Iconography

Augustus’ success in implementing monarchical rule at Rome is often attributed to innovations in the symbolic language of power, from the star marking Julius Caesar’s deification to buildings like the Palatine complex and Forum Augustum to rituals like triumphs and funerals. This book illumines Roman subjects’ vital role in creating and critiquing these images, in keeping with the Augustan poets’ sustained exploration of audiences’ role in constructing verbal and visual meaning. From Vergil to Ovid, these poets publicly interpret, debate, and disrupt Rome’s evolving political iconography, reclaiming it as the common property of an imagined republic of readers. In showing how these poets used reading as a metaphor for the mutual constitution of Augustan authority and a means of exercising interpretive libertas under the principate, this book offers a holistic new vision of Roman imperial power and its representation that will stimulate scholars and students alike. (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press, spring 2018)

This article investigates the deliberate use and manipulation of chivalric culture and iconography by James IV of Scotland to position the Stewart dynasty's claims to the English throne in contest with the concurrent consolidation of Tudor dynastic security. This resulted in a dialogue developing between the two kingdoms concerning the relationship between sovereignty, dynasty and chivalry. This article argues for a new approach to the study of chivalry, by considering it as a meaningful language in political communication. It finds that chivalry had a strong currency in diplomatic discourse and was used to transact political issues of sovereignty and dynasty.

Monumental structures clad in relief-carved stone orthostats adorned cities across the fragmented political and ethnolinguistic landscape of the Iron Age Syro-Hittite kingdoms. This building practice passed down from the Hurro-Hittite Late Bronze Age evoked a collective memory of legitimate authority and was important for the construction of royal sovereignty. Differences among individual monuments suggest how Syro-Hittite rulers may have deployed monumental construction to navigate an “eventful” history (in the sense of Sewell) by adapting it to current political exigencies. This article reevaluates the date of orthostats found in the South Gate of Zincirli, Turkey (ancient Sam’al), applying a seriation approach to the comparison of their stylistic details and iconographic themes and motifs with sculptural groups from other sites. The conclusion that the orthostats date to the early 10th century B.C.E. and are thus older than the ninth-century refoundation of the city suggests that they were recycled from an earlier Neo-Hittite site, proposed to be nearby Pancarlı. The appropriation of architectural spolia in the South Gate and the emulation or imitation of older works in the Citadel Gate by the founders of a new regime reveal a dialectic between the embrace and rejection of traditional Hittite sources of authority.

This preliminary evaluation of depictions of the human face among North American Plains Indians elicits questions regarding non-Western approaches to portraiture at the interface between visual regimes and experiential approaches to reality. It shows how the appearance of mimetic naturalism in this regional art reflects more profound changes in perceptions of reality and personhood engendered by the colonial encounter. In so doing, the essay aims at reframing the questions we ask about Native American arts by incorporating indigenous approaches to experience and vision that may help us reformulate how we talk about arts outside the Western canon.

This article examines a miniature silver vessel characterised by two elements: a depiction of a four-armed female deity embossed in its emblema, and a Chorasmian inscription externally incised around its rim, with a date relative to a specific "Chorasmian Era". The representation of the goddess is analysed iconographically and stylistically and considered in the light of the available archaeological data. It is argued that besides her iconography, which shows an array of stratified Central Asian and Indian elements, the stylistic traits of the four-armed goddess clearly indicate cultural exchanges between Ancient Chorasmia and the Eastern Roman Empire during the sixth century AD, at the end of which the specimen can be dated.

Ram’s head beads are well-known items of personal adornment in the Dolenjska Hallstatt cultural group. Recent analysis has demonstrated that they are the most common zoomorphic artefacts in this region with 187 currently known. This article updates the list of known beads and contextualizes their significance in the Dolenjska Hallstatt cultural group. It is argued that the sheep imagery of these beads and their distribution in female graves is related to local textile production. It is proposed that beads signalled aspects of personal and economic identity for Dolenjska Hallstatt women related to the production of high-quality textiles. In addition, the distribution of these beads demonstrates Iron Age community networks on the western frontier of Dolenjska, and perhaps even reflects the movement of women between communities.
Keywords: South-eastern Slovenia; Early Iron Age; Hallstatt culture; ram’s head beads; iconography; women; sheep; textiles

This article examines a red-figure pelike made by a previously unknown local workshop that was very likely located in Pella, the capital of the Kingdom of Macedonia. This vessel was in storage in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki and is one of the best preserved examples from that Macedonian workshop. In shape and decoration it recalls Attic vases of the second half of the fourth century BC, and particularly the work of Group G and the Amazon Painter. The pelike dates from c.320 BC and is attributed to the Pella B Painter.

