An important masterpiece by the Paduan sculptor Andrea Riccio, the Della Torre tomb monument broke with contemporary funerary monuments in both its form and content. Understanding what enabled this break with tradition is the central issue in the study of this monument—one that has not been sufficiently addressed in previous scholarship. Despite the lack of overt references to the Christian faith on the Della Torre monument, the narrative programme is concerned with two very important Christian concerns—the necessity of a life of virtue and the health and afterlife of the soul. I argue that the narrative on the tomb, influenced by contemporary funerary oratory and poetry, presents a model of virtue for the viewer. Moreover, I argue that Riccio has illustrated the presence of this exemplar by the very structure of the monument itself. This dissertation focuses on the artistic and intellectual community surrounding the creation of this monument and, in particular, on the reconciliation of this strictly all’antica monument with Christian thought in this period. Upon a thorough contextual examination, this unprecedented monument becomes less of an anomaly. It reflects the ideas of an important circle of humanists from both Padua and Verona, thus illustrating the breadth of their interests and their involvement in contemporary debates over religion, the nature and potential immortality of the soul, and the necessity of virtue. Analysing this monument within the context of humanist ideas prevalent among the individuals within the Della Torre circle, those who had, or likely had, a great influence on the significance of the monument’s narrative, gives this monument what has been long denied to it—a proper understanding of its Christian programme and didactic function. The fulfillment of this task, which promises to shed additional light on the adaptation of pagan elements to Christian purposes, is the overall aim of this work.

The material culture of Late Bronze Age Shechem (Tell Balatâh) provides an opportunity to assess the nature and extent of the Egyptian imperial presence in the Central Highlands, as well as the ways in which endogenous cultural traits endured during a period of intensifying military presence. While scholars have yet to fully agree on the exact nature of Egyptian imperialism, most concur that contact with Egypt had a profound impact on the political, economic and social institutions of the southern Levant. The analysis of ceramics at Shechem reveals continuity in settlement, ceramic morphology and technology throughout the Late Bronze period. These findings contribute to an expanding corpus of ceramic studies, which indicate that a complex interaction and negotiation of cultural boundaries existed during this imperial period. While there was not a sustained Egyptian presence in the Central Hill Country, textual and archaeological data suggest there was limited interaction. While more is known about how this imperial presence was manifested architecturally in the form of “governor residencies” and “trading entropôts,” recent investigations at coastal and inland sites reveal that the interaction between Egyptian and Canaanite ceramic technology was site-specific and reciprocal in nature. The Shechem ceramic analysis illustrates the tenacity with which potters retained Canaanite traditions at this Central Hill Country site during a period of sporadic Egyptian contact.

In this bachelor essay an attempt is done, to recreate a probable Bronze Age landscape on Gotland, with GIS as a tool. The landscape on Gotland is situated with many different monuments dated Bronze Age, such as cairns and stone ships. In creating of the maps, two possible shorelines contemporary with the Bronze Age have been calculated and marked on the maps. Furthermore, peat lands have been drawn upon the maps, by using the information from geological maps. A landscape variable have been compared between Bronze Age places and Early Iron Age houses; the soil type. On Bronze Age places gravel is the most common, while moraine marl is the most common on places with Early Iron Age houses. From a selection that were made, all Bronze Age places where within 3 km from the water, either the recreated shoreline or peat land. On the maps both Early Iron Age houses and Bronze Age places seemed to have a connection with water.

