The Place of Stone Monuments

The Place of Stone Monuments
Author: Julia Guernsey
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2010
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780884023647

This volume considers the significance of stone monuments in Preclassic Mesoamerica. By placing sculptures in their cultural, historical, social, political, religious, and cognitive contexts, the seventeen contributors utilize archaeological and art historical methods to understand the origins, growth, and spread of civilization in Middle America.

Written in Stone

Written in Stone
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2018-10-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1478004347

Twentieth Anniversary Edition with a new preface and afterword From the removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans in the spring of 2017 to the violent aftermath of the white nationalist march on the Robert E. Lee monument in Charlottesville later that summer, debates and conflicts over the memorialization of Confederate “heroes” have stormed to the forefront of popular American political and cultural discourse. In Written in Stone Sanford Levinson considers the tangled responses to controversial monuments and commemorations while examining how those with political power configure public spaces in ways that shape public memory and politics. Paying particular attention to the American South, though drawing examples as well from elsewhere in the United States and throughout the world, Levinson shows how the social and legal arguments regarding the display, construction, modification, and destruction of public monuments mark the seemingly endless confrontation over the symbolism attached to public space. This twentieth anniversary edition of Written in Stone includes a new preface and an extensive afterword that takes account of recent events in cities, schools and universities, and public spaces throughout the United States and elsewhere. Twenty years on, Levinson's work is more timely and relevant than ever.

Cut in Stone

Cut in Stone
Author: Ryan Andrew Newson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781481312189

Confederate monuments figure prominently as epicenters of social conflict. These stone and metal constructs resonate with the tensions of modern America, giving concrete definition to the ideologies that divide us. Confederate monuments alone did not generate these feelings of aggravation, but they are far from innocent. Rather than serving as neutral objects of public remembrance, Confederate monuments articulate a narration of the past that forms the basis for a normative vision of the future. The story, told through the character of a religious mythos, carries implicit sacred convictions; thus, these spires and statues are inherently theological. In Cut in Stone, Ryan Andrew Newson contends that we cannot fully understand or disrupt these statues without attending to the convictions that give them their power. With a careful overview of the historical contexts in which most Confederate monuments were constructed, Newson demonstrates that these "memorials" were part of a revisionary project intended to resist the social changes brought on by Reconstruction while maintaining a romanticized Southern identity. Confederate monuments thus reinforce a theology concerning the nature of sacrifice and the ultimacy of whiteness. Moreover, this underlying theology serves to conceal inherited collective wounds in the present. If Confederate monuments are theologically weighted in their allure, then it stands to reason that they must also be contested at this level--precisely as sacred symbols. Newson responds to these inherently theological objects with suggestions for action that are sensitive to the varying contexts within which monuments reside, showing that while all Confederate monuments must come under scrutiny, some monuments should remain standing, but in redefined contexts. Cut in Stone represents the first detailed theological investigation of Confederate monuments, a resource for the larger collective task of determining how to memorialize problematic pasts and how to shape public space amidst contested memory.

Early Medieval Stone Monuments

Early Medieval Stone Monuments
Author: Howard Williams
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2015
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1783270748

New insights into inscribed and stone monuments from across Europe in the early middle ages.

Cumbria's Prehistoric Monuments

Cumbria's Prehistoric Monuments
Author: Adam Morgan Ibbotson
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2021-07-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 075099763X

Cumbria is a land built from stone. Whether it is Hadrian's Wall, Kendal Castle or the beautiful fells of the Lake District – for thousands of years people have found a certain elegance and utility in stone. Nestled amongst these common relics are a multitude of massive stone monuments, built over 3,000 years before British shores were ever touched by Roman sandals. Cumbria's 'megalithic' monuments are among Europe's greatest and best-preserved ancient relics but are often poorly understood and rarely visited. This updated and revised edition of Cumbria's Prehistoric Monuments aims to dispel the idea that these stones are merely 'mysterious'. Within this book you will find credible answers, using up-to-date research, excavation notes, maps and diagrams to explore one of Britain's richest archaeological landscapes. Featuring stunning original photography and illustrated diagrams of every megalithic site in the county, Adam Morgan Ibbotson invites you to take a journey into a land sculpted by ancient hands.

The Stones of Tiahuanaco

The Stones of Tiahuanaco
Author: Stella Nair
Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2013-12-31
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1938770994

The world's most artful and skillful stone architecture is found at Tiahuanaco at the southern end of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. The precision of the stone masonry rivals that of the Incas to the point that writers from Spanish chroniclers of the sixteenth century to twentieth-century authors have claimed that Tiahuanaco not only served as a model for Inca architecture and stone masonry, but that the Incas even imported stonemasons from the Titicaca Basin to construct their buildings. Experiments aimed at replicating the astounding feats of the Tiahuanaco stonecutters--perfectly planar surfaces, perfect exterior and interior right angles, and precision to within 1 mm--throw light on the stonemasons' skill and knowledge, especially of geometry and mathematics. Detailed analyses of building stones yield insights into the architecture of Tiahuanaco, including its appearance, rules of composition, canons, and production, filling a significant gap in the understanding of Tiahuanaco's material culture.