Commemorative Monuments Research Articles

Gestures of compensation: post-apartheid monuments and memorials

Gestures of compensation:post-partheid monuments and memorials Sabine Marschall (bio) Introduction With the advent of the post-apartheid era, the heritage sector has been flourishing in South Africa; new museums have been built, new heritage sites, commemorative monuments, memorials, statues and busts have been set up throughout the country. Not everyone agrees that there is a need for such commemorative endeavour, especially in view of the country's staggering levels of poverty and scarce resources. Some even suggest that there should be a moratorium on the establishment of any new monuments and memorials (eg Maré 2002). My intention is neither to justify nor to criticise the current monumental drive, but rather to help understand it. Drawing on Human Needs theory, this article will firstly consider such sites as symbolic gestures that fulfil basic emotional human needs.1 Moving from needs to interests, I will present new monuments and heritage sites as gestures of compensation. This applies on two levels: first, the declaration of a site as a heritage site and erection of a monument are intended as a symbolic reparation to victims and their descendents, often compensating for the lack of 'real' reparations (ie monetary payments). Secondly, as with all forms of heritage, the establishment of monuments contributes to the construction of a 'desired past' and foregrounding of specific memories, as a means of compensating for potential shortcomings and errors that taint the 'real past'. Monuments as fulfilling core human needs Most post-apartheid monuments can be considered cultural symbols that respond to a situation of conflict (resistance against colonial oppression, the anti-apartheid struggle, etc). These conflicts might be historically concluded, but their legacy continues to impact on present society both in [End Page 78] material terms and in terms of identity and consciousness. In fact, the memory of these conflicts - although painful - might be harnessed precisely to foster the creation of a particular historical consciousness and pass it on to the next generation. This is one of the implicit purposes of any monument. Although carrying the danger of nurturing bitterness and inciting hatred, in post-apartheid South Africa monuments are, on the contrary, meant to facilitate reconciliation.2 This rationale implicitly acknowledges that the desired reconciliation has not yet been achieved. In other words, prejudice, resentment, even hatred, are still dividing people as a result of a deep-seated conflict that - in some people's minds - has not ended but simply shifted to another level.3 It is useful in this context to take a closer look at some concepts of, and theoretical approaches to, conflict resolution and reconciliation. Mark Ross's research into the role that culture - eg psycho-cultural narratives, cultural symbols (such as monuments), and ritual actions - play in situations of conflict (for instance in Israel, Northern Ireland, or Sri Lanka) is highly pertinent in this regard (Ross 2000; 2002; 2004). Cultural symbols and their associated narratives can escalate, but also de-escalate, situations of conflict. This applies particularly to what John Burton has called 'deep-rooted' conflicts, ie conflicts between 'identity groups' (national, ethnic, racial, etc) over matters of sovereignty, dignity, autonomy, group security and cultural survival (Avruch 2000:86). As opposed to conflicts over scarce resources or material interests, which can be resolved through a process of negotiation and power bargaining, these conflicts are more difficult to resolve and require an engagement with their root causes, for instance through problem-solving workshops. It could be argued that the racial divide in South Africa is an example of such a deep-rooted conflict. Burton's approach to conflict resolution is based on what has become known as Human Needs theory, of which he is the key proponent (Burton 1987; 1990). Human Needs theorists hold that there is a set of basic human needs that is universal, common to all people across time and space, and grounded in human nature. Due to their ontological status, human needs, unlike interests, are non-negotiable and unalterable; their satisfaction is imperative (Avruch 2000). Many conflicts are the result of the continued frustration or non-satisfaction of core human needs, and the denial of basic, inalienable values. Lack of freedom, injustice and inequality, for instance, can be said...

Que faire des traces d'une catastrophe ? Mémoire des accidents et aménagement

When disaster leaves its scars In 1970, forty-seven people died in the fire at the «5/7» dance hall of Saint-Laurent-du-Pont in Isère. The town still bears the scars today, particularly because of the liability proceedings opposing parents of victims, the dance hall managers and the mayor of the town. A commemorative monument perpetuates the conflict and shows the turnstiles that were the cause of the disaster.

