scholarly journals Through the Gloomy Vale: Underworld Alignments at Stonehenge

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1 and 2) ◽  
pp. 11-30
Author(s):  
Lionel Sims ◽  
David Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Mirror Image ◽  
Landscape Model ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead

Three recent independently developed models suggest that some Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments exhibit dual design properties in monument complexes by pairing obverse structures. Parker Pearson’s1 materiality model proposes that monuments of wood are paired with monuments of stone, these material metaphors respectively signifying places of rituals for the living with rituals for the dead. Higginbottom’s2 landscape model suggests that many western Scottish megalithic structures are paired in mirror-image landscape locations in which the horizon distance, direction and height of one site is the topographical reverse of the paired site – all in the service of ritually experiencing the liminal boundaries to the world. Sims’3 diacritical model suggests that materials, landscapes and lunar-solar alignments are diacritically combined to facilitate cyclical ritual processions between paired monuments through a simulated underworld. All three models combine in varying degrees archaeology and archaeoastronomy and our paper tests them through the case study of the late Neolithic/EBA Stonehenge Palisade in the Stonehenge monument complex.

The Boat of the Dead in the Bronze Age

Antiquity ◽  
1941 ◽  
Vol 15 (60) ◽  
pp. 360-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. V. Grinsell
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Bronze Age

In many parts of the world and at many periods the practice has prevailed of depositing boats, or models or other representations of them, with the dead, either as a means of facilitating his supposed voyage to another world, or as a symbol of his maritime activities during his lifetime.That the former is generally the correct explanation of the custom there can be no doubt. This is shown by the evidence of the belief in a voyage to a future world, and the customs to which it has given rise, among living primitive peoples in the Pacific Islands and elsewhere, so well collected and presented by the late Sir J. G. Frazer. It is shown also by traditions such as that of our own king Arthur's journey by barge to ‘the island valley of Avilion, where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow’ It is shown also by the ancient Greek and Roman custom of placing a coin in the mouth of the dead to pay Charon's fee for ferrying him across the Styx.

Making Memories, Making Monuments: Changing Understandings of Henges in Prehistory and the Present

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca K. Younger
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Study Sites ◽  
Fresh Insight ◽  
Insight Into

This paper offers a fresh insight into three of Scotland’s most complex henge monuments, based on a critical analysis of the term henge. The late Neolithic circular earthwork enclosures have undergone re-evaluation in Scotland as Early Bronze Age dates for some sites have emerged since the 1990s, and the author draws on the long-term nature of these monuments to explore what came before the earthworks. Case-study sites are Cairnpapple Hill, North Mains and Forteviot henge 1. Each is explored in terms of the centuries of re-use of the space for activities such as ceremony, deposition, fire-setting and monument construction, and viewed through a framework of social memory and commemoration,

REPRESENTING, OBJECTIFYING, AND FRAMING THE BODY AT LATE BRONZE AGE KNOSSOS

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELLEN ADAMS
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Body ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Wall Paintings ◽  
Human Form ◽  
The World

Abstract This paper explores how the human form is depicted, objectified and contextualized, in order to clarify the complex relationship between ‘representation’ and ‘reality’, and to investigate the various ways the body is bounded. Part one argues that objectification is not always a passive process, but that the body is deliberately presented to the world to be observed and evaluated. Part two focuses on the configuration of bodily boundaries, and how the body is framed, for example, by clothing, architecture and the mortuary context. The wealth and range of evidence (wall paintings, seals and sealings, figurines, stone vases and burials) render Knossos an excellent case study for this approach. This paper asks not who the Knossians were, in terms of identity and ethnicity, but rather how they wanted to be presented to the world and each other.

scholarly journals Semantics of images of funeral vessels from Rovantsi cemetery of the Final Bronze Age

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 88-116
Author(s):  
Dmytro Pavliv
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Ceramic Ware ◽  
Sign System ◽  
Wavy Line ◽  
Ancient People ◽  
The World ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Archaeological Artifacts ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Historical Periods

The study of the semantics of images on archaeological artifacts is a matter of great interest, because the content of ornamental compositions, ideograms, symbolic signs can be interpreted in the context of the sphere of contemporary religious doctrines. This also applies to the ornamentation of ceramic ware found in burials. During the research of bi-ritual cemetery of Ulvivets-Rovantsi cultural group in Rovantsi (Volhyn region), dated back to the second half of IX–VIII centuries B.C., cinerary vase-urn with the remains of cremation was found. The vessel is decorated by images of four «trees» that stand on a wavy line and have raised branches and round tops. One of them differs by presence of broken branches. Comparative analysis of archaeological materials with using of ethnographic and folklore sources and examples from mythology allows us to explain the semantics of these symbolic signs, which form a holistic ideogram with figurative and symbolic meaning. It is confirmed that such an ideogram, which also occurs in the burial vessels of Corded Ware culture, Komarivska, Bilozerska, Pomeranian and especially Vysotska and Lusatian cultures, can be considered a universal sign system aimed at the figurative expression of one of the oldest religious doctrines. Image of a tree on a funerary vessel can be associated with image of the «world tree (tree of life)», a universal mythological archetype, a symbolic embodiment of the idea of rebirth, although it can also be a «tree of death» or a «tree of the underworld». It is also noted that it is possible to anthropomorphically interpret the image of a tree as a symbol of souls of the dead who stand on the banks of the river – boundaries of the worlds or float by the «river of death» to the afterlife, as evidenced by the image of water (river) under the tree. It is claimed that the images on the cinerary urn from Rovantsi represent magical signs-symbols used by ancient people, applied to the burial vessels to ensure «transition» of the dead to the afterlife and subsequent revival, possibly an encoded story about dead whose remains were buried in this vessel. After all, at the base of such beliefs is the ancient cult of ancestors known in wide areas in many cultures, which belong to different historical periods and ethnic groups. Key words: Late Bronze Age, Rovantsi cemetery, cremation, funerary vessels, semantics of images, magical signs-symbols, cult of ancestors, idea of revival.

scholarly journals Acerca da biografia dum sepulcro colectivo do Neolítico final/ Calcolítico: o Hipogeu 2 do Monte do Carrascal 2 (Ferreira do Alentejo, Beja, Portugal)

2018 ◽  
pp. 35-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria João Neves ◽  
Ana Maria Silva
Keyword(s):  
Data Base ◽  
Research Topic ◽  
Integrated Analysis ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Funerary Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Depositional Evolution ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Relationship

Partindo-se dos dados recolhidos no Hipogeu 2 do Monte do Carrascal 2 (Ferreira do Alentejo, Beja), um dos sepulcros colectivos sito nas imediações do grande sítio do Porto Torrão, procurou-se obter uma leitura biográfica do mesmo, abordando-se especificamente as questões relativas à construção, uso, reconfiguração, reutilização e abandono da estrutura tumular.Através da análise integrada das informações espaciais, estratigráficas e arqueotanatológicas, reunidas numa única base de dados georreferenciada (SIG), foi possível caracterizar os inumados, o modo como foram sendo depositados, as práticas funerárias realizadas ao longo do tempo, os processos de preenchimento do sepulcro e as alterações pós-deposicionais e processos de remodelação que sofreu.Após esta caracterização do sepulcro e dos seus mortos foram entrevistas as novas questões que resultam duma abordagem integrada destes dados com aqueles que decorrem das novas descobertas realizadas recentemente no interior alentejano. Este conjunto de informações afigura-se essencial à compreensão da relação entre o mundo dos vivos e dos mortos nos 4º e 3º milénios a.C., tema fundamental na investigação arqueológica e antropológica europeias. Regarding the biography of a collective Late Neolithic/Calcolithic burial place: the Hypogeum 2 of “Monte do Carrascal 2” (Ferreira do Alentejo, Beja, Portugal)The data obtained in the Hypogeum 2 of Monte do Carrascal 2 (Ferreira do Alentejo, Beja), one of the collective tombs located near the large site of Porto Torrão allow us to trace a biographical overview of this collective tomb. The processes regarding its construction, reconfiguration, reuse, and abandonment were analysed throughout an integrated analysis of spatial, stratigraphic and archaeothanatological information gathered in a single georeferenced data base (GIS).The funerary practices, the post-depositional evolution and the architectural remodelling of the site were characterized. These new data were then compared with those that result from the new discoveries recently done in inner Alentejo. This set of information seems essential to perform a better understanding of the relationship between the world of the living and the dead in the 4th and 3rd millennium BC, a fundamental archaeological and anthropological research topic in Europe. Keywords: Hypogea; Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic; Monte do Carrascal 2; Porto Torrão; Archeothanatology; GIS.

Minting Identity: Coinage, Ideology and the Economics of Colonization in Akhaina Magna Graecia

2002 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Papadopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Archaic Period ◽  
South Italy ◽  
Magna Graecia ◽  
The World ◽  
Abstract Notion ◽  
Social Orders ◽  
The Bronze Age

This article focuses on the early coinage of the Akhaian cities of South Italy — Sybaris, Kroton, Metapontion, Kaulonia, Poseidonia — against the backdrop of colonization. Minting an early and distinctive series of coins, these centres were issuing coinage well before their ‘mother-cities’, a phenomenon that has never been fully appreciated. With its origins in a colonial context, the Akhaian coinage of Magna Graecia not only differs from that of the early coin-minting states of the Greek mainland, it offers a case study that challenges long-held assumptions and potentially contributes to a better understanding of the origins of coinage. It does so by suggesting that coinage is much more than a symbol of authority and represents considerably more than just an abstract notion of sovereignty or hegemony. The images or emblems that the Akhaians of South Italy chose for their coins are those current in the contemporary cultural landscape of the historic Akhaians, but at the same time actively recall the world of the heroic Akhaians of the Bronze Age by referring to prehistoric measures of value. More than his, the vicissitudes of colonial and indigenous history in parts of South Italy in the Archaic period were not merely reflected in coinage, the coins themselves were central to the processes of transformation. By boldly minting — constructing — their identity on coinage, the Akhaians of South Italy chose money in order to create relations of dominance and to produce social orders that had not existed before.

scholarly journals Walking your Way to Death. Exploring the Relation Between the Location of Mycenaean Chamber Tombs and Roads in the Argolid

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 484-504
Author(s):  
Kalliopi Efkleidou
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Mobility Analysis ◽  
Actual Performance ◽  
Historical Cartography ◽  
The Dead

AbstractA persistent issue with the study of Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600–1100 BCE) chamber tombs in Mainland Greece remains our limited understanding of the factors that governed the choice of location for their construction. Mee and Cavanagh (1990) examined various parameters, such as religious beliefs, distance from settlement, the tombs’ use as territorial markers or relation to roads. They remained, however, inconclusive. The present study revisits this theme, but focuses on one of the factors formerly discussed, that is the relation of the tombs’ locations to roads. As the most extensive record of Mycenaean roads is preserved at the settlement of Mycenae in the Argolid and its hinterland, this site is considered to be the best case-study for analysis. In order to ascertain the significance of roads on the locations chosen for the chamber tombs, this paper builds a methodological approach that makes use of GIS-based mobility analysis and historical cartography. The analysis has shown that, at least at Mycenae, issues of accessibility to the tombs did not play as crucial role as the actual performance of rituals such as the funerary procession. It also sheds light on the form funerary processions probably took at Mycenae and on common notions of wheeled traffic use for the transfer of the dead to their tomb.

scholarly journals The dead and the abhorred: Mindhunter and the persistence of mother-blame

2021 ◽  
pp. 174165902110312
Author(s):  
Michele Byers ◽  
Rachael Collins
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Serial Killer ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Mother Blame

In her study of violent protagonists in American literature, Wilson-Scott argues that “mothers are frequently used as the principle traumatizing factor, demonized and depersonalized in order to reassert their violent offspring’s humanity” (p. 191). Further, Wilson-Scott states that her work “reveals the persistent assumption that mothers make monsters” (p. 193). Taking our tacit agreement with Wilson-Scott as a starting point, we argue along with her that mother-blame remains a central motif of mainstream cultural narratives about violent masculinity. The focus of this essay is on the strategies through which mother-blame is used to validate the authorial authenticity of the male serial killer and his ways of knowing and of being in the world. In this essay we offer the first season of the popular Netflix series Mindhunter (2017–) as a case study and ask how the representation of the serial killer’s insight and seemingly accurate understanding of his own pathology is linked to its antithesis, woman-hate, and often, the pathologizing of the mother.

scholarly journals Reflection of Solar Symbolism in the Burial Rite of the Kemi Oba Culture: Case Study of the Grave Cist Painting from Koyash Village

2020 ◽  
pp. 300-314
Author(s):  
Iuliia Kozhukhovskaia
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Concentric Circle ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Dynamic Character ◽  
The World ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Burial Rite

Introduction. The article focuses on the analysis of solar elements in the burial rite of the Kemi Oba culture of the Early Bronze Age. Methods and materials. The material draws attention to the painting of the grave cist from Koyash (Vodnoye) village that presents a set of mythopoetic schemes and plots, their interpretation proceeds from the processes of comprehension of the outside world. Analysis. The paper identifies the ideograms on the basis of the painting of the grave cist under study: the circle with a dot in its center, the concentric circle, the triangle. The burial rite of the Kemi Oba culture focuses on the conceptualization of the afterlife in terms of observations of the solar nature, which is consistent with the prevailing Indo-European concepts of the Bronze Age. The sign of the concentric circle in the Kemi Oba culture appears as a solar symbol based on the analogies in the Indo-European mythology. The ideogram is part of the plot with dynamic character, and participates in the mythopoetic scheme based on the dichotomies: up – down, this life – afterlife in the context of the Axis Mundi idea. Four suns as part of the plot of the painted cist demonstrate the non-static solar nature, its four states, and, consequently, suggests the solar myth that has a spatio-temporal realization. Results. The cosmological picture of the world of the Kemi-Oba people includes the processes of categorization of the environment objectified through the fragmentation of the path of the sun, i.e. duality and quaternary.

scholarly journals The Pragmatics of Film Language and Sentence in the Creation of African Myths in Nigerian Movies: An Evaluation of Obi Emelonye’s The Mirror Boy

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Agozie Ugwu
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Movie Industry ◽  
African Culture ◽  
Life After Death ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Film Language

<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="3" width="618"><p align="center"> </p></td></tr><tr><td width="168"><p align="center"> </p></td><td width="265"><p align="center"> </p></td><td width="186"><p align="center"> </p></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" valign="top" width="618"><p>African myths or mythological reality of African extractions is one major source of raw materials the Nigerian movie industry popularly called Nollyword explores as an avenue for generating content for their films. Mythological realities like the appearance of the dead, re-incarnation, potency of the gods, life after death, the communion between the living and the dead and many more often times are represented in the Nigerian movies. Art evidently is a representation of the people’s culture. It is also a vehicle through which the people’s culture is driven. Myths are part of African culture and their efficacy in the preservation and sustenance of Nigerian culture appears to be the reason why the representation of mythological reality in Nigerian films has become a recurring decimal. It appears that the representation of mythological reality in Nigeria movies is yet to attain a level where the audience will be submerged into the world of the myths. This is because the potential audience has a consciousness and a preconceived idea of how these characters should be represented due to the archetypal nature of mythical characters. The audience should not through these representations have doubts over the potency of the African and Nigerian myths. To achieve this level of reality in the depiction of mythological reality, this chapter advocates for a pragmatic utilisation of the film sentence and language. The Mirror Boy  released in 2011 a film by Obi Emelonye is used as case study to establish the roles of film language and sentence in the representation of mythological reality.</p></td></tr></tbody></table>

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