"This article examines evidence for external influences on developing Mycenaean architecture, specifically at Pylos, during the Middle to Late Bronze Age. Previous investigation suggests that emerging mainland elites eclectically appropriated foreign material cultural forms, styles, and techniques into established local traditions, most likely for use in localized prestige competition. Although a wealth of previous scholarship has convincingly demonstrated an extensive Minoan impact on the Greek mainland, less work has been done to provide a context for the mechanisms whereby such influence occurred. Considering architecture as a reflection of social structure and employing a dual-processual theoretical framework, we explore the possibility that architectural similarities and differences
between Crete and Messenia are material manifestations of varying exclusionary and corporate strategies of sociopolitical power. We subject the Minoan influence at Pylos to a cross-cultural comparison with the Teotihuacano impact on the development of lowland Maya architectural styles and cultural projects in the Mesoamerican Early Classic period. We also discuss what these two case studies teach us about the relationship between interaction, architecture, and social organization in emergent complex societies, in both the Old World and the New World."

Cahokia's cultural influence altered patterns of social organization throughout the Midwest, and this complex historical process warrants further interregional research. Ramey Incised jars were cosmograms through which Cahokians attempted to frame relationships among different social groups and the broader cosmos. The exchange, and subsequent emulation, of these ritually charged vessels provided opportunities for hinterland groups to do the same. But did hinterland Mississippian peoples adopt a Cahokian understanding of the cosmos wholesale or reinterpret it based on local understandings and histories? To address this question, this paper examines variation in Ramey Incised iconographic motifs and design fields from the Lower Illinois River valley, Central Illinois River valley, Apple River valley, and the Aztalan site (47JE1). The data are then statistically compared with Emerson's typology from the American Bottom, highlighting ground-level patterns of material variation which can be used to interpret the ways in which local peoples negotiated the spread of dominant ideologies and religious practices. Analysis of these patterns suggests regional differences in the perceived composition and structure of the cosmos and reveals the power of local worldviews in culture contact scenarios.

ABSTRACT. The artistic heritage of the Catholic Church still attracts attention all over the world. For almost 2000 years it has provided aesthetic access to spiritual meaning, together with the Church’s text communication, both spoken and written. Christian art and architecture therefore rank among the oldest communication media. Even today they can empower a culture of reflection and high-content communication. This article explains why Christian art offers opportunities for religious correspondents, Church media relations, as well cultural and arts journalists.

Especially during major Church events, like the Jubilee Year of Mercy (2015‒2016), many media editorial boards will take an interest in art which refers to such events, fostering reader interest through current affairs. For the Jubilee Year proclaimed by Pope Francis, the communication of mercy seemed appropriate, because in God’s pardon and mercy people can find the core of the Gospel. The works of mercy (Mt 25, 31‒46) are a human response to this mercy of God. They are an important element of social responsibility for the poor in Christianity, and have also been depicted in art.

Readers of this article gain insights into the famous altarpiece by Caravaggio (1606/07) in Naples, which is a major example of the “acts of mercy” in art. Research has found out that Caravaggio’s light, amidst a dramatic chiaroscuro, can be decoded as a metaphor for mercy. It probably attests to the artist’s own desire to receive pardon after killing someone in Rome (1606) as the result of a duel. This study aims to build a cultural awareness that Christian art has a wide range of semantic meaning, and Caravaggio’s painting in a very personal way. These references to human life can help the media audience to explore mercy in their own lives. The multiple meaning of Christian art is one more reason why Church events continue to provide prime time for cultural journalism.

This article reexamines two blocks with archaistic reliefs found southwest of the forum of
Roman Corinth in the mid to late 1970s. These blocks are dated to the Augustan period by
style and have three divinities represented on each. I propose that the figures represented
on the reliefs should be identified as Roman gods, not Greek ones as all previous scholarship
has claimed. This proposal leads to new identifications of the figures represented
on the reliefs: the Genius and Fortuna of the Colony, Ceres, Liber, Libera, and Minerva,
who represent the tutelary gods of the Early Roman colony. I offer a new suggestion for
the function and location of the monument to which these reliefs originally belonged: an
open-air sanctuary of the gods of the colony, located to the north of the Long Rectangular
Building. This new interpretation of the reliefs also suggests some correctives to the
methodology of iconographic interpretation in classical art and the conception of the
cultural and religious identity of Corinth in the Roman period.

