Monuments and Memory: Architecture and Visual Culture in Ancient Anatolian History

Abstract

This article on long-term cultural landscapes of Anatolia focuses on various episodes of fragmentation and connectivity with adjacent regions, through the study of monumental architecture and visual/material culture from prehistory to the end of the Achaemenid period. It attempts to trace a line of thought around monumentality and social memory, in order to see our paradigms from Anatolian history in a critical long-term perspective. The article argues that architecture and monuments are the most visible and powerful remnants of past civilizations, especially through funerary monuments, and that Anatolia, with its vast array of monuments from multitudinous peoples leaving their mark over centuries, provides a unique opportunity to study, and marvel at, the “landscape of the dead.”