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This volume, a compilation of original papers written to celebrate the outstanding contributions of Jonathan Mark Kenoyer to the archaeology of South Asia over the past forty years, highlights recent developments in the archaeological research of ancient South Asia, with specific reference to the Indus Civilization.
This volume, a compilation of original papers written to celebrate the outstanding contributions of Jonathan Mark Kenoyer to the archaeology of South Asia over the past 40 years, highlights recent developments in the archaeological research of ancient South Asia, with specific reference to the Indus Civilisation.
An ethnography of archaeological practice in postcolonial India that reveals the bureaucratic culture in the making of knowledge about past.
In this pioneering book, Asko Parpola traces the Indo-Iranian speakers from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea through the Eurasian steppes to Central, West and South Asia, presenting new ideas on the origin and formation of the Vedic literature and rites, and the great Hindu epics.
The new and updated edition of The Archaeology of Religion explores how archaeology interprets past religions, offering insights into how archaeologists seek out the religious, ritual, and symbolic meaning behind what they discover in their research. The book includes case studies from around the world, from the study of Upper Palaeolithic and hunter-gatherer religions to religious structures and practices in complex societies of the Americas, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China. Steadman also includes chapters on the origins and development of key contemporary religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, among others—to provide an historical and comparative context. Three main themes are th...
Written artefacts are traditionally studied because of their content. Material aspects of these artefacts enrich the study of ancient history in many ways. Eleven case studies in five sections on the ancient world, including the Near East, Egypt, the Mediterranean, China and India, demonstrate the impact of a holistic approach that considers materiality and content alike. Following an introductory sketch of relevant research, the first section, 'Methodological Considerations', critically examines the limitations the evidence available imposes on our understanding. 'Early Uses of Writing' addresses material and spatial aspects of inscriptions, and their communicative functions over the textua...
In this book, Philip Zhakevich examines the technology of writing as it existed in the southern Levant during the Iron Age II period, after the alphabetic writing system had fully taken root in the region. Using the Hebrew Bible as its corpus and focusing on a set of Hebrew terms that designated writing surfaces and instruments, this study synthesizes the semantic data of the Bible with the archeological and art-historical evidence for writing in ancient Israel. The bulk of this work comprises an in-depth lexicographical analysis of Biblical Hebrew terms related to Israel’s writing technology. Employing comparative Semitics, lexical semantics, and archaeology, Zhakevich provides a thorough...
Record-Making and Record-Keeping in Early Societies provides a concise and up-to-date survey of early record-making and record-keeping practices across the world. It investigates the ways in which human activities have been recorded in different settings using different methods and technologies. Based on an in-depth analysis of literature from a wide range of disciplines, including prehistory, archaeology, Assyriology, Egyptology, and Chinese and Mesoamerican studies, the book reflects the latest and most relevant historical scholarship. Drawing upon the author’s experience as a practitioner and scholar of records and archives and his extensive knowledge of archival theory and practice, th...
Studies of seals and sealing practices have traditionally investigated aspects of social, political, economic, and ideological systems in ancient societies throughout the Old World. Previously, scholarship has focused on description and documentation, chronology and dynastic histories, administrative function, iconography, and style. More recent studies have emphasized context, production and use, and increasingly, identity, gender, and the social lives of seals, their users, and the artisans who produced them. Using several methodological and theoretical perspectives, this volume presents up-to-date research on seals that is comparative in scope and focus. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach advances our understanding of the significance of an important class of material culture of the ancient world. The volume will serve as an essential resource for scholars, students, and others interested in glyptic studies, seal production and use, and sealing practices in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Ancient South Asia and the Aegean during the 4th-2nd Millennia BCE.