Souvent considérée comme une « discipline de mots », l’ethnologie française a vu naître dans ses rangs une véritable culture de l’image photographique à partir des années 1930. Cette thèse se propose de mettre en perspective ce moment fécond des rapports de l’ethnologie à la photographie,en envisageant l’évolution de la place et du statut des images dans la discipline jusqu’aux années1960. Elle prend pour cela comme point d’ancrage les discours portés sur l’image photographique et les politiques institutionnelles en matière de photographie – au musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro,au musée de l’Homme puis à l’Institut Français d’Afrique Noire – qu’elle met en dialogue avec l’analyse des supports de diffusion et des pratiques de terrain.Ce travail révèle alors qu’un ambitieux projet visuel s’élabore dans les années 1930 autour du Trocadéro, qui contribue à la naissance d’un public de l’ethnologie. Il s’exacerbe dans les décennies suivantes, autour du succès de la photothèque du musée de l’Homme et face à l’engouement renouvelé pour l’exotisme et l’exploration. Néanmoins, les mutations du paysage institutionnel et les tensions coloniales des années 1950 viennent mettre en question cette adhésion aux images : l’intérêt d’avoir recours aux photographies, de les accumuler et de les diffuser ne fait plus l’unanimité. / Often looked upon as a « discipline of words », French anthropology saw the birth of a real photographic image culture within its ranks from the 1930’s onward. The present dissertation wants to contrast this fruitful moment in the relationships between anthropology and photography, and to consider the evolution of the place and the status of pictures until the 1960’s. In this end, its draws on discourses dealing with photography and on photographic institutional policies – at the muséed’Ethnographie du Trocadéro, the musée de l’Homme and the Institut Français d’Afrique Noire – and open up this in dialogue with an analysis of distribution medium and field practices.Thus, this work reveals that an ambitious visual project is developed in the 1930’s from theTrocadéro, which contributes to the creation of an anthropological audience. It heightens throughout the following decades, with the success of the musée de l’Homme’s photo library and the renewed craze for exoticism and exploration. However, the mutations of the institutional landscape together with the colonial tensions of the 1950’s put into question this predilection for pictures: the interestfor using photographs, for collecting and spreading them is no longer agreed upon unanimously.

Héraclès est une des figures les plus importantes dans la littérature et l’art de la Grèce ancienne et il est le sujet d’une vaste geste aussi complexe que variée. Celle-ci est développée dans les traditions orales et retranscrite dans les textes, ainsi que largement mise en image. Héraclès est énormément représenté dans la céramique attique, qui constitue un support polysémique, rendant toutes les variations que permet sa figure complexe. Déjà la nature d’un vase est susceptible de regards variés, allant de la simple réception jusqu’à une pensée plus élaborée, suivant les occasions et la culture des spectateurs. De plus, Héraclès est le seul personnage de la mythologie grecque à posséder une nature aussi ambiguë, de héros et de dieu. Les imagiers grecs ont donc adapté, sur divers supports, de l’architecture jusqu’aux céramiques, un nombre important de ses exploits, mettant en lumière telle ou telle qualité, souvent en fonction de la nature de l’épisode suscité. Naturellement, le contexte particulier d’une cité, de la situation politique de l’époque et de l’objet en question sont autant de données qui entrent dans l’interprétation des images d’Héraclès aux périodes archaïque et classique de l’Antiquité grecque / Herakles is one of the most important figures in the literature and art of ancient Greece, and he is the subject of a huge mythology as complex as varied. Herakles’ story is developed in the oral traditions and transcribed in the texts, as well as widely put in image. He is profusely represented in attic ceramics, which constitute a polysemic support, making all the variations that allow his complex figure. First, a vase could be seen in differents ways and views : from a simple reception to a more elaborate thought, according to the abilities and the culture of the spectators. Then, Heracles is the only character in Greek mythology who has such an ambiguous nature, of heroes and gods. So the Greek artists have adapted, on various media, from architecture to ceramic, a large number of his deeds, highlighting one quality or an other, depending on which episode is represented. Obviously, in order to interpreting the image of Herakles in the archaic and the classical periods of Greek antiquity, the particular context of a city, the political situation and the object must all be considered.

By using the technique of photogrammetry for the 3D visualization of ancient Egyptian coffins decorated with magical texts and iconography, this project aims at building up a new digital platform for an in-depth study of the ancient Egyptian funerary culture and its media. It has started in August 2015 through the support of a Mellon Fellowship for the Digital Humanities at UC Berkeley and up until now it has focused on ancient Egyptian coffins kept at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology of UC Berkeley. The main outcome will be a digital platform that allows to display a coffin in 3D and where users will be able to pan, rotate, and zoom in on the coffin, clicking on areas of text to highlight them and view an annotated translation together with other metadata (transcription of the hieroglyphic text, bibliography, textual variants, museological data, provenance, etc.)

This thesis deals with the origin and development of stone sarcophagi in the Old Kingdom. Based on documentation of finds and their statistical processing aims to characterize the main diachronic trends in specific social classes of ancient Egyptian society.

The reign of Amenhotep III represents one of the most crucial period of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Over the course of this dynasty, royal ideology, as a major means of power of the Egyptian ruler, was constantly being developed and underwent significant alterations. One long lasting debate has focused on the possibility that Amenhotep III was already deified during his lifetime, but up to now no detailed study that would analyse contemporary documents, whether connected to the king himself or related to his officials, has taken place. The aim of this thesis was to find and answer to this question by means of an analysis of written and iconographic sources from both the royal sphere as well as the domain of the officials. The result of this research, based among others on an in-depth study of the names, epithets and iconography of the ruler, indicates that Amenhotep III was already deified during his life and it allows even the definition of his divine characteristics and aspects as a solar god. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Central Asia, crossroads of ancient trade routes known as the Silk Road, absorbed for centuries the pulses of travelling cultural influences and created an environment for the existence of original artistic expression, which can be seen in jewellery making as well. The dissertation thesis deals with analysis of the findings from excavation units and individual pieces of jewellery, in most cases made of gold, which were often largely inspired by the culture of the ancient Mediterranean. The historical - geographic perspective of the work is focused primarily on territory of ancient Bactria and Gandhara - southern part of the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, then northern and eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. These areas were in the past centers of military activities and political formations, followed up in many aspects on the Mediterranean traditions. These political formations contributed distinctly to the dissemination and preservation of some elements of ancient cultural heritage in Central Asian architecture, sculpture and other fine arts and crafts. Most jewelry findings come from a fairly turbulent period of the 1st century AD, when the territory of Central Asia saw the progressive formation of Kushan Empire. The main part of the thesis consists of summary of the...

PhDr. Kateřina Průšová Book as a Jewel, Francoflemish Books of Hours from the National Library in Prague Abstract The purpose of this dissertation is to present the first comprehensive catalogue of Franco-Flemish books of hours from the collections of the National Library in Prague (hereafter, NK). Some of the included manuscripts were already published in journals some of them have never been published previously. The core of the catalogue is a formal and stylistic analysis of books of hours, including an attribution to the individual masters and workshops, localization and dating based on a comparison of stylistically related manuscripts. This work is a development from previous my research done on Parisian books of hours [NK Břevnov 297, NK Osek 70 and NK XXIII G 89; Master's thesis and 'rigorous work']. Six books of hours come from the National Library in Prague [NK XXIII H 22, NK Břevnov 296, NK XXIII F 198, NK XXIII G88, NK Osek 65, NK VI D 25] and one manuscript in the collection of the Lobkowicz family at Nelahozeves castle, previously deposited in the Prague National Library [with a shelf- mark VI Fg 67]. The catalogue covers the period of the greatest flowering of Flemish book illumination from the first half of the 15th century to the beginning of the 16th century. The books of hours from the...

Coins of the 9th and 10th centuries in archaeological discoveries from the Czech lands and their contribution to the beginning phase of the Czech history. The dissertation is focused on coins of the 9th and 10th centuries found on the territory of the Czech lands. Their archaeological context and detailed numismatic description bring new data, which can help to complete and precise our knowledge of the early medieval phase of the Czech history. Number of coins dating to the period before production of the first issues in the Czech lands (i.e. the coins of the 9th century and the first half of the 10th century) discovered on the mentioned territory increased. Their chronology is the following: the Old- Bohemian phase, the Old-Moravian phase and the Early Přemyslid phase, which is described in the first chapter of the dissertation - Coin finds before the beginning of the coinage in the territory of the Czech lands. The text brings results pointing to different monetary development of Bohemia and Moravia of that period. The new finds indicate a specific role of Bohemia in relationship with the Bavarian centre of the Frankish Empire. This situation culminates in production of the first coins in the Czech lands during the first half of the 960s. The second chapter of the dissertation - Beginning of the coinage...

The enemies are at the gates. Being dazzled by their golden jewels - or perhaps fascinated by their handsome leader - a girl makes a pact with them and betrays her city and her own kin. However, instead of the promised reward, she is killed by her beneficiary. In a particular variant of this story, the girl's name is Tarpeia and the city is Rome, the agreed reward are golden bracelets of the hostile Sabines and the murder weapons are their shields being worn - surprise! - on their left arms together with the jewels. The rendering of this scene in the Roman visual arts is of the primary interest of this thesis. As a particular event linked tightly to the legendary history of Rome, the Punishment of Tarpeia is generally believed to lack any closer iconographic parallels in the Etruscan and Greek arts; sometimes it is even supposed that the traitress is portrayed as a kind of heroic figure, not a negative one. Having analysed the surviving scenes of the Punishment of Tarpeia, I put that opinion into question suggesting they were artificially designed and composed in full accordance with the traditional imagery of the trespassers in the Greek and Etruscan visual arts. To support my assumption, I turn to scrutinize the compositions as well as minor details of contentually related scenes in the Greek and...

Nearly 300 years before the rise of a ‘Christianized,’ Eastern Roman Empire, generations of inhabitants in the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East had witnessed a considerable variety and evolution of religious thought. As a result of the expansion of Christian sects throughout the Near East and Mediterranean, in 325 CE, Emperor Constantine I convened a theological council to unite his vast kingdom in the East under a single religious creed. While revisions to the text of the first ‘Nicene Creed’ and subsequent councils would be organized, many dissenting factions refused to relinquish their long-held beliefs and traditions. Some of these ‘heterodox’ sects resisted the religious arm of the Empire and concealed their practices while continuing to worship in secrecy. Clues to the subversion of ‘orthodox’ ecclesiastical mandate may still persist in the mosaic programs of extant churches in the Mediterranean and Transjordan. In particular, the general design of mosaics in the Transjordan (e.g., the Petra Church, Petra; the Church of SS. Lot and Procopius, Khirbet al-Mukhayyat; and the Church of SS. Cosmas and Damian, Jerash) are somewhat similar, yet divergent from designs found within churches from the Italian Peninsula (e.g., the Theodorean Basilical Complex, Aquileia; the Church of San Vitale, Ravenna; and the Church of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Classe). The purpose of this thesis is to use the principles of semiotic theory to re-evaluate the use of symbols and icons within sacred mosaic programs, juxtaposed against the historical and ecclesiastical context surrounding their creation.