Language of Images: Commemorative Monuments of the Irish Famine in Quebec and Ireland, 1848-1998

Language of Images: Commemorative Monuments of the Irish Famine in Quebec and Ireland, 1848-1998

Tombs and Memory: Some Recent Books

The literature on Gothic and late Gothic tomb sculpture has, like that of most other fields, exploded in the last quarter century. Fascinating for the access it promises to real people and their concerns, tomb sculpture has also lent itself readily to some of the methods of recent art-historical inquiry, for example, the roles of works of art in their social, political, and functional contexts and the portrayal of women and their place in society and family. When I was assigned the topic Commemorative Monuments and Practices for a qualifying exam question in the late 1970s, it was still relatively easy to get an overview of the subject. The largest number of works, mostly German dissertations, catalogued the tombs of a given region, whether or not they had anything in common with one another. A second group of works placed single tombs or groups of related tombs into stylistic contexts or, less frequently, political or social ones. A third group examined the sources and forms of specific aspects of tomb iconography: the gisant, the animals at its feet, the angels, or the so-called pleurants, the smaller figures, usually arranged in arcades, around the tumba. A fourth established a formal typology of tomb monuments: baldachin tombs, table tombs, wall tombs, double tombs, etc., while a fifth, relatively small group addressed burial practice, the funerary liturgy and Office of the Dead, and the function of tombs in liturgical and paraliturgical practices of the time. Finally, a handful of works offered larger overviews: Henriette s'Jacob, Erwin Panofsky, and the new book by Kurt Bauch.1

La France de l'Ouest (Bretagne, Pays de la Loire)

Cult places and practices of Western Gaul are mentioned by some Classical writers (Diodorus, Strabo. ..). In this area, archaeological investigations have brought to light very few monumental shrines, but a great number of religious activities of various kinds. In another hand, among Gallo-Roman sanctuaries with earlier occupation levels, some reveal a continuity of the religious function between the Iron Age and Roman period. In funerary contexts, religious manifestations are represented by offerings or by architectural remains ; numerous standing stones, recorded in Western Gaul, can be considered as commemorative monuments, like anthropomorphic sculptures. The last ones are generally found in settlements where cult enclosures and ritual deposits are also attested. Lastly, coin offerings and objects deposits in watery contexts are other testimonies of these numerous cult and ritual practices in the Armorican Massif and its margins.

Father Arseny, 1893–1973: Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father • Father Arseny: A Cloud of Witnesses

Father Arseny, 1893–1973: Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father • Father Arseny: A Cloud of Witnesses

Monumental Challenge

The National Mall has reached a saturation point for major commemorative monuments. Decisive planning and leadership are essential to broaden the geographic area for such projects and to develop the expanded territory in appropriate ways.

A ‘secret history’ of local mourning: The South African War and state commemoration

Abstract A central claim in the war commemoration literature is that World War I brought about a fundamental change in state commemorative practices. This argument is problematised using a case study concerned with the relationship between local mourning, state commemoration and remembrance following the South African War of 1899–1902, in which meanings about nationalism, belonging and citizenship have been inscribed within a ‘legendary topography’ which has concretised remembrance in commemorative memorials and monuments. Two silences in commemoration from this War — a partial one concerning children and a more total one concerning all black people — are teased out in relation to the Vrouemonument built in 1913, the Gedenktuine or Gardens of Remembrance constructed during the 1960s and 70s, and some post-1994 initiatives, and also related to ideas about citizenship and belonging. Many commemorative practices claimed as originating in Europe between 1914 and 1918 were predated by these of the South Africa...

Richmonds Monument Avenue by Sarah Shields Driggs, Richard Guy Wilson, Robert P. Winthrop

