'Animal Modernities' challenges the traditional human-centered focus of art history and explores how modern art, visual culture, and modernity itself emerge from relationships between humans and animals. The essays in this volume reveal histories of exploitation and domination, as well as confusion and ambivalence, and occasional moments when affinities between humans and animals have been embraced, and animal agency asserted and acknowledged. The authors collectively point to the importance ...

Ancient Egyptian animal mummies can be found in almost every Egyptological museum collection. These mummified bodies of animals—from cats and falcons to scarabs and fish—played a role in animal cults and religion, but could also represent a favourite pet or serve as food for the deceased. Especially in Graeco-Roman Egypt, large numbers of animal mummies were deposited as votive offerings related to animal cults, thus playing a significant role in local economies. Studying their remains he...

Archaeological research on early villages has repeatedly shown that despite their small size these settlements were anything but simple. Excavations at the Late Neolithic and early Aeneolithic village of Monjukli Depe in the Kopet Dag foothills of Turkmenistan contribute to a picture of this complexity. General uniformities in house plans and material culture conceal underlying variability in material and social practices. Small-scale analyses of the preparation and use of space in buildings,...

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...

This volume presents various facets of recent archaeological investigations into Neolithic and Bronze Age societies in the Carpathian Basin spanning from the 7th and 2nd millennium BCE. It delves into population dynamics, settlement patterns, and the spread of the Neolithic way of life through methodological approaches such as demographic analysis and environmental modelling.

Moreover, the book explores social transformations and the development of inequalities, emphasizing the role of cultur...

Magnificent publication on the depiction of Paris by the French impressionists such as Monet, Cassatt, Renoir and Degas

In 1867, Claude Monet painted three iconic views of Paris from the balcony of the Louvre, thus firing the starting shot of Impressionism. This book explores these groundbreaking works in detail, alongside a multitude of other Impressionist paintings and drawings.

Experts from leading museums around the world show how Paul Cézanne, Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt and many ...

This is no ordinary handbook on writing. It is the unique result of a unique, intense, collaboration between author Ron van Wieringen and the advanced AI language model Gemini. Starting from just a few pages of notes, this in-depth work on the craft of fiction was created in record time. Discover the techniques and insights explored during this fascinating process: from forging vivid language and sensory scenes to building complex characters and compelling plots, illustrated with striking exa...