A metalsmith�s ability to turn stone into metal and mould metal into useable objects, is one of the most valuable production industries of any society. The conception of this metallurgical knowledge has been the major catalyst in the development of increasing socio-political complexity since the beginning of the Bronze Age (Childe, 1930). However, when considering the prehistory of Southeast Asia, especially Thailand, it is noted that the introduction of metallurgical activity, namely copper and bronze technology, did not engender the increase in social complexity witnessed in other regions. It is suggested that the region is anomalous in that terms and concepts developed to describe and define Bronze Ages by scholars working in other regions, lack strict analogues within Southeast Asia. Muhly (1988) has famously noted the non-compliance of Southeast Asia to previous models, "In all other corners of the Bronze Age world-China, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Aegean and central Europe-we find the introduction of bronze technology associated with a complex of social, political and economic developments that mark the rise of the state. Only in Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand and Vietnam, do these developments seem to be missing" (Muhly, 1988:16). This "rise of the state" is associated with the development of hierarchy, inequality, and status differentiation, evidence for which, it is argued, is most explicitly articulated in mortuary contexts (Bacus, 2006). Evidence would include an intra-site restriction in access to resources, including prestige goods, and ranking, a vertical differentiation, often related to interment wealth. Thus the introduction of metallurgical technology saw copper and other prestige goods, used to entrench authority and advertise status (Coles and Harding; 1979). Such evidence has so far been absent in Bronze Age, Southeast Asian contexts. Accordingly, the usefulness of the term "Bronze Age" for describing and defining Southeast Asian assemblages has been questioned (White, 2002). However, the Ban Non Wat discovery of wealthy Bronze Age interments, with bronze grave goods restricted to the wealthiest, has furrowed the brow of many working in the region, providing evidence to at least reconsider this stance. Despite its obvious importance in shaping Bronze Age societies around the globe, and now, significance in Northeast Thailand, very little is known of the acceptance, development, and spread of tin-bronze metallurgical techniques during the prehistory of Southeast Asia. Only a handful of investigations of archaeological sites in the region have investigated the use of metals beyond macroscopic cataloguing. Utilising an agential framework, the Ban Non Wat bronze metallurgical evidence has been investigated as an entire assemblage, from the perspective of the individual metalsmith, in order to greater understand the industry and its impact upon the society incorporating the new technology. Furthermore, mortuary data is investigated by means of wealth assessment, as an insight into social form throughout the corresponding period of adoption, development and spread of metallurgy. The bivalent study of society and technology has shed light on the development of socio-political, and economic complexity during Bronze Age Southeast Asia, and in doing so, outlined the direct impact the metalsmiths themselves had on the supply, spread and functioning of their important industry. Variabilities in grave �wealth,� have been identified at Ban Non Wat. A further situation not previously encountered in Bronze Age Southeast Asia, is the restriction of bronze goods, in death, to differentiated, wealthy individuals. The existence of such individuals suggests that society during this period was rather more complex than regional precedents would suggest. I contend that it is the introduction of metallurgy, and in particular, the nature in which it was conducted that engendered these developments. Therefore, when considering the traditional course of developing social-political complexity during the Bronze Age, it now seems that Thailand at least, is potentially, not that anomalous.

The archaeological landscape of Upper Burma from the middle of the first millennium BC to the Bagan period in the 13th-14th century AD is a landscape of continuity. Finds of polished stone and bronze artifacts suggest the existence of early metal-using cultures in the Chindwin and Samon River Valleys, and along parts of the Ayeyarwady plain. Increasing technological and settlement complexity in the Samon Valley suggests that a distinctive culture whose agricultural and trade success can be read in the archaeological record of the Late Prehistoric period developed there. The appearance of the early urban �Pyu� system of walled central places during the early first millennium AD seems to have involved a spread of agricultural and management skills and population from the Samon. The leaders of the urban centres adopted Indic symbols and Sanskrit modes of kingship to enhance and extend their authority. The early urban system was subject over time to a range of stresses including siltation of water systems, external disruption and social changes as Buddhist notions of leadership eclipsed Brahmanical ones. The archaeological evidence indicates that a settlement was forming at Bagan during the last centuries of the first millennium AD. By the mid 11th century Bagan began to dominate Upper Burma, and the region began a transition from a system of largely autonomous city states to a centralised kingdom. Inscriptions of the 11th to 13th centuries indicate that as the Bagan Empire expanded it subsumed the agricultural lands that had been developed by the Pyu.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2008 . / Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Departments of Archaeology and Classics, Faculty of Arts, University of Glasgow, 2008. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Zugl.: Göteborg, University, Diss. 2007.

Th. 3e cycle--Histoire de l'art et l'archéologie--Paris VII, 1979. / Bibliogr. p. XIII-XXIII.

Th.--Lettres--Neuchâtel, 1990.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 2000. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 191-210).