This article builds on interlocutor comments to “The Hands of Donald Trump: Entertainment, Gesture, Spectacle” (Hall, Goldstein, and Ingram 2016), a study published before the 2016 presidential election that analyzes Trump’s use of derisive humor in the Republican Party primaries. We move this earlier analysis forward by examining the ways that Trump’s semiotic displays on the campaign trail now inform the material policies of the Trump administration. Our response reflects upon two currents that characterize this postelection moment: first, the surreal mix of gendered and racialized nostalgia embedded in Trump’s iconography and message, and second, the intensification of white racism as Trump’s rhetoric of patriotic nationalism became government. Bringing the responses of our esteemed interlocutors into conversation with the philosophical work of Walter Benjamin, Susan Buck-Morss, and Susan Sontag and the historical work of Carol Anderson, we suggest that Trump’s spectacle of governing is an embrace of sexual transgression, civil lawlessness, and excessive opulence, all of which encourage a pro-white semiotics and a return to racisms past.

There is a rich iconographic tradition demonstrating the importance of animals in ritual in the Dolenjska Hallstatt archaeological culture of Early Iron Age Slovenia (800-300 BCE). However, the role of animals in mortuary practice is not well represented iconographically, though faunal remains in graves indicate that their inclusion was an integral part of funerary performance. Here, animal bones from burials are compared to images of animal sacrifice, focusing on the ritual distinctions between the deposition of whole animal bodies versus animal parts. It is proposed that human-animal relationships were a key component of funerary animal sacrifice in these multispecies communities. The deposition of whole horses may have been due to a personal relationship with the deceased human. In turn, the sacrifice of an animal and division of its parts may have been essential for the management of group ties with the loss of a community member. Particular elements such as teeth, horns, and claws may have served as amulets-perhaps indicating that these were personal items that had to be placed in the grave with the deceased or that the deceased needed continued protection or other symbolic aid.

The pañcabhūtas convoked are pṛthvi ‘earth’, ap ‘water’, tejas ‘fire’, vāyu ‘air or wind’ and ākāśa ‘ether’. They are the five elements of nature in Hindu mythology. These are considered the abstractions of Viṣṇu (Figures 1–3, 6 and 10), Śiva (Figure 11) or Dēvī (Figures 7 and 15) as the case may be. Most virile among the five are ‘water’ and ‘fire’, the symbols of creation and destruction. Water from the Darwinian point of view is the creative force in which living organisms originate and survive. It is the sustaining principle, for example, the Mother feeding the child with milk as rain for the plant kingdom. Water is the symbol of destruction at the time of deluge, the mahāpraḷaya; cf. trees on the banks felled when rivers inundate (PTM 11.8.1). Fire creates when channelised through the oven; for example, Kumāra’s birth as also Mīnākṣī (Figure 16) and Draupadī emerging through yajñas. These ideas are best exemplified by the avatāras, aṃśāvatāras and other emanations of Viṣṇu. Śiva destroys the worlds by the power generated by his third eye (e.g., Sodom and Gomorrah in case of Biblical mythology), the God of Love, Kāmadeva symbolic of the seed of creation (Priapus in Roman mythology; Beard, 2008. Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town. London: Profile Books Ltd: 104, figure 36). We are concerned in this article with water as the creative and destructive force, an idea that is as old as the Vedic and Biblical times. The focus is on the Āḻvārs’ Nālāyirativviyappirapantam. The Biblical myth of ‘Noah’s Ark’ may be of value for inter-religious dialogue. Several hundreds of the Tamil hymns have something to say on the symbolism of water. We cite a few examples hereunder. The emphasis is on water and Viśvarūpa.

""Throughout the Mediterranean the study of the destruction, reuse, moving, and preservation of statues has provided a window onto social and cultural transformation during a time of ascendant Christianity. The preservation of statuary collections is increasingly important in this regard. Archival research has revealed the discovery of one such collection from Ostia’s Sanctuary of Magna Mater.

Excavated by C.L. and P.E. Visconti in 1867–69, the sanctuary was a treasure trove of sculptures, reliefs, and at least one bronze statue, many of which pertained to the cult of Cybele and Attis. All were well preserved; several were found in the open spaces of the sanctuary. These pieces, the last of which is a dedication dated to the late fourth century, span 500 years of history. Unfortunately, the collection as whole was soon dispersed, and the Late Antique significance of the finds was lost. This paper reassembles that group and situates it within the social world of Late Antique Ostia.

