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Protohistoric Bronze Age Cyprus (ProBA): A Sociohistorical Approach

Bernard A. Knapp

in Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus: Identity, Insularity, and Connectivity

This chapter offers a comprehensive discussion of Protohistoric Bronze Age Cyprus (ca. 1650–1100 BC) and its material record, which is characterized by several striking changes: town centres with ... More

This chapter offers a comprehensive discussion of Protohistoric Bronze Age Cyprus (ca. 1650–1100 BC) and its material record, which is characterized by several striking changes: town centres with monumental architecture; new, socially‐stratified burial practices; first appearance of writing (Cypro‐Minoan); intensification of copper production and development of extensive trade contacts; fortifications and other martial paraphernalia. This transformed material record indicates that Cypriot society was no longer egalitarian, isolated, or village‐oriented but rather had become socially stratified, internationally‐oriented and town‐centred. The successful production and trade of Cyprus's copper resources together with the generation of agricultural surpluses indicate that political authority on the island had become centralized. The key indicators of a stratified, complex society are considered through detailed examination of settlement trends (site hierarchy), socio‐political organization (architecture, mortuary practices, seals, sealings), production and exchange (copper, metals, jewellery, luxury goods, storage facilities, seal impressions), gendered representations (terracotta and metal figurines), mortuary practices (pottery, metal objects, luxury imports), monumentality and memory (architecture, sites), migration, hybridization, and the Aegean ‘colonization’ of Cyprus (pottery, metals and metallurgy, ivories, figurines, seals, architectural features, burials). All these materials typically reveal a mixture of Cypriot, Levantine, and Aegean elements, and are more likely to reflect an amalgam of ideas and influences from all of them rather than proof for an origin (or colonization) from one any single one.Less

VOLKSCONCERTE AND CONCEPTS OF GENRE IN BRAHMS'S VIENNA

Margaret Notley

in Lateness and Brahms: Music and Culture in the Twilight of Viennese Liberalism

By Brahms's time, elaborate metaphors — symphonies as “plain speaking”, symphonic performances as Volksversammlungen — had developed around the genre. This chapter evaluates this patently ideological ... More

By Brahms's time, elaborate metaphors — symphonies as “plain speaking”, symphonic performances as Volksversammlungen — had developed around the genre. This chapter evaluates this patently ideological perspective, which was especially glaring in Vienna, a city where only an elite fraction of the populace could hear orchestral performances of symphonies. Perceptions of deficiencies in symphonies by Brahms, who was considered always to compose in chamber style, are evaluated in light of genre aesthetics in which a political outlook and conception of a genre merge. Ideas about symphonies reflected how the constituency of 19th-century Liberalism chose to regard itself: like the Parliament members elected by a well-to-do minority with voting rights, the select gatherings at Vienna Philharmonic concerts could represent “the people”. Habermas's conclusion that the public sphere was “mere ideology” is pertinent here. Symphonic monumentality and mid-century rejection of Romanticism, as well as the enhanced contemporary significance of slow movements are discussed.Less

‘Mich […] in Variationen […]erzählen’ II: Reconstructing the Author in Zunge zeigen and Mein Jahrhundert

Rebecca Braun

in Constructing Authorship in the Work of Günter Grass

This chapter investigates how a further change in Grass's understanding of authorship can be discerned in the ‘mixed-media’ works Zunge zeigen and Mein Jahrhundert. The starting ... More

This chapter investigates how a further change in Grass's understanding of authorship can be discerned in the ‘mixed-media’ works Zunge zeigen and Mein Jahrhundert. The starting point for discussion is the assertion that Grass's tendency to present his creative abilities in various artistic disciplines results in his expanding the remit of the authorial role. The multiple disciplines introduce a new kind of dialogue to the author's text that goes beyond the construction of the ‘encapsulated’ narrative self of his earlier autofictional pieces. At the same time, the insights gained from Grass's exploration of authorial limitations (as developed in Chapter 4) add a qualification to his self-presentation. In the texts discussed in this chapter, a monumental celebration of authorship is accompanied by an ironic deconstruction of the concept. The specific dynamics between author, narrator, and text combine to question the author's textual centrality even as they would appear to confirm it.Less

‘Er, in dessen Namen ich krebsend vorankam’: Reading the Author in Ein weites Feld and Im Krebsgang

