Dictionary of Bhakti, Part 3 (2024)

Buddhist Slabs from Nalanda, Berliner Indologische Studien, Reinbek, Band 6/7, 1990/1991, pp. 48-67

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH IN PROTO-BACTRIAN CULTURE: RITUAL AND CONFLICT

2002

Body ritual among the nacirema

Healing in Images and Texts: The Sickbed Scene. In Patients and Performative Identities: At the Intersection of the Mesopotamian Technical Disciplines and Their Clients, edited by J. Cale Johnson. Eisenbrauns, the Pennsylvania state university press. 129-158.

Panayotov, 2020

Introduction: From Grecian Urn to Embodied Object

Art History, 2018

“Receive my Breast and suck from it, that you may live” Towards the Imagery of two Ossuaries from the Chalcolithic Peqi'in Cave

Ugarit-Forschungen , 2015

Reconciling the Body Signifying Flesh, Maturity, and Age at Çatalhöyük

Assembling Çatalhöyük , 2017

Studies of the body in archaeology have, until recent years, been conducted using discrete datasets including physical and biological evidence from skeletal remains (White, 2005; Sofaer, 2006; Geller, 2008; Agarwal & Glencross, 2011) or bodily representations in material culture (Meskell, 1999; Rautman, 2000; Loren, 2001; Thomas, 2004; Nanoglou, 2008), but rarely the two together. This separation has been produced through the fundamental distinction between the biological and the cultural specializations within the discipline and the ways in which the body has been approached. Despite being living organisms, the mode of living by humans (diet, labour, reproduction) is predominantly socially constructed and ordered (Turner, 2008) much like the objects in a burial assemblage, the scene in a wall painting or the shape of a figurine. Attempts to provide interdisciplinary studies of the body that combine these areas are increasing through novel theoretical frameworks concerning burial assemblages (i.e. Sofaer Derevenski, 2000; Nakamura & Meskell, 2013a, 2013b; Pearson & Meskell, 2014). We argue that the compatibility between all aspects of the body offers an opportunity to provide a much more robust basis for identifying embodied social choices and constraints. We demonstrate this using evidence from a range of data collected from bodies at Çatalhöyük.

Becoming Petrified: the Making of Archaeological Personhood, 2008

Birth, Death and Reincarnation in the Life of a Fifteenth-Century Tibetan Princess

Domestic Devotions in the Early Modern World, 2018

Cinerary urns from the Nagyrév Culture ornamented with symbolic representations found at the Kisapostag - Dunai-dűlő site.pdf

In 2004, the Intercisa Museum conducted a salvage excavation at Kisapostag-Dunai-dűlő. Two urns from the site are decorated with incised motifs whose parallels are known from several other sites. The grave goods recovered from grave 38 assign the burial to the late phase of the Nagyrev Culture. The main scene opposite the handle can be interpreted as human portrayals. The motif between the two human figures resembles the decoration of the um from Tököl. It would appear that it represents a woven textile. However, the scene itself does not illustrate the act of weaving since there is no indication of a loom and gender-specific traits are also lacking. The beak-like projection on the Kisapostag um could be interpreted as the head of a bird-like creature. In this case, the figure is the portrayal of a hybrid creature or of a human wearing a mask. The scenes perhaps narrate an event or an action, irrespective of whether it revolves around a daily event or one that took place in the mythical past, or its ritual re-enactment. It is possible that the scene portrays the detail of a dance, although the laying on of the hand could also symbolize an act of consecration or of taking possession of the artefact. The um from grave 100 can likewise be dated to the late phase of the Nagyrev Culture. The vessel was earlier used for some other purpose and was utilized as an um only at the end of its life-cycle. Of the vessel's decorative motifs, the figure appearing opposite the handle has a good counterpart on a vessel from neighbouring Dunaujvaros and the vessel form too matches the um from Kisapostag. Both vessels portray mythical creature or creatures with horns. The X motifs enclosed within the rectangles symbolizing the body could be the depiction of a garment or of a tattoo on the vessel from Dunaujvaros. Of the three and two pairs of limbs, the lower ones differ substantially from the upper ones on both urns, reflecting the anatomical differences between human legs and arms, again suggesting that the figures portray anthropoid beings, but not humans. The triangular peak projecting from the linear border on the Kisapostag vessel is perhaps another indication of the extraordinary nature of the figures. Its form and central position make it similar to an omphalos. The urns from Kisapostag can modify the earlier interpretations of similar depictions on two important points: first, the human-like figures that appeared to lack a head actually do have a head, and second, we can assume the portrayal of homed creatures during the Early Bronze Age. The central figure on the vessel found at Budapest-Pannonhalmi út can be interpreted as a homed creature sitting on a chair. Humans, spirits and deities holding a snake in one or both hands are attested in Europe from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, while anthropoid figures grasping a snake are known since the 4th millennium BC in the Near East, many of whom are portrayed with horns or a bird's head. Contacts between Europe and the Near East have been archaeologically attested during the period from 2300 and 1900 BC, the very period to which the Nagyrev Culture can be dated on the basis of the calibrated radiocarbon dates. Certain artefact types were extremely common in Central and South-East Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, while others are rarely encountered. The limestone statuette found under the Iron Age tumulus at Weilmiinster-Dietenhausen is of outstanding importance in this respect, for it demonstrates that an object that was an organic part of Near Eastern beliefs could "travel" thousands of kilometres and cross cultural boundaries in the process. The best parallels to the statuette come from Tell Asmar, from Sanctuary I of the Square Temple, from the same building where a seal bearing a depiction of a homed human figure surrounded by snakes was found. Yet another form of contacts is represented by finds that were made in Europe, but their form and manufacturing technique originate from the Near East. A similar phenomenon can be assumed regarding the portrayal on the vessel from Budapest-Pannonhalmi út: the local adoption of a motif taken from an object produced in the Near East, which at one point in its life-cycle – whose duration remains unknown – reached the Carpathian Basin. It is possible that its adoption was facilitated by the existence of a similar homed creature in the beliefs of the Nagyrev Culture.