University of Chicago Press: New Titles in Archaeology

Mortuary Practices and Social Identities in the Middle Ages

Duncan Sayer; Howard Williams — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Building on Heinrich Härke’s influential research on burial archaeology and early medieval migrations, this book sets a new agenda for mortuary archaeology. Using archaeological data, the essays explore how mortuary practices have served in the makeup and expression of medieval social identities. Applying explicit theoretical perspectives to case studies based on a range of European sites, this bookfills the need for a volume that provides accessible material to students, engages with current debates in mortuary archaeology’s methods and theories, and explores the interpretation of medieval social identities through burial data.

Champion

Tom Williamson; Robert Liddiard; Tracey Partida — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Focusing on Northampton, Champion offers a radical reinterpretation of the origins of villages and open fields, and their development in the late medieval and post-medieval periods in the Midlands. Instead of the commonly accepted belief that villages and open fields were created in the middle or later Saxon period through a process of “nucleation,” or village planning, the authors of this volume suggest that these settlements only emerged in their classic, regular forms in the eleventh or twelfth centuries. Their findings are based on an innovative use of digital mapping and geographical information systems, and they cast new light on the agricultural practices in the post-medieval period.

Vessels and Variety

Hanne Thomasen; Kristine Bøggild Johannsen; Annette Rathje — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Addressing topics ranging from production and distribution to iconography and museum collections, Vessels and Variety sheds new light on perspectives in the fields of ancient pottery studies. The contributors cover a wide span of time from the Geometric period to the Roman period, exploring both new materials from recent excavations in the Mediterranean—from southern Italy to the Black Sea—as well as new methodological approaches. With richly illustrated articles, this volume provides an important contribution to the ongoing debates on the role of pottery in ancient societies.

Emergence of the Classical Style in Greek Sculpture

Richard Neer — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:00:00 GMT

In this wide-ranging study, Richard Neer offers a new way to understand the epoch-making sculpture of classical Greece. Working at the intersection of art history, archaeology, literature, and aesthetics, he reveals a people fascinated with the power of sculpture to provoke wonder in beholders. Wonder, not accuracy, realism, naturalism or truth, was the supreme objective of Greek sculptors. Neer traces this way of thinking about art from the poems of Homer to the philosophy of Plato. Then, through meticulous accounts of major sculpture from around the Greek world, he shows how the demand for wonder-inducing statues gave rise to some of the greatest masterpieces of Greek art. Rewriting the history of Greek sculpture in Greek terms and restoring wonder to a sometimes dusty subject, The Emergence of the Classical Style in Greek Sculpture is an indispensable guide for anyone interested in the art of sculpture or the history of the ancient world.