Rebecca Braun

in Constructing Authorship in the Work of Günter Grass

This chapter analyses in detail two late texts, Ein weites Feld (1995) and Im Krebsgang (2002). The key premise is that in displacing his authorial persona into the margins of the text, Grass ... More

This chapter analyses in detail two late texts, Ein weites Feld (1995) and Im Krebsgang (2002). The key premise is that in displacing his authorial persona into the margins of the text, Grass introduces new voices that reinterpret the author's literary and socio-political achievements. The unflattering way in which these voices present the old master—the archivists note his physical decrepitude while Paul portrays him as a nagging old man—adds a considerable deal of humour to the texts. Furthermore, this shift indicates an increasingly ironic approach to authorship. By focusing on how others, readers and budding authors alike, construct the author in line with their image of him, Grass develops a self-conscious aesthetics of replacement. The contradictory pulls towards monumentality and inconsequentiality lie at the heart of these late works, conditioning not just much of the humour and authorial self-presentation within them, but their structural composition.Less

The Use and Construction History of Huaca Prieta, North Coast of Peru

Tom D. Dillehay

in Maritime Communities of the Ancient Andes

Chapter 4 summarizes the construction, subsistence, and social correlates of Huaca Prieta, a mound site in the lower Chicama Valley on the north coast of Peru, from the earliest evidence of human ... More

Chapter 4 summarizes the construction, subsistence, and social correlates of Huaca Prieta, a mound site in the lower Chicama Valley on the north coast of Peru, from the earliest evidence of human presence in the Late Pleistocene (ca. 12,500 14C BP) through abandonment at 3,800 14C BP. Marine resources were important throughout the sequence, which saw an early advent of agriculture and increasing population, complexity, and monumentality.Less

Ritual Practice, Urbanization, and Sociopolitical Organization at Preclassic Ceibal, Guatemala

Melissa Burham, Takeshi Inomata, Daniela Triadan, and Jessica MacLellan

in Approaches to Monumental Landscapes of the Ancient Maya

In Chapter 4, Melissa Burham and colleagues examine urban growth, monumentality, and local community formation during the Late Preclassic period at Ceibal, Guatemala. Rather than focusing on the ... More

In Chapter 4, Melissa Burham and colleagues examine urban growth, monumentality, and local community formation during the Late Preclassic period at Ceibal, Guatemala. Rather than focusing on the monumental epicenter of the site, the authors turn to the small communities that grew around the site core, each anchored by a minor-temple complex. Though smaller than temples in the site core, these community temples nonetheless represent monumental constructions that required considerable communal effort to build and maintain over an ever-expanding area. In this way, Burham and her coauthors consider how scale informs the definition of monumentality. Chapter 4 draws together various lines of evidence, including excavation and mapping data from Harvard’s previous work at the site and newer data from the current project, to spatially define communities and examine the role of minor temples and ritual in fostering local group identities.Less

Monumental Landscapes as Instruments of Radical Economic Change: The Rise and Fall of a Maya Economic Network

Arthur A. Demarest, Bart I. Victor, Chloé Andrieu, and Paola Torres

in Approaches to Monumental Landscapes of the Ancient Maya

In Chapter 13, Demarest and collaborators present evidence from the southwestern frontier Classic Maya port city of Cancuen that can help explain the nature of the southern lowlands’ economic decline ... More

In Chapter 13, Demarest and collaborators present evidence from the southwestern frontier Classic Maya port city of Cancuen that can help explain the nature of the southern lowlands’ economic decline by contrasting it with Cancuen’s late eighth century economic transformations and meteoric florescence; while other western Petén dynasties disintegrated, Cancuen flourished. One element of this apogee was the creation of new forms of monumental and ritual settings to recruit and maintain non-Maya economic exchange partners. This “innovation network” came to control critical routes and resources leading to changes in management, production, and economic power. However, as with many high-risk “innovation partnership networks,” success was truncated by abrupt network failure. Evaluation of this phenomenon by economists provides insights into ancient Maya economy and the role of monumentality in both its legitimation and transformation.Less

Monumental Landscapes of the Maya: Cogitating on a Past Built Environment

Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase

in Approaches to Monumental Landscapes of the Ancient Maya

In chapter 16, Arlen Chase and Diane Chase reflect on the topic of monumental landscapes of the ancient Maya. They consider the myriad ways in which the word “monumental” is aptly applied to describe ... More

In chapter 16, Arlen Chase and Diane Chase reflect on the topic of monumental landscapes of the ancient Maya. They consider the myriad ways in which the word “monumental” is aptly applied to describe the landscapes of the Maya world. Although the obvious towering temples and palaces of the Classic cities first and foremost come to mind when thinking of monumentality among the ancient Maya, Chase and Chase remind us that much of the monumental character of ancient Maya landscapes is represented by the horizontal transformation of the built environment. Beyond that, other landscape features represent visible reminders that the Maya heavily altered the natural environment to a remarkable degree. Importantly, the authors also remind us that through their worldview, the ancient Maya considered their landscape to be monumental and complex, involving layered worlds with earthly transition points between realms represented by caves and lakes and manmade, symbolic access points represented by temple doorways, the opening into an allegorical mountain or witz. The concluding chapter provides a big-picture, deep-time view of the Maya world, which reaffirms the approaches and conclusions of the individual case studies in this volume—monumentality pervades ancient Maya landscapes, physically, conceptually, and symbolically.Less

Pilgrimage to Mid-Republican Rome: From Dedications to Networks

Dan-el Padilla Peralta

in Divine Institutions: Religions and Community in the Middle Roman Republic

This chapter examines the relationship between religiously motivated mobility and the exchange of knowledge and information, using quantitative models and social network analysis. It argues that ... More

This chapter examines the relationship between religiously motivated mobility and the exchange of knowledge and information, using quantitative models and social network analysis. It argues that pilgrimage to participate in cult at Rome was yet another lever by which the mid-Republican res publica bootstrapped itself into statehood. The burnishing of Rome's credentials as a destination for pilgrimage followed closely on the heels of the cresting popularity of a specific brand of religious observance in mid-Republican central Italy, the healing cults that “formed a religious infrastructure that transcended political boundaries.” Although the interaction between premodern state formation and intercultural pilgrimage has surfaced on the radar of scholars working in other periods and regions, few studies of the middle Republic grant much space or recognition to this cultural process. However, mid-Republican Rome was not unlike other imperial cities in its reliance on monumentality to elicit and sustain waves of pilgrimage. The chapter then identifies where in the material record these waves can be detected and their impact gauged.Less

Tracking the Transformations: Population, Intensification, and Monumentality

Patrick Vinton Kirch

in How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawai'i

This chapter addresses the evidence for major trends in demography, settlement, economic intensification, specialization, monumental architecture, and other material correlates of sociopolitical ... More

This chapter addresses the evidence for major trends in demography, settlement, economic intensification, specialization, monumental architecture, and other material correlates of sociopolitical transformation. The material evidence of monumentality provides critical evidence regarding the ways in which the Hawaiian elites employed ritual and ideology to increase their control over the political economy, and to legitimate their claims to divine rule. The vast majority of Hawai'i Island's production had to come from intensive dryland field systems. The western half of the archipelago was doubly fortunate: where irrigation and aquaculture could be intensified the most, there were also the richest and largest stocks of marine resources. The emergence of archaic states in Hawai'i was a process rather than an event. Throughout the Protohistoric Period, Hawai'i Island cycled through unification and fission, frequently unable to maintain the overarching control first achieved by 'Umi.Less

Why Do People Build Monuments? Late Archaic Platform Mounds in the Norte Chico

Jonathan Haas and Winifred Creamer

in Early New World Monumentality

The Norte Chico region witnessed an early florescence of mound construction at more than 30 Late Archaic (3000 to 1800 B.C.) sites in an area of only 1800 sq km. Each of these sites has from 1 to 7 ... More

The Norte Chico region witnessed an early florescence of mound construction at more than 30 Late Archaic (3000 to 1800 B.C.) sites in an area of only 1800 sq km. Each of these sites has from 1 to 7 mounds ranging from 3000 to 100,000 cu m in volume. In looking at the emergence of this complex cultural system, a critical question is how and why these mounds were constructed over many generations. This chapter will examine evidence for the scale of labor involved in mound construction and for (or against) centralized organization of labor.Less

Pandora Unbound: A Feminist Critique of Foucault's History of Sexuality†

Lin Foxhall

in Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome

The influence of Michel Foucault's writings on sexuality, especially The History of Sexuality (1978–1986) on subsequent studies of sexuality, gender and the discourses of power and oppression, has ... More

The influence of Michel Foucault's writings on sexuality, especially The History of Sexuality (1978–1986) on subsequent studies of sexuality, gender and the discourses of power and oppression, has been profound. In particular, Foucault has revolutionised the study of the social history of classical antiquity, where, with fifth–fourth century bc Athens, he ultimately decided to begin his investigations. He provides an analytical framework that can be expanded to explore the implications of sex and gender in the whole of social life. Foucault fashioned his analytical ‘techniques’ over a lifetime of archaeology, genealogy and ethics. This chapter presents a feminist critique of his History of Sexuality, and re-evaluates sexuality as a part of personal and political identity through the social acts of constructing gender, whose meanings change with context. It also examines the concepts of time and monumentality, the constitution and political construction of households, and how sexuality is related to socialisation and power.Less

Considering Early New World Monumentality

Robert M. Rosenswig and Richard L. Burger

in Early New World Monumentality

The introductory chapter provides a theoretical overview to the volume. This theoretical perspective includes a brief historical account of the study of monumentality, the idea of approaching ... More

The introductory chapter provides a theoretical overview to the volume. This theoretical perspective includes a brief historical account of the study of monumentality, the idea of approaching monumentality from two temporal scales (initial labor organization and long-term built environment), as well as the rationale for examining these issues comparatively across the three American continents. A review of the contents of each paper is not provided in this introductory chapter but instead themes that run through multiple papers is discussed and their implication explored.Less

Agriculture and Monumentality in the Soconusco Region of Chiapas, Mexico

Robert M. Rosenswig

in Early New World Monumentality

Using the site of Cuauhtémoc in the Soconusco as a starting point, I examine the earliest monumental architecture in Mesoamerica. In 1600 bce, Cuauhtémoc began an 800-year occupation as a local ... More

Using the site of Cuauhtémoc in the Soconusco as a starting point, I examine the earliest monumental architecture in Mesoamerica. In 1600 bce, Cuauhtémoc began an 800-year occupation as a local center; yet it was only during the Conchas phase (900–800 bce) that a 5 m high mound was built at the site. The Conchas phase was also when the regional center of La Blanca was founded and a 25 m mound erected. While ambitious leaders had been competing with each other for centuries, the Conchas phase provides evidence of a new level of social stratification in the Soconusco.Less

Introduction: Perspectives on Musical Monumentality

Alexander Rehding

in Music and Monumentality: Commemoration and Wonderment in Nineteenth Century Germany

Although musical monumentality is expected to entail grand ambitions, it may simply be viewed as a stylistic property whose effects may evoke both positive and negative qualities in such a way that ... More

Although musical monumentality is expected to entail grand ambitions, it may simply be viewed as a stylistic property whose effects may evoke both positive and negative qualities in such a way that music can be either uplifting and inspiring or saddening and distasteful. Monumental music possesses a self-evident nature. This, however, may pose certain challenges and difficulties in determining a stylistic classification for these effects since, despite its relevance, such a taxonomy has yet to be established in the musicological literature. A number of writers like Theodor W. Adorno, Alfred Einstein, and others have provided relatively vague explanations for this monumentality since they may have assumed that their readers are already able to grasp the concept. This chapter illustrates how the self-evidence of musical monumentality challenges the self-understanding of musicology as an intellectual discipline, causes an aesthetic problem, and is undermined by certain ideologies.Less

Gathering for Nine Millennia along the Atlantic Coast and St. Johns River of Northeast Florida

Asa R. Randall and Victor D. Thompson

Leslie Reeder-Myers, John A. Turck, and Torben C. Rick (eds)

in The Archaeology of Human-Environmental Dynamics on the North American Atlantic Coast

Northeast Florida’s wide variety of freshwater and marine biomes supported a diverse array of hunter-gatherer communities over the course of 9000 years. This chapter synthesizes the available ... More

Northeast Florida’s wide variety of freshwater and marine biomes supported a diverse array of hunter-gatherer communities over the course of 9000 years. This chapter synthesizes the available evidence for subsistence, settlement, and ceremony across the region. Whereas there is little evidence for significant changes in the subsistence economy through time, there is abundant evidence for different modes of social interaction and monumentality. A historical approach to this diversity reveals that social gathering at various scales was enabled by the physical and symbolic resources of the region, including existing monuments and objects.Less