BOOK REVIEW Book Review Winner of the SESAH zoor Book Award Sarah Shields Driggs, Richard Guy Wilson, and Robert P. Winthrop with original photography byJohn 0. Peters, Richmonds MonumentAvenue, Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001, xi+ 28opp., illus., $45, ISBN o-80J8-260J-J· T here is no better mirror of American culture -its aspirations, progress, and disappointments -than the fabric of its cities. And, as stage-sets for the extraordinary and everyday experiences of their inhabitants, the image and identity of city streets are everybody's business. Through their close study of one of the South's most remarkable streets, the authors of Richmond's Monument Avenue underscore these urban truths. Conceived in the r88os as a splendid thoroughfare distinguished with fine houses, careful landscaping, and unique commemorative statues, Monument Avenue fits firmly in the tradition of the City Beautiful. So too, its conception and realization involved matters ofreal estate speculation, transportation, and societal values that resonate with the histories of other familiar "streets of power," particularly New York's Fifth Avenue and Chicago's Prairie Avenue. This street, however, 1s Richmond's Monument Avenue, and its story necessarily engages a rich if often discordant local heritage, for nineteenthcentury Richmond was caught at once in the progressive fervor of the New South and the nostalgic pull of the cult of the lost cause. As a result, the book is a study ofhow power and identity intersect to define urban form and is dedicated to exploring fully whether Monument Avenue is a "shrine to Richmond's obsession with its past" or a model of modern urban planning designed to endure adaptation and change. The authors acknowledge that Monument Avenue's story is a complex tale to tell, engaging the history of the city and its politics; the statues and buildings that line the street; and, most significantly , the people who built and lived on the street together with those figures-from Robert E. Lee to Arthur Ashe-who are represented in its statuary. Collaborators Sarah Shields Driggs, Richard Guy Wilson, and Robert P. Winthrop craft a lucid story through meticulously researched chapters, thick with descriptions of the street's material culture, that explore how and why Monument Avenue was created. The book begins with a glimpse at Monument Avenue's "Origins," a chapter that offers a deeply structured context of Richmond's socio-political and economic history. Not only does this section situate Monument Avenue in the city's chronicle of pre-Civil War and post-Civil War prosperity and its urban consequences; moreover, the formative discussion reveals a key subtext that is woven through the book: the racial tension that is an uncomfortable yet recurrent theme in Richmond's history. Chapter 2, devoted to "The Statues," follows . Five commemorative monuments linked to the Civil War and conceived to evoke a poignant southern history (depictions of Robert E. Lee ARRIS 73 BOOK REVIEW [189o}, J.E.B. Stuart [1907}, Jefferson Davis [r9o7}, T. J. "Stonewall: Jackson [1915}, and Matthew Fontaine Maury [1929}) together with the recently added Arthur Ashe statue (1996) render Monument Avenue a "great gallery of outdoor sculpture." This chapter, however, reveals that its masterworks, which both venerate the old South and optimistically anticipate the modern South, are not mere objects of public art; they are political and cultural symbols, ripe for the potentially conflicting interpretation by dominant and decentered members of the community. A discussion of "Building A Neighborhood," chapter 3, presents an overview of Monument Avenue's tout ensemble, a quickly evolving melange of great houses, town houses, new apartments, and houses ofworship, and the personalities that forged their development-real estate speculators, builders, land owners, and new residents. In parallel to the treatment of the memorials in chapter 2, chapter 4, "Houses, Styles, and Architects," examines the architectural fabric of Monument Avenue, covering informative background concerning the regional figures and national players, including John Russell Pope and William Lawrence Bottomley, who designed its buildings. Another central theme ofthe book commands this chapter: the notion of "unity with diversity," which, the authors assert, distinguishes the spaces and places of Monument Avenue. This idea extends to both the accommodations of stylistic breadth...

Tradition, Ritual and Identity in Jean Rouaud’s Loire-Inférieure Cycle

The publication, between 1990 and 1999, of the rive volumes of Jean Rouaud's fictionalised autobiography (1) coincided not only with considerable creative and critical activity, in France and elsewhere, in the rich domain of autofiction, but also with significant developments in the study of collective memory and in the historical, aesthetic and semiological evaluation of the war memorial and other commemorative monuments. (2) Given this conjunction, it is perhaps not surprising that some of the most discerning and illuminating criticism devoted to Rouaud's work has focused on these or related issues. Jean-Claude Lebrun's brief 1996 study offers a useful overview of the dominant themes and the general structural principles informing Les Champs d'honneur and Des Hommes illustres, (3) while Geoff Woollen shows that these two texts can be read as acts of commemoration which constitute an eloquent alternative to the kitsch, sentimentality and jingoism of the religious and civic tributes to the family's war-dead. (4) Jean-Pierre Richard's tracking of recurrent liquid and mineral images in the first two volumