Excavating the Afterlife

Excavating the Afterlife PDF Author: Guolong Lai
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295805706
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
In Excavating the Afterlife, Guolong Lai explores the dialectical relationship between sociopolitical change and mortuary religion from an archaeological perspective. By examining burial structure, grave goods, and religious documents unearthed from groups of well-preserved tombs in southern China, Lai shows that new attitudes toward the dead, resulting from the trauma of violent political struggle and warfare, permanently altered the early Chinese conceptions of this world and the afterlife. The book grounds the important changes in religious beliefs and ritual practices firmly in the sociopolitical transition from the Warring States (ca. 453–221 BCE) to the early empires (3rd century–1st century BCE). A methodologically sophisticated synthesis of archaeological, art historical, and textual sources, Excavating the Afterlife will be of interest to art historians, archaeologists, and textual scholars of China, as well as to students of comparative religions. Art History Publication Initiative. For more information, visit http://arthistorypi.org/books/excavating-the-afterlife Honorable Mention for the 2016 Society for American Archaeology Book Award in the Scholarly Category

Excavating the Afterlife

Excavating the Afterlife PDF Author: Guolong Lai
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295805706
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Excavating the Afterlife, Guolong Lai explores the dialectical relationship between sociopolitical change and mortuary religion from an archaeological perspective. By examining burial structure, grave goods, and religious documents unearthed from groups of well-preserved tombs in southern China, Lai shows that new attitudes toward the dead, resulting from the trauma of violent political struggle and warfare, permanently altered the early Chinese conceptions of this world and the afterlife. The book grounds the important changes in religious beliefs and ritual practices firmly in the sociopolitical transition from the Warring States (ca. 453–221 BCE) to the early empires (3rd century–1st century BCE). A methodologically sophisticated synthesis of archaeological, art historical, and textual sources, Excavating the Afterlife will be of interest to art historians, archaeologists, and textual scholars of China, as well as to students of comparative religions. Art History Publication Initiative. For more information, visit http://arthistorypi.org/books/excavating-the-afterlife Honorable Mention for the 2016 Society for American Archaeology Book Award in the Scholarly Category

The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi

The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi PDF Author: Makarand R Paranjape
Publisher: Random House India
ISBN: 8184006837
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
"The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi is an explosive and original analysis of the assassination of the ‘Father of the Nation’. Who is responsible for the Mahatma’s death? Just one determined zealot, the larger ideology that supported him, the Congress-led Government that failed to protect him, or a vast majority of Indians and their descendants who considered Gandhi irrelevant, and endorsed violence instead? Paranjape’s meticulous study culminates in his reading of Gandhi’s last six months in Delhi where, from the very edge of the grave, he wrought what was perhaps his greatest miracle – the saving of Delhi and thus of India itself from the internecine bloodshed of Partition. Paranjape, taking a cue from the Mahatma himself, also shows us a way to expiate our guilt and to heal the wounds of an ancient civilization torn into two. This is a brilliant, far-reaching and profound exploration of the meaning of the Mahatma’s death."

Death, Burial, and Afterlife in the Biblical World

Death, Burial, and Afterlife in the Biblical World PDF Author: Rachel S. Hallote
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee Publisher
ISBN:
Category : Burial
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Rachel Hallote's Book examins the archaeological, literary, and artistic evidence for the burial practices of biblical times, their antecedents, and successors.

Excavating the Memory Palace

Excavating the Memory Palace PDF Author: Seth Long
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022669528X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
With the prevalence of smartphones, massive data storage, and search engines, we might think of today as the height of the information age. In reality, every era has faced its own challenges of storing, organizing, and accessing information. While they lacked digital devices, our ancestors, when faced with information overload, utilized some of the same techniques that underlie our modern interfaces: they visualized and spatialized data, tying it to the emotional and sensory spaces of memory, thereby turning their minds into a visual interface for accessing information. In Excavating the Memory Palace, Seth David Long mines the history of Europe’s arts of memory to find the origins of today’s data visualizations, unearthing how ancient constructions of cognitive pathways paved the way for modern technological interfaces. Looking to techniques like the memory palace, he finds the ways that information has been tied to sensory and visual experience, turning raw data into lucid knowledge. From the icons of smart phone screens to massive network graphs, Long shows us the ancestry of the cyberscape and unveils the history of memory as a creative act.

Kingly Splendor

Kingly Splendor PDF Author: Allison R. Miller
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231551746
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 655

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Book Description
The Western Han dynasty (202 BCE–9 CE) was a foundational period for the artistic culture of ancient China, a fact particularly visible in the era’s funerary art. Iconic forms of Chinese art such as dazzling suits of jade; cavernous, rock-cut mountain tombs; fancifully ornate wall paintings; and armies of miniature terracotta warriors were prepared for the tombs of the elite during this period. Many of the finest objects of the Western Han have been excavated from the tombs of kings, who administered local provinces on behalf of the emperors. Allison R. Miller paints a new picture of elite art production by revealing the contributions of the kings to Western Han artistic culture. She demonstrates that the kings were not mere imitators of the imperial court but rather innovators, employing local materials and workshops and experimenting with new techniques to challenge the artistic hegemony of the imperial house. Tombs and funerary art, Miller contends, functioned as an important vehicle of political expression as kings strove to persuade the population and other elites of their legitimacy. Through case studies of five genres of royal art, Miller argues that the political structure of the early Western Han, with the emperor as one ruler among peers, benefited artistic production and innovation. Kingly Splendor brings together close readings of funerary art and architecture with nuanced analyses of political and institutional dynamics to provide an interdisciplinary revisionist history of the early Western Han.

