scholarly journals Of boxes in the Bronze Age: exotic imports, skeuomorphs and local crafts from Central Asia to Sumer

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 119-132
Author(s):  
St John Simpson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Solid Object ◽  
Paper Briefly ◽  
Eastern Iran ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Bronze Age

This paper briefly reviews some of the excavated evidence for decorated boxes found at sites from Mesopotamia to Central Asia in the late 3rd millennium BC, and concludes that one published from an Akkadian grave at Nippur is a Harappan import. Similar types of box found at Gonur depe were used to contain mirrors, and this also provides a new explanation for the Nippur box. Remains of other types of decorated box are also known from elite graves at Gonur and Ur, some of a size consistent with trunks or chests, but others much smaller and employing iconogra- phy peculiar to their cultural context. This paper draws attention to the fact that the boards for the “Game of Twenty Squares” were originally hollow in order to hold the pieces, and that the so-called “Standard of Ur” was also a box, rather than the solid object it has been reconstructed and known as. In other regions, such as southeast Arabia and Iran, small compartmented boxes were also carved from chlorite but larger examples were probably also made of wood. The fired clay boxes also known from eastern Iran and southwest Central Asia may well have had wooden counterparts which have not survived. In short, a much greater variety of boxes of different types and sizes were used at this period than is generally acknowledged.

Rock Art of Northern, Central, and Western Asia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrzej Rozwadowski
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Rock Paintings ◽  
The Bronze Age

This chapter discusses the rock art traditions of Northern, Central, and Western Asia, first providing an overview of the chronological-cultural context of much of the known rock art in Northern and Central Asia before describing the main geographical concentrations of rock paintings and petroglyphs in the area. In particular, it examines the dilemmas with regards to ascertaining the age of ‘Stone Age’ rock art, along with the presence of chariots in rock art as an iconographic determinant of the Bronze Age. It also considers the association of the Bronze Age with the expansion of Indo-Iranians, expansion of Buddhism through Central Asia as reflected in the rock art, relation of Siberian rock art to shamanism, and major rock art regions of Northern and Central Asia. It concludes by assessing the rock art of Western Asia and how the advent of Islam in mid–seventh century ad changed Arabian traditions of rock art.

The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia: New Insight on Social Change from Ban Non Wat

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Higham
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Copper Base ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Bronze Age

The expansion of copper-base metallurgy in the mainland of Eurasia began in the Near East and ended in Southeast Asia. The recognition of this Southeast Asian metallurgical province followed in the wake of French colonial occupation of Cambodia and Laos in the nineteenth century. Subsequently, most research has concentrated in Thailand, beginning in the 1960s. A sound chronology is the prerequisite to identifying both the origins of the Bronze Age, and the social impact that metallurgy may have had on society. This article presents the revolutionary results of excavations at the site of Ban Non Wat in northeast Thailand within the broader cultural context of Southeast Asian prehistory, concluding that the adoption of copper-base metallurgy from the eleventh century BC coincided with the rise of wealthy social aggrandizers.

Introduction: Identity and alterity in Bronze Age Britain and Ireland

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Brück
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Instrumental Reason ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Bronze Age

In 2004, excavation in advance of the construction of a bypass around Mitchelstown in County Cork uncovered a number of pits on the banks of the Gradoge River (Kiely and Sutton 2007). On the bottom of one of these pits, three pottery vessels and a ceramic spoon had been laid on two flat stones. The pots had been deposited in a row: at the centre of the row was a small vessel that clearly models a human face with eyes, a protruding nose and ears, and, at the base of the pot, two feet (cover images). Oak charcoal from the pit returned a date of 1916–1696 cal BC. This find calls into question one of the basic conceptual building blocks that underpins our own contemporary understanding of the world—the distinction between people and objects—for it hints that some artefacts may have been imbued with human qualities and agentive capacities. This book is about the relationship between Bronze Age people and their material worlds. It explores the impact of the post-Enlightenment ‘othering’ of the non-human on our understanding of Bronze Age society. As we shall see, there is in fact considerable evidence to suggest that the categorical distinctions drawn in our own cultural context, for example between subject and object, self and other, and culture and nature, were not recognized or articulated in the same way during this period. So too contemporary forms of instrumental reason—encapsulated in a particular understanding of what constitutes logical, practical action and in the distinction we make between the ritual and the secular—have had a profound effect on how we view the Bronze Age world. Our understanding of the Bronze Age has undoubtedly changed dramatically since Christian Jürgensen Thomsen first popularized the term in his famous formulation of the three-age system in 1836 (Morris 1992). The very notion of a ‘Bronze Age’ foregrounds concepts of technical efficiency and advancement that doubtless chimed with the preoccupations and cultural values of Thomsen’s audience in the industrializing world in the nineteenth century.