Analysis confirms that many statues of both sacred and non-sacred subjects remained on display throughout the Late Antique town. The late fourth-century dedication, in particular, set alongside many earlier pieces, shows that the “mood and motivations” of traditional Roman religion, in Clifford Geertz’s terms, also remained highly visible. The significance of this accumulated tradition, a hallmark of Roman religion, can be appreciated without appealing to Late Antique “pagan revivalism.” It testifies to a continued interest in and reinvention of one of Ostia’s most historic sites, even during an increasingly Christian age.""

The production and use of masks at multiple scales and in diverse contexts is a millennia-long tradition in Mesoamerica. In this paper, we explore some implications of Mesoamerican masking practices in light of materiality studies and the archaeology of the senses. We also discuss a collection of 22 masks, miniature masks and representations of masks from the lower Río Verde valley of coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. The iconography of these artefacts as well as their recovery from well-documented archaeological contexts inform our interpretations of masking practices during an approximately 2000-year span of the Formative period (2000 BC-AD 250). Specifically, we argue that these masking-related artefacts index sociocultural changes in the region, from the first villages and the advent of ceramic technology during the Early Formative period (2000-1000 BC) to a time of increasing consolidation of iconographic influence in the hands of the elite in the final centuries before the Classic period. As indicated by their continued use today, masks have long been intimates of communal activities in Oaxaca.

This collaboration originates from our mutual participation in an invited session “The Role of Sustenance in the Feasts, Festivals, Rituals and Every Day Life of Mesoamerica” organized by Karen Bassie at the 40th Annual Chacmool Conference. Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: The Archaeology of Foodways. Hosted by the Chacmool Archaeological Association and the University of Calgary, Department of Archaeology, November 10–12, 2007 Calgary, Alberta. We are sincerely grateful to Karen Bassie for her encouragement in stimulating this collaboration.

An important episode in Mesoamerican mythical narratives involves the abduction or impregnation of a tightly guarded maiden by a disguised god, against the will of her father or mother. This action precipitates major creational events that variously result in the origin of the sun, the moon, and human sustenance. Relying on a comparative analysis of versions recorded throughout Mesoamerica, this paper explores (a) representations of this episode in Maya art, where the suitor sometimes takes the shape of an insect; (b) the magical role of weaving and spinning, a recurrent theme in this mythical sequence; and (c) the relevance of Maya narratives for the interpretation of related passages in central Mexican mythology and ritual. Classic representations evidence the myth’s antiquity, while its numerous versions pose methodological problems, addressed in this paper through the analysis of synonymies in narrative, art, and performance.

In this article, I present the results of an analysis of codex-style polychrome ceramics recovered from excavations of commoner households at the Late Postclassic center of Tututepec (Yucu Dzaa), Oaxaca, Mexico. In employing a basic semiotic approach, I examine the images depicted on these materials to draw inferences regarding salient themes they expressed, and how these themes related to broader social discourse and political ideology. In short, I argue that the data suggest an articulation between the popular ideologies of commoners and ideals that were promoted by the site's ruling elites, a concordance that likely arose through dialogic social processes, rather than coercion or false consciousness. This state of affairs may have contributed to the success of the polity, which was the center of a powerful territorial empire at the time of Spanish contact.

Based on its relationship to comic books, this article proposes an iconographic study of the public figure of Federico Fellini in terms of the Hermes archetype. With the aim of explaining how Fellini’s image has been interpreted from different visual perspectives, I consider two basic questions: what relationship does Fellini have to the images of himself and of Italian culture? And why have images in Fellini’s films and his own public image been the object of constant reinterpretations in film, advertising and on social networks? Focusing on the rereading of Fellini’s image in the comics of Milo Manara, this article explores a phenomenon that distinguishes Fellini’s filmmaking: his role as a circulator of images of classical and popular culture out of the past and into the future. The figure of Hermes, the god of mediation, constitutes the archetype through which we can understand this central role of Fellini.

This article reassesses mosaic programmes in domestic contexts and in private spheres in the houses at Zeugma and in some other Greco-Roman cities. The starting point of the argument in the article is a mosaic inscription which was found in a Roman house in Zeugma. The mosaic pavement itself decorates the floor of a chamber decorated with geometric patterns and the inscription in the middle. The inscription is an epithalamium, a wedding song, written for a newly-wedded couple, probably residents of the house, whose names are also partly preserved in the poem. The inscription suggests that the theme and iconography of the mosaics and frescoes in public dining rooms and private rooms in the domestic context are associated with the stories of the gods, goddesses or other well-known couples related to the concept of ideal marriage in mythology and in literature.
These marriage-related themes are accompanied by images of Dionysiac domesticity and Bacchic frenzy. This article proposes that many of these mosaics, which are much more permanent than the rest of the decoration,
may have been commissioned as part of marriage preparations, perhaps as gifts to the wedded couple. The subjects are chosen according to the intellectual background of the house-dwellers and their milieu, from literary
and mythological narratives that are meant to protect the new family’s happiness and union, serve as a reminder of marriage and symbolize the perpetuity of the family’s progeny and its prosperity.

One of the more spectacular expressions of prehistoric rock art in all of North America is the petroglyph concentration in the Coso Range of eastern California. These glyphs have played a prominent role in attempts to understand forager religious iconography. Four decades ago, Heizer and Baumhoff (1962) concluded that Great Basin petroglyphs were associated with hunting large game and were intended to supernaturally increase success in the hunt. Similarly, in their seminal work Grant et al. (1968) concluded that the mountain sheep drawings of the Coso region bolstered the “hunting magic” hypothesis. However, this hypothesis has become increasingly marginalized by a prevailing view that considers most rock art as an expression of individual shamanistic endeavor (cf. Lewis-Williams and Dowson, 1988; Whitley, 1994; Whitley and Loendorf, 1994). This article explores comparative ethnologic and archaeological evidence supporting the hunting magic hypothesis. I place this explanatory frame...

Mississippian and Woodland art and iconography is often interpreted as representing supernatural subject matter within a three-tiered cosmos. This approach, what I call the mythological-structural model, has been highly generative. However, it also reproduces assumptions rooted in a social evolutionary definition of religion as essentially "mistaken beliefs," such that ancestral Southeastern Native American art is reduced to representations of realms and beings in excess of nature. This misconstrues Indigenous realities, including the Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds. Building on scholarship in Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) and the ontological turn, I propose an alternative interpretive model of Indigenous environmental knowledge. I draw on community-based research with members of Pvlvcekolv, a Native American community in the US South claiming Muskogee identity, to interpret three examples of Mississippian art-the so-called "birdmen/women," the Birger figurine, and the Willoughby Disk. These interpretations foreground the significance of environmental relationships and Indigenous philosophical traditions about the nature of life, the body, and difference that are not easily reduced to "supernatural beliefs." An Indigenous ecological knowledge-informed framework provides a new path into the study of spirituality and political life that privileges living Indigenous perspectives and deeper dialogues with NAIS in archaeology.

This publication explores marriage symbolism in twelfth- and thirteenth century illuminated manuscripts containing canon and civil law texts but also liturgical texts and illustrated Bibles. Visual representations of weddings and marriages were neither straightforward nor immediate, but challenged the artists to make conceptual and interpretative choices. How was marriage visualized? What could be pictured?

The traditio legis—Christ standing on a mountain holding an open scroll flanked by the apostles Peter and Paul—is one of the most widespread and enigmatic Christian images from Late Antiquity. Over the course of the Middle Ages the scene was frequently reinterpreted, and this semantic flexibility has largely obscured its initial raison d’ tre. The first part of this article repositions the traditio legis in its late antique context, arguing that it was understood as a visualization of the Old Testament prophecy at Isaiah 2:2–4. These verses predicted the coming of the new Messiah and the spreading of his Law across the world in a time of peace; they were uniformly understood to describe the present time after the first coming of Christ. The second part discusses the reemergence of the motif in the Middle Ages and the new meanings that were attached to it. While these included the investiture of Peter and Paul in images of the traditio legis et clavium, the grouping was not seen as a political statement on the primacy of Rome. Some medieval examples also used the motif to express both hopes and anxieties about the coming of Christ at the end of time, while others depict the two apostles as models for the mission of converting unbelievers during the crusades. Exploring the manifold reappropriations of the traditio legis permits us to understand its complex web of meanings and highlights the importance of historic specificity in reconstructing how beholders might have experienced the representation over time.

Research on Classic Maya personhood confirms that personhood was extended to non-human entities; however, questions about its operation and impact remain. What is the nature of the linkage between human beings and object persons, and how does personhood pass between them? What is the impact on an object of becoming personed? I approach these questions through depictions in Classic Maya iconography of faces shown on non-human objects, indicating potential to act in person-like ways. Close examination of " faced " objects reveals that Classic Maya personhood represents a substance that does not require humans as a source, and acts, instead, as an untethered resource accessed by entities able to act in social, relational ways. Furthermore, object personhood represents a state of identity in which essences of persons and objects co-exist, opening possibilities for complicating categories of being in the ancient Maya world.

Ancient Maya mythology may perplex the modern student. As recorded in inscriptions, mythological episodes are cryptically short, speak of obscure places and entities, and leave much to the reader who, if Maya, would have been so intimately familiar with the story that the details we find lacking were already deeply imprinted on their psyche. Nevertheless, from these esoteric textual fragments and associated imagery we may redact a rich mythological world whose symbolism owes much to the agricultural practices and foodways surrounding maize, still the staple crop of Mesoamerican peoples (Staller et al. 2006; see Anderson and Tuxill, this volume). This chapter adds to scholarship on Maya cosmology by proposing that maize agriculture and the activities that transformed this grain into a foodstuff played a major role in the formation of Maya and Mesoamerican mythology. I suggest that like other ancient societies an elaborate tradition arose around the cultivation, preparation, and lifecycle of this crop. In essence, like rice in Asia (Ohnuki-Tierney 1993) or bread in the West (Camporesi 1996), maize and the foods made from it were sacred. The quotidian activities surrounding its cultivation and preparation took on grander proportions within myth than the original domestic act. Nevertheless, it was through myth’s clear reference to domestic activities that the metaphors expressed therein had the potential to speak to a wide segment of society and became a useful medium for political and religious propaganda and, more importantly, an explanatory model for life’s mysteries.

Rock-art researchers have long acknowledged the importance of discerning superimposition sequences as a means for exploring chronology. Despite their potential for reconstructing painting events and thus informing on a site’s production sequences, the social significance of superimpositions and their associated meanings have been little explored. In the Kimberley Region of northwestern Australia, interpretations of superimpositions as an analytical lens have often lingered on the ‘negative’ connotations of this practice (e.g. to destroy supernatural power embedded in previous paintings and/or to show cultural dominance). As a result, it has been proposed that the overpainting of previous images was tantamount to defacing, leading to the proposition that new images constituted a form of vandalism of older art. In this paper, a sample of rock-art sites from the northwestern and northeastern Kimberley is analysed with the aim of grounding the study of superimpositions in more nuanced practices, leading researchers to contemplate the role they played among populations within the same area. It is argued here that superimpositions brought together past and present experiences that served to reinforce the links between contemporary art production and the inherited landscape.

In later prehistory horse ownership was a manifestation of wealth and physical prowess, and demonstrated access to distant lands. Because of the expense and restricted availability of horses, they are often reduced to indicators of status without more nuanced considerations of how lived human-horse interactions enmeshed them in these status displays. To complicate the simple horse/status object equivalence, this article presents a specific case for the symbolic and social significance of horses in Early Iron Age south-eastern Slovenia through the lens of equine iconography, and argues that horses and particularly equestrianism were essential to embodying elite masculine identity. Broadly, this article seeks to move beyond equating high-status goods with high-status people by discussing how particular events, bodily abilities and human-animal relationships were all intertwined in the materialization of social distinction for a particular group.

This article examines the heritage destruction undertaken by the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. To date, their iconoclasm has been mostly characterised either as acts of wanton barbarism devoid of religious or political justification, or as a cynical performance designed as a mass media spectacle. Drawing on a systematic analysis of two key IS propaganda outlets – their on-line magazine, Dabiq, and the various slick films released by Al-Hayat – this article argues that the heritage destruction perpetrated by the IS are not only situated within a carefully articulated theological framework and key to the creation of a new and ideologically pure ‘Islamic State’, but that they are also constituted by several complex layers of religious and political iconoclasm. To demonstrate, this article documents the iconoclasm undertaken by the IS along two key axes: Symbolic Sectarianism (Shia and Sufi mosques and shrines); and Pre-Monotheistic Iconoclasm (ancient polytheistic sites). Attacks on key sites within these categories, such as the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus or the Mosul Museum, not only adhere to their religious and political framework but also serve broader geo-political agendas and are attacked as proxy targets for their physical and ideological opponents.

This article explores the sacrificial symbolism of cacao (Theobroma sp.) on the Pacific coast of Guatemala, manifest in the iconography of ceramic objects and stone sculptures from the Classic period, in textual references from the colonial period, and in contemporary ethnographic data from the southern highlands. The iconographic and textual metaphors contained in these sources linked cacao pods with dead warriors, captives, and sacrificial victims. As interpreted in this article, the harvest of cacao was equated with the acquisition of sacrificial victims, and both were conceived as precious sources of nourishment for the gods. Changes in artistic representations are discernible from Early Classic Teotihuacan-style censers to Early Postclassic Plumbate ceramic effigies. Cacao and other fruits from the Pacific coastal piedmont are still related to the symbolism of war and sacrifice in contemporary rituals from the Tz’utujil town of Santiago Atitlán. Data from southern Guatemala may be relevant to understand the sacrificial symbolism of cacao throughout Mesoamerica.

In Hinduism, the śāstras list many iconographical forms of Devī. Nevertheless, for a number of them, there is no existing material rendition. The present article examines the cases of a few such iconographical forms, those of Ṣaḍaṅgadevī, Catuṣṣaṣṭikalādevī, Śītalā devī, Daśamudrā and Trikaṇṭhakīdevī. Śilpaśāstras enumerate the pratimālakṣaṇas of these goddesses elaborately. It is an enigma why material evidence that is expected to portray the canonized form is missing. However, recently a few models have become available that get closer to the Śāstraic notions. These redesigned entries add a new dimension to the iconography of the goddess. The present article deals with some rarities in the realm of Śakti icono-graphy based on the Śrītattvanidhi in its Tañcāvūr Sarasvatī Mahal Library edition.

This paper introduces a new term into scholarly debate regarding the religious and psychological effects of the Black Death and later epidemics. I propose that there is another resource, thus far untapped by historians of the plague, which can provide direct access to the ways in which those who lived during the pandemic attempted to articulate and manipulate their situation: namely, the images generated by experience or expectation of the disease. The creation and use of such images argues against any lasting crisis of confidence or paralysis of will engendered by the plague, as posited in much modern scholarship. Instead, in the multiplicity of their identifications of the origins of the plague, and of potential sources of heavenly defence, the images testify to the creativity of Renaissance responses. For contemporary worshippers, images were an effective means of protection, ritually activated and manipulated in a process of confident negotiation and persuasion with the celestial powers.

Prehispanic Andean iconography communicated ideology and structures of power. On the coast, iconography depicting violence and fertility legitimized elite power. In Tiwanaku (A.D. 400–1100), such iconography is considered to have been absent. We re-examine the theme of the Sacrificer in Tiwanaku iconography that originated during the Formative period in the south-central Andes. This figure, which we term Tiwanaku Camelid Sacrificer (TCS), takes on a new appearance: a human-camelid body carrying a a trophy head or axe. The TCS imagery is often depicted on portable prestige objects, many of them found in the Tiwanaku hinterlands that relied economically and socially on caravans.We propose that the TCS represents aspects of Tiwanaku ritual and ontology, by which camelids and humans shared acts, essence, and form. The states of being (camay) and becoming (tucoy) embodied by the TCS testify to the unique positions
of power camelids held over life in Tiwanaku’s agropastoralist society.

Legitimacy and legitimation practices are key constructs in the neo-institutional literature. So far, much scholarship has drawn on ideational and discursive approaches of legitimation. Yet, the organizational world has become increasingly iconographical, and visuals seem to have been at the core of contemporary legitimacy claims. This research investigates the visual artifacts and practices embedded in the elaboration of legitimacy claims. Through an iconographic lens applied to practices unfolding in a meeting room, this research emphasizes the image-screen and image-object iconographies involved in the elaboration of legitimation claims. Visual practices elicit symbolic spaces that organizational actors may then mobilize as worlds of justification and legitimization.

Toledo Cathedral’s stone choir screen was carved by local artists in the late fourteenth century, during a period of heightened anti-Jewish rhetoric and widespread conversion. Its fifty-six large reliefs show stories from Genesis and Exodus, and stand out from contemporary choir screens and sculpted ensembles due to the inclusion of rarely-depicted apocryphal legends and the absence of New Testament stories. The extensive narratives of the Creation, the life of Cain, the death of Adam, the plagues in Egypt and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt are particularly unusual. The presence of some of these stories can be explained within a specific local devotional and liturgical context, in which the screen served as a backdrop for processions, preaching and baptismal ceremonies. The unprecedented iconography of Cain biting Abel at the neck betrays an engagement with Hebrew scholarship, and should be understood in the light of patristic and polemical texts then found in the cathedral library. Recurrent themes include an emphasis on stories that were commonly considered to be types for the division of Jews and Christians. Reliefs showing the Israelites in the desert can be read as a critique of Jewish idolatry, whilst also articulating ideas about the proper veneration of images in the Christian church.

The Mesoamerican Formative period (1600 BCE-CE 250) saw the establishment of sedentism, dietary transformations and the development of ceramic technologies for subsistence, artistic representation and the region's earliest preserved musical instruments. These instruments include aerophones such as whistles, ocarinas and flutes. In this paper, we describe sixty-three ceramic aerophones from mostly Formative period contexts in coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. We situate our analysis in the broader contexts of research on music and iconography in Mesoamerican archaeology, as well as of the anthropology of sensory perception. Through a consideration of archaeological context, artifact form and technical properties, we conclude that music was used in a wide range of social settings and carried multivalent meanings in ancient coastal Oaxaca. Specifically, we argue that instruments acted in both public and private settings, and that the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic imagery they bear indicates complex social practices such as communication with revered ancestors.

This article focuses on the iconicity of contemporary Dushanbe’s capitol complex, with its state-sponsored architecture and memorial culture, part of the government of Tajikistan’s national identity construction. Dushanbe’s architecture post-independence is actant, a mnemonic and iconographical bridge between the present and favoured historical periods in a quest for national origins. A bricolage of historical symbols, including those of Achaemenid Iran and the early Islamic Samanids, is displayed here in a city with Soviet foundations. Together with pan-Iranian iconography is a desire by the government of Tajikistan for monumentality for its own sake. The capitol complex evokes the natural world, connected to a Central Asian conception of sacred space, suggesting an interlacing of power and religious authority. These monumental building projects are taking place against the backdrop of the destruction of Dushanbe’s ‘authentic’ Soviet architecture and built heritage in the capitol complex, itself a container for collective memory.

This article deals with issues surrounding the study of indigenous appropriations of symbols of military power. It focuses on the case of Guna people from the San Blas Archipelago of Panama who, in the 1940s, carved some wooden figures in the likeness of General Douglas MacArthur and used them as auxiliary spirits in collective healing rituals. By appealing to anthropological reflections on the notion of style, the article suggests a correlation between stylistic variations in forms of visual art, sociality, and power. It exploits the potential of style analysis for interpreting historical phenomena from an anthropological perspective. It is argued that there is a strong link between the stylistic changes in Guna woodcarving and the sociopolitical transformations that occurred in the middle of the twentieth century. The Guna figures of MacArthur are the outcome of a stylistic switch toward individuation, paralleled by the creation of strong political subjects called upon by the historical events of the first half of the twentieth century in San Blas. Finally, the case of cross-cultural appropriation discussed in the article shows the potential of ethnographic studies of local lived worlds in furthering the understanding of global events such as World War II.

In his will, dating from 1490, the nobleman Francesco Scottivoli from Ancona ordered his heirs to erect a chapel in his memory at the church of San Francesco delle Scale, and have it adorned with a painted altarpiece, executed in 1508 by a painter of Greek origin residing in Ancona. In the late 18th-century a full-scale renovation of the church resulted to the dissolution of the Scottivoli chapel and the removal of the painted altarpiece, which was subsequently lost and has been considered missing ever since. This article aims to identify the long-missing Scottivoli altarpiece and determine the identity of its creator based on the re-evaluation of previously published sources and the discovery of unpublished archival and visual material. In light of this new information, this study interprets the Scottivoli altarpiece within the context of the intense cross-cultural transfer that took place in the multicultural contact zone of the early modern Eastern Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas.

How do objects and humans relationally constitute one another? In this article, we examine statues of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, in Hong Kong to illuminate the forms of personhood and agency that arise through human-icon relations in a modern metropolis. We follow the life course of Guanyin statues, investigating their production, circulation, animation, and disposal-teasing out worshippers' contradictory discourses on whether the deity is present in the statue or in the mind of the worshipper. These ethnographic observations lead us to consider how anthropological debates about the nature of cultural objects as representations or as agents parallel Guanyin practices and discourses in Hong Kong. We suggest how the ambivalent status of Guanyin statues is negotiated for practitioners as "demi-persons" and can be understood for anthropologists through the concept of the "dividuating object."

[material religion, animism, agency, personhood, icon, Hong Kong]