Picturing the Bronze Age

by Johan Ling (Editor), Peter Skoglund (Editor), Ulf Bertilsson (Editor)

Overview

Pictures from the Bronze Age are numerous, vivid and complex. There is no other prehistoric period that has produced such a wide range of images spanning from rock art to figurines to decoration on bronzes and gold. Fourteen papers, with a geographical coverage from Scandinavia to the Iberian Peninsula, examine a wide range of topics reflecting the many forms and expressions of Bronze Age imagery encompassing important themes including religion, materiality, mobility, interaction, power and gender.

Contributors explore specific elements of rock art in some detail such as the representation of the human form; images of manslaughter; and gender identities. The relationship between rock art imagery and its location on the one hand, and metalwork and networks of trade and exchange of both materials and ideas on the other, are considered. Modern and ancient perceptions of rock art are discussed, in particular the changing perceptions that have developed during almost 150 years of documented research.

Picturing the Bronze Age is based on an international workshop with the same title held in Tanum, Sweden in October 2012.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782978800
Publisher:	Oxbow Books
Publication date:	02/28/2015
Series:	Swedish Rock Art Research Series , #3
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	78 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Johan Ling is a researcher and lecturer at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History in Gothenburg. His research interests are primarily in rock art, its chronology and landscapes, particularly the relationship between rock art and shore displacement in Bronze Age Sweden; and in the use lead isotope analyses on bronze items to investigate the possibility of copper extraction Sweden at that time.
Peter Skoglund is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Gothenburg. His main research interest is Scandinavian Bronze Age material culture, especially regional variations in material culture and the relationship between local material expressions and external influences, with particular reference to monuments, rock-art and trees. his latest research involves the application of new dating evidence for the chronological and geographical framework of rock-art in South and Central Swedenand its social and ritual significance.
Ulf Bertilsson is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Gothenburg with research interests in the interpretation of Bronze Age rock art and, particularly its cosmological referents. He has been a key player in the establishment and development of the Swedish rock art archive held by the university.

Table of Contents

Picturing the Bronze Age – an introduction
Johan Ling, Peter Skoglund and Ulf Bertilsson

From folk oddities and remarkable relics for the educated to scientific substrates for archaeologists – 135 years of changing perceptions of the rock carvings in Northern Bohuslän, Sweden
Ulf Bertilsson

Hyper-Masculinity and the Construction of Gender Identities in the Bronze Age Rock Carvings of Southern Sweden
Lynne Bevan

Mixed media, mixed messages: religious transmission in Bronze Age Scandinavia
Richard Bradley

Walking on the stones of years. Some remarks on the NW Iberian rock art
R. Fábregas Valcarce & C. Rodríguez-Rellán

A rock with a view: New perspectives on Danish rock art
Louise Felding

Contested worlds – A chronotopic essay about mortuary monuments and cultural change in Northern Europe in the 2nd millennia BC
Joakim Goldhahn

Rock art and the alchemy of bronze. Metal and images in Early Bronze Age Scotland
Andrew Meirion Jones

The Stranger King (Bull) and Rock art
Michael Rowlands and Johan Ling

Trading images: exchange, transformation and identity in Valcamonica rock-art between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age
Alberto Marretta

Carl Georg Brunius. A Pioneer in Swedish Petroglyph Research from the Early Nineteenth Century Jarl Nordbladh

The maritime factor in the distribution of Bronze Age rock art in Galicia
Manuel Santos-Estévez and Alejandro Güimil-Fariña

The Alpine and Scandinavian Rock Art in the Bronze Age: a Common Cultural Matrix in a Web of Continental Influences
Umberto Sansoni

Rock-art as history Representations of human images in a historical perspective
Peter Skoglund

Sword-Wielders and Manslaughter. Recently Discovered Images on the Rock Carvings of Brastad, Western Sweden
Andreas Toreld