The Sarpedon Krater

The Sarpedon Krater PDF Author: Nigel Spivey
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022666659X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Perhaps the most spectacular of all Greek vases, the Sarpedon krater depicts the body of Sarpedon, a hero of the Trojan War, being carried away to his homeland for burial. It was decorated some 2,500 years ago by Athenian artist Euphronios, and its subsequent history involves tomb raiding, intrigue, duplicity, litigation, international outrage, and possibly even homicide. How this came about is told by Nigel Spivey in a concise, stylish book that braids together the creation and adventures of this extraordinary object with an exploration of its abiding influence. Spivey takes the reader on a dramatic journey, beginning with the krater’s looting from an Etruscan tomb in 1971 and its acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, followed by a high-profile lawsuit over its status and its eventual return to Italy. He explains where, how, and why the vase was produced, retrieving what we know about the life and legend of Sarpedon. Spivey also pursues the figural motif of the slain Sarpedon portrayed on the vase and traces how this motif became a standard way of representing the dead and dying in Western art, especially during the Renaissance. Fascinating and informative, The Sarpedon Krater is a multifaceted introduction to the enduring influence of Greek art on the world.

Excavating Classical Culture

Excavating Classical Culture PDF Author: Maria Stamatopoulou
Publisher: BAR International Series
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
The new series Studies in Classical Archaeology aims to bring recent archaeological finds, fieldwork and research to the forefront among Greek scholars. This first volume includes 24 papers, plus an epilogue by John Boardman, taken from a colloquium held at Somerville College in Oxford in 2001). The papers are well illustrated throughout, including 86 pages of photographs, and covers a range of different approaches, finds and sites from c.900 BC-AD 200, including: Everyday life and the afterlife in ancient Thasos (M Sgourou); Classical Amphipolis (Ch Koukouli-Chrysanthaki); Discoveries in Pella (M Lilimpaki-Akamati); Skyros in the Early Iron Age (E Sapouna-Sakellaraki); the cemetery at Kerameikos (E Baziotopoulou-Valavani); Ancient theatre of Sparta (G Waywell); Sanctuary of Delos

The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China

The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China PDF Author: Michelle H. Wang
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226827461
Category : Cartography
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
"This is the first English-language monograph on the early history of cartography in China. Its chief players are three maps found in tombs that date from the fourth to the second century BCE and together constitute the entire known corpus of ancient Chinese maps (ditu). A millennium separates them from the next available map from 1136 CE. Most scholars study them through the lens of modern, empirical definitions of maps and their use. This book offers an alternative view by drawing on methods not just from cartography but from art history, archaeology, and religion. It argues that, as tomb objects, the maps were designed to be simultaneously functional for the living and the dead-that each map was drawn to serve navigational purposes of guiding the living from one town to another as well as to diagram ritual order, thereby taming the unknown territory of the dead. In contrast with traditional scholarship, The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China proposes that ditu can "speak" through their forms. Departing from dominant theories of representation that forge a narrow path from form to meaning, the book braids together two main strands of argumentation to explore the multifaceted and multifunctional diagrammatic tradition of rendering space in early China"--

Ancient Sichuan : treasures from a lost civilization : [exhibition : Seattle Art Museum May 10, 2001 - August 12, 2001 - Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, September 30, 2001 - January 13, 2002 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March 4, 2002 - June 16, 2001 - Royal Ontario Museum Toronto, August 2, 2002 - November 10, 2002

Ancient Sichuan : treasures from a lost civilization : [exhibition : Seattle Art Museum May 10, 2001 - August 12, 2001 - Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, September 30, 2001 - January 13, 2002 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March 4, 2002 - June 16, 2001 - Royal Ontario Museum Toronto, August 2, 2002 - November 10, 2002 PDF Author: Robert W. Bagley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780691088518
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description


Chang'an Avenue and the Modernization of Chinese Architecture

Chang'an Avenue and the Modernization of Chinese Architecture PDF Author: Shuishan Yu
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295804483
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
In this interdisciplinary narrative, the never-ending "completion" of China's most important street offers a broad view of the relationship between art and ideology in modern China. Chang'an Avenue, named after China's ancient capital (whose name means "Eternal Peace"), is supremely symbolic. Running east-west through the centuries-old heart of Beijing, it intersects the powerful north-south axis that links the traditional centers of political and spiritual legitimacy (the imperial Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven). Among its best-known features are Tiananmen Square and the Great Hall of the People, as well as numerous other monuments and prominent political, cultural, financial, and travel-related institutions. Drawing on Chang'an Avenue's historic ties and modern transformations, this study explores the deep structure of the Chinese modernization project, providing both a big picture of Beijing's urban texture alteration and details in the design process of individual buildings. Political winds shift, architectural styles change, and technological innovations influence waves of demolition and reconstruction in this analysis of Chang'an Avenue's metamorphosis. During collective design processes, architects, urban planners, and politicians argue about form, function, and theory, and about Chinese vs. Western and traditional vs. modern style. Every decision is fraught with political significance, from the 1950s debate over whether Tiananmen Square should be open or partially closed; to the 1970s discussion of the proper location, scale, and design of the Mao Memorial/Mausoleum; to the more recent controversy over whether the egg-shaped National Theater, designed by the French architect Paul Andreu, is an affront to Chinese national pride. Art History Publication Initiative. For more information, visit http://arthistorypi.org/books/chang-an