The Baigetuobie cemetery: New discovery and human genetic features of Andronovo community’s diffusion to the Eastern Tianshan Mountains (1800–1500 BC)

The Holocene ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 095968362097026
Author(s):  
Jiangsong Zhu ◽  
Jian Ma ◽  
Fan Zhang ◽  
Yinqiu Cui ◽  
Marcella Festa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Tianshan Mountains ◽  
Cultural Interaction ◽  
Eastern Tianshan ◽  
Genetic Features ◽  
Funeral Rituals ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
New Discovery

Andronovo has been regarded as one of the most powerful cultures in Central Asia, which reflected frequent cultural interflow, people migration, and technique diffusion on the Bronze Age Eurasian steppes. In the past decade, many new discoveries in Xinjiang, such as Adunqiaolu and Jartai, have drawn broad attention to the communication of the Andronovo culture in the central Tianshan Mountains. However, systematic study is still insufficient on the communication and influence of the Andronovo culture or the “Andronovo phenomenon” along the Tianshan Mountains. Based on our comprehensive investigation of tomb structure, funeral rituals and assemblages, this article reclassifies relevant Andronovo remains in Xinjiang into five categories. Two categories represented by the Xiabandi cemetery and the Adunqiaolu show clear resemblance to those at Semirech’ye in all aspects, which indicated people in these regions may have maintained close and consistent interaction. Other three categories in the Kuokesuxi and Tangbalesayi cemetery have different tomb structures and funeral rituals from those typical discoveries of the Andronovo cultures in Central Asia in spite of the their similarity in pottery and bronze ornaments, which can be considered as the result of product exchange or technical communication, rather than population migration. New discovery of the Baigetuobie cemetery with evidence of tomb structure, dating, and human genetic features in the Balikun grassland suggested that there might be a small group of people, probably came from the central Tianshan Mountains or Semirech’ye or further west, had migrated to the Eastern Tianshan Mountains about 1600 BC, which was likely facilitated by the relatively warm and humid environment. They had preserved their traditional tomb architecture and were not active in cultural interaction and population fusion with people of Hami Oasis in the south. Due to some reason unknown, people of Baigetuobie had faded away from Balikun grassland after a short time.

The Bronze Age khanates of Central Asia

Antiquity ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 68 (259) ◽  
pp. 398-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Bronze Age

Origins of the Bronze Age Civilization in Central Asia

1996 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 182
Author(s):  
Charles C. Kolb ◽  
Fredrik Talmage Hiebert
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Bronze Age

scholarly journals Princezny z Hájku. K problematice elity ve střední době bronzové

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
Soňa Nožinová ◽  
Petr Krištuf
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Female Partners ◽  
Local Elite ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Elite Status ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
Different Origins ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Status Of Women

The topic of this study is the possibilities of archaeological identification of the local elite in the Bronze Age. We‘re targeting the female elite, who are characterized by a particular form of costume. In a case study of the barrow cemetery of Šťáhlavy – Hájek, we are trying to show that the elite status of women in the Bronze Age was not based on their personal qualities, but rather on their affinity with an elite family. Their social status may therefore have been hereditary. On the other hand, it turns out that certain particularities of the costume (different types of necklaces, etc.) may point to different origins of women and thus the exchange of female partners within the wider elite community.

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