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4 Things the Ancient Wari Did Before It Was Cool | UNEARTHING
https://unearthingarchaeoblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/4-things-the-ancient-wari-did-before-it-was-cool
Archaeology, Art, and Museums. February 13, 2014. 4 Things the Ancient Wari Did Before It Was Cool. Because we have loads of written accounts of Inca life and history*, we know more about them than we do about any other ancient South American culture. But they were only around for about a 100 years (specifically, from 1438 to 1533)–loads of other equally amazing cultures had developed on the continent, long before the Inca even sheared their first llama. 2 Building Efficient Road Networks. A map of Quech...
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Moai Kavakava | UNEARTHING
https://unearthingarchaeoblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/grinning-old-men-with-protruding-ribcages
Archaeology, Art, and Museums. February 6, 2014. Easter Island art is not all about the giant stone moai. Heads–the wooden figurines the islanders used to carve out of crooked toromiro. Tree branches (or, sometimes, driftwood) are just as weird and wonderful. Here, I want to tell you about the genre of Easter Island art known as moai kavakava. 8211;that is, “ribcage figure”. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons. Symbols of whatever clan the sculptures belonged to? Who knows. Moai kavakava. In Heyerdahl’...
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Did Ancient Easter Islanders Really Commit Environmental Suicide? | UNEARTHING
https://unearthingarchaeoblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/did-ancient-easter-islanders-really-commit-environmental-suicide
Archaeology, Art, and Museums. January 16, 2014. Did Ancient Easter Islanders Really Commit Environmental Suicide? Image taken from Amazon.co.uk. However, I have recently come across a book which makes a very persuasive case that, in fact, ancient Easter Islanders may not have committed environmental suicide after all. This book is Beverly Haun’s Inventing Easter Island. 2005) or Richard Wright’s A Short History of Progress. 2005) Books like these often. The list of examples like these could go on. T...
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6 Reasons why Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum is super-cool | UNEARTHING
https://unearthingarchaeoblog.wordpress.com/2014/04/03/7-reasons-why-oxfords-pitt-rivers-museum-is-super-cool
Archaeology, Art, and Museums. April 3, 2014. 6 Reasons why Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum is super-cool. As it turns out, I think the Pitt Rivers has become my new favourite museum–and here are 7 reasons why. A display that’s all about hair removal technology–that is, mostly, razors. A particularly chaotic display, focussing on human form in art. You could dedicate an entire visit to this one display–or see it every time you visit, and discover something new each time. On the museum website, the Pitt River...
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Paris’s Musée du quai Branly: A Review | UNEARTHING
https://unearthingarchaeoblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/pariss-musee-du-quai-branly-a-review
Archaeology, Art, and Museums. February 27, 2014. Paris’s Musée du quai Branly: A Review. I know I promised a short series on the Wari, but I was in Paris last week, and I’d like to write down my thoughts on the Musée du Quai Branly while they’re still relatively fresh. Half-caribou half-walrus mask from somewhere in Alaska. I think it’s Yup’ik, if I remember correctly. The Ghanaian golweights display. It’s been almost eight years now since the Quai Branly first opened, and I think it’s fair ...I donR...
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Bizarre, Haphazard & Gleefully Unethical | UNEARTHING
https://unearthingarchaeoblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/bizarre-haphazard-gleefully-unethical
Archaeology, Art, and Museums. March 27, 2014. Bizarre, Haphazard and Gleefully Unethical. Further on, Roth lists the items from the tomb of the “Andean Princess”:. 8220;A part of the Undergarment of the Cacica. 8220;The Upper Garment or Shirt without Sleeves. 8220;The Belt or Faja, worn by the Cacia, and denoting her rank among the aristocracy of the Inca’s dynasty. 8220;The large Kerchief called Andro, in which the Cacica carried her various implements. 8220;Three instruments for making Fringes. 8220;L...
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The Chief’s Imps: Buffoonery and Power in Hawaiian Wooden Sculpture | UNEARTHING
https://unearthingarchaeoblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/the-chiefs-imps-buffoonery-and-power-in-hawaiian-wooden-sculpture
Archaeology, Art, and Museums. November 3, 2013. The Chief’s Imps: Buffoonery and Power in Hawaiian Wooden Sculpture. Double bowl with figure, with red feathers and possibly dog fur for hair. Late eighteenth/mid nineteenth century. The spots on the skin are pearl disks. Is the figure repairing the bigger bowl with its rope? The bowl that humiliates Kahahana and Kepuapoi of Oahu. Currently in Honolulu’s Bishop Museum. Bowl with three figures. Late eighteenth/early nineteenth century. Original here. Ancien...
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Tlatilco double-faced figurines: the world’s oldest medical illustrations? | UNEARTHING
https://unearthingarchaeoblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/09/tlatilco-double-faced-figurines-the-worlds-oldest-medical-illustrations
Archaeology, Art, and Museums. May 9, 2014. Tlatilco double-faced figurines: the world’s oldest medical illustrations? Were the world’s earliest medical illustrations made in ancient Mesoamerica? A few days ago, while perusing the online catalogue of Norwich’s Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts. In Tlatilco these figurines would have been found. It seems that ancient Tlatilcans (? Know what these double-faced figurines mean, or how they were used. You could say that the term “medical illustration...
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Not just there to be sacrificed: What was life like for an Inca child? | UNEARTHING
https://unearthingarchaeoblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/not-just-there-to-be-sacrificed-what-was-life-like-for-an-inka-child
Archaeology, Art, and Museums. January 30, 2014. Not just there to be sacrificed: What was life like for an Inca child? Everybody knows that the Inca sacrificed children to their gods. Just last year, the internet was all over a study. Children, all across the Inca empire, who were not. Sacrificed. What was life like for them? So how do we start trying to figure out what life was like for little Incas*? Guaman Poma’s New Chronicle and Good Government. And which is still largely undeciphered today. It doe...