Waarom stonden er doodshoofden op piratenvlaggen? Waar zijn de schedels van beroemde componisten zoals Mozart, Haydn en Beethoven gebleven? Waarom gebruikten de Bulgaren het hoofd van een graaf van Vlaanderen als drinkbeker? Hingen de Kelten de afgehakte hoofden van hun verslagen tegenstanders op aan hun paarden? Was een Romeinse keizerin een wegbereidster voor de forensische wetenschap?

Jan Huijbrechts zorgt ervoor dat u zich het hoofd niet hoeft te breken over deze brandende vragen. In De b...

'Als je wilt weten wat antropologie is, moet je kijken naar wat antropologen doen,' zo schrijven de auteurs van dit Elementaire Deeltje. In deze boeiende introductie op dit vakgebied komen dus, naast de belangrijkste principes en methodes, veel voorbeelden aan bod van de antropoloog aan het werk. Puttend uit hun eigen ervaringen in Indonesië en Midden-Amerika bespreken de auteurs de wijze waarop sociale en culturele antropologie ons begrip over de menselijke samenleving en cultuur hebben hel...

Barkcloth or tapa, a cloth made from the inner bark of trees, was widely used in place of woven cloth in the Pacific islands until the 19th century. A ubiquitous material, it was integral to the lives of islanders and used for clothing, furnishings and ritual artefacts. Material Approaches to Polynesian Barkcloth takes a new approach to the study of the history of this region through its barkcloth heritage, focusing on the plants themselves and surviving objects in historic collections. This ...

This is the first study to examine in detail ritual objects known as 'Lamak', a fascinating and unique form of ephemeral material culture which is a prominent feature of Balinese creativity.A lamak is a long narrow ritual hanging that is an essential requirement at almost all rituals in Bali. It is hung from altars and shrines at temple festivals and on festive holy days. Made usually of palm leaves, it is by nature ephemeral and it is made time and again. Even though permanent forms of the l...

In this cahier, art historians Alette Fleischer (PhD) and Bart Krieger (M.A.) unravel the hidden messages of the black clocks of the Parnassia Collection and categorize them in a novel way. They have aimed to contextualize the pendulum clocks au Noir in the historic timeframe they were created in and displayed (ca 1790-1830) and uncovered some of their iconographic secrets with links to the transatlantic slavetrade, Eurocentrism and the French Enlightenment. Moreover, the two art historians p...

The art of painting on bark was once widely found in many parts of the Pacific, including the Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea, the home of the Kwoma people who are the subject of this study. The styles of the paintings and the subjects of designs were as varied as the hundreds of languages spoken in this region.

Following European contact at the end of the nineteenth century, and the social change this brought, many New Guinea peoples discontinued producing their vibrant designs on ba...