several methodological and theoretical perspectives, this volume presents up-to-date research on seals that is comparative in scope and focus. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach advances our understanding of the significance of an important class of material culture of the ancient world. The volume will serve as an essential resource for scholars, students, and others interested in glyptic studies, seal production and use, and sealing practices in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Ancient South Asia and the Aegean during the 4th-2nd Millennia BCE.

Author : Maria Brosius
Publisher :
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 49,99 MB
Release : 2003
Category : History
ISBN : 9780199252459

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This interdisciplinary volume offers a systematic approach to archival documents and to the societies which created them, addressing questions of formal aspects of creating, writing, and storing ancient documents, and showing how widely archival systems were copied and adapted.