The ancients deployed a wide variety of golden and gilded objects in diverse contexts. This essay examines the vocabularies they employed to describe such items in temple inventories and explores how such they might—or might not—have distinguished them from one another.
{"title":"All That Glisters …","authors":"Kenneth Lapatin","doi":"10.1086/721209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721209","url":null,"abstract":"The ancients deployed a wide variety of golden and gilded objects in diverse contexts. This essay examines the vocabularies they employed to describe such items in temple inventories and explores how such they might—or might not—have distinguished them from one another.","PeriodicalId":53917,"journal":{"name":"West 86th-A Journal of Decorative Arts Design History and Material Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41345949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay calls for a collaborative multidisciplinary approach to the study of early modern Western European plate armor to better uncover the production methods and history of the industries that supported its development. It explores the insights gleaned from the Art Institute of Chicago’s own attempts at experimental or reconstructive archaeology of a late sixteenth-century breastplate produced with bloomery steel. Experiments affirmed the theory that bloomery furnace production methods and limitations played a role in the gradual development of plate armor.
{"title":"Bloomery Iron, Steel, and the Interdisciplinary Search for an Early Modern Armor Industry","authors":"Jonathan Tavares","doi":"10.1086/721217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721217","url":null,"abstract":"This essay calls for a collaborative multidisciplinary approach to the study of early modern Western European plate armor to better uncover the production methods and history of the industries that supported its development. It explores the insights gleaned from the Art Institute of Chicago’s own attempts at experimental or reconstructive archaeology of a late sixteenth-century breastplate produced with bloomery steel. Experiments affirmed the theory that bloomery furnace production methods and limitations played a role in the gradual development of plate armor.","PeriodicalId":53917,"journal":{"name":"West 86th-A Journal of Decorative Arts Design History and Material Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41881749","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Blowers of Sun-Excrement This article presents a translation, analysis, and brief historiography of the Nahuatl-language account of lost-wax gold casting that appears in Book 9, Chapter 16 of the central Mexican Florentine Codex (1575–77).
{"title":"Blowers of Sun-Excrement: Nahua Lost-Wax Gold Casting in the Florentine Codex Book 9, Chapter 16","authors":"Allison Caplan","doi":"10.1086/721202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721202","url":null,"abstract":"Blowers of Sun-Excrement This article presents a translation, analysis, and brief historiography of the Nahuatl-language account of lost-wax gold casting that appears in Book 9, Chapter 16 of the central Mexican Florentine Codex (1575–77).","PeriodicalId":53917,"journal":{"name":"West 86th-A Journal of Decorative Arts Design History and Material Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42266292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter provides a brief overview of the introduction of coinage in the ancient Medi-terranean region and the metalworking technologies that allowed for this transformation in monetary instruments. While an array of numismatic methodologies and theoretical approaches has provided insight into early coinage, there is still much we do not fully understand, particularly about the metalworking involved.
{"title":"Coinage As Metalwork","authors":"P. V. Alfen","doi":"10.1086/721218","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721218","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter provides a brief overview of the introduction of coinage in the ancient Medi-terranean region and the metalworking technologies that allowed for this transformation in monetary instruments. While an array of numismatic methodologies and theoretical approaches has provided insight into early coinage, there is still much we do not fully understand, particularly about the metalworking involved.","PeriodicalId":53917,"journal":{"name":"West 86th-A Journal of Decorative Arts Design History and Material Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42305628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cast and wrought sculpture in metal, made at both the miniscule and monumental scale in the third and second millennia BC, employs a specific selection of metals that was at times carefully layered in a complex sequence of crafting and construction. The choices and processes used seem to have been related to both the ontology and function of these ancient images.
{"title":"Metallurgy and Civilization","authors":"Z. Bahrani","doi":"10.1086/721198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721198","url":null,"abstract":"Cast and wrought sculpture in metal, made at both the miniscule and monumental scale in the third and second millennia BC, employs a specific selection of metals that was at times carefully layered in a complex sequence of crafting and construction. The choices and processes used seem to have been related to both the ontology and function of these ancient images.","PeriodicalId":53917,"journal":{"name":"West 86th-A Journal of Decorative Arts Design History and Material Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43496365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this contribution we argue that the adoption of bronze in prehistory implied much more than the introduction of a new material. It allowed for an entirely new range of objects and added a new dimension to notions of standardization. As the first material that is potentially infinitely recyclable, it also afforded novel ideas about the connection between material and classes of valuables.
{"title":"What Does Bronze Do? Part I: Affordances","authors":"M. Kuijpers, D. Fontijn","doi":"10.1086/721205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721205","url":null,"abstract":"In this contribution we argue that the adoption of bronze in prehistory implied much more than the introduction of a new material. It allowed for an entirely new range of objects and added a new dimension to notions of standardization. As the first material that is potentially infinitely recyclable, it also afforded novel ideas about the connection between material and classes of valuables.","PeriodicalId":53917,"journal":{"name":"West 86th-A Journal of Decorative Arts Design History and Material Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47351408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article summarizes the current state of the discussion on the use of metal agricultural implements in China during the one and a half millennia preceding the Qin unification in 221 BCE. Agriculture-related archaeological evidence is far scanter and less representative than the evidence now available on such aspects of early Chinese culture as social organization and ritual. Even so, a general trend toward the increased use of metal implements seems to be incontrovertible, especially after the switch from bronze to iron in the middle of the first millennium BCE.
{"title":"Metal Agricultural Implements in Early China","authors":"Lothar von Falkenhausen","doi":"10.1086/721219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721219","url":null,"abstract":"This article summarizes the current state of the discussion on the use of metal agricultural implements in China during the one and a half millennia preceding the Qin unification in 221 BCE. Agriculture-related archaeological evidence is far scanter and less representative than the evidence now available on such aspects of early Chinese culture as social organization and ritual. Even so, a general trend toward the increased use of metal implements seems to be incontrovertible, especially after the switch from bronze to iron in the middle of the first millennium BCE.","PeriodicalId":53917,"journal":{"name":"West 86th-A Journal of Decorative Arts Design History and Material Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48477822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The metal-based economy of Bronze Age Europe is a remarkable mixture of familiar (“rational”) and seemingly “irrational” features. Its most puzzling and “un-economic” aspect is a ubiquitous long-term practice in which communities deliberately destroyed part of the valuable, scarce, and potentially recyclable metalwork. We argue that archaeological evidence shows that this happened in a systematic and selective way. This implies that it was an integral element of the economic system. Value was created by destroying valuables. We argue that this is not unique, but just one specific case of how economies, including modern ones, operate.
{"title":"What Does Bronze Do? Part II: Economics","authors":"D. Fontijn, M. Kuijpers","doi":"10.1086/721206","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721206","url":null,"abstract":"The metal-based economy of Bronze Age Europe is a remarkable mixture of familiar (“rational”) and seemingly “irrational” features. Its most puzzling and “un-economic” aspect is a ubiquitous long-term practice in which communities deliberately destroyed part of the valuable, scarce, and potentially recyclable metalwork. We argue that archaeological evidence shows that this happened in a systematic and selective way. This implies that it was an integral element of the economic system. Value was created by destroying valuables. We argue that this is not unique, but just one specific case of how economies, including modern ones, operate.","PeriodicalId":53917,"journal":{"name":"West 86th-A Journal of Decorative Arts Design History and Material Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44974796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Philosophy of Textile: Between Practice and Theory. Catherine Dormor. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020. 135 pp., 26 color ills. Cloth £85.00. ISBN 9781472525659","authors":"Mary Schoeser","doi":"10.1086/718023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/718023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53917,"journal":{"name":"West 86th-A Journal of Decorative Arts Design History and Material Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42236618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines a profound contradiction inherent in the idea of utopia as conceptually formulated by Thomas More in the Renaissance and clearly implicit in pre-humanist utopian, Arcadian, or paradisal imagery and descriptions, reaching back via early Christianity to Greco-Roman antiquity and resonating equally within Asian Buddhism. The idea of utopia from Greek antiquity to ancient India has evoked an optimism not unconnected to the conviction that there is a better place to which we will go after death, such as heaven. This kind of faith can have no rational basis, but the human condition is susceptible to a good deal more than the mere constraints of reason. Arguably, the only philosophically viable utopia is apophatic—that is, a place or state undescribable by any of the concepts or discourses used to define real spaces. Despite clear awareness across Eurasian cultures of the irrationality of a positive utopia (as we still continue to understand the word), their visual productions proceeded to give full vent to this optimism. This article examines a comparative range of such visual approaches across ancient Eurasia.
{"title":"Other Worlds: Utopias in the Art of Late Ancient Eurasia","authors":"J. Elsner","doi":"10.1086/718015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/718015","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines a profound contradiction inherent in the idea of utopia as conceptually formulated by Thomas More in the Renaissance and clearly implicit in pre-humanist utopian, Arcadian, or paradisal imagery and descriptions, reaching back via early Christianity to Greco-Roman antiquity and resonating equally within Asian Buddhism. The idea of utopia from Greek antiquity to ancient India has evoked an optimism not unconnected to the conviction that there is a better place to which we will go after death, such as heaven. This kind of faith can have no rational basis, but the human condition is susceptible to a good deal more than the mere constraints of reason. Arguably, the only philosophically viable utopia is apophatic—that is, a place or state undescribable by any of the concepts or discourses used to define real spaces. Despite clear awareness across Eurasian cultures of the irrationality of a positive utopia (as we still continue to understand the word), their visual productions proceeded to give full vent to this optimism. This article examines a comparative range of such visual approaches across ancient Eurasia.","PeriodicalId":53917,"journal":{"name":"West 86th-A Journal of Decorative Arts Design History and Material Culture","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44536605","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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