Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: This NBC considers a selection of volumes that speak to one of humanity's most significant themes: how we express ourselves, in both life and death.In this issue, we learn how the dead were represented in Bronze Age Arabia (Kimberly D. Williams & Lesley A. Gregoricka) and Bronze Age Laconia (Chrysanthi Gallou), and how the dead-in the form of shades or ghosts-were depicted in ancient Rome (Patrick R. Crowley).Following that, we turn to how people have communicated with each other in script, images or marks.Katarzyna Mikulska and Jerome A. Offner consider the challenges of deciphering Mesoamerican Indigenous communication systems, while Eleanor Robson traces the ancient knowledge networks of Assyria and Babylonia through social geographies.Graffiti is the subject of Geoff Emberling and Suzanne Davis's edited volume, which charts the ways in which people have left their mark at pilgrimage sites in the Middle Nile region.In their different ways, each volume emphasises the challenges of interpretation and the complex methodologies required to read across the centuries and understand communications in the past, as well as the need to revisit evidence with alternative approaches and perspectives. Shades of deathKimberly D. Williams & Lesley A. Gregoricka (ed.).2019.Mortuary and bioarchaeological perspectives on Bronze Age Arabia.
Source: Antiquity
DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2021.27
Author: Claire Nesbitt
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,255
OpenAlex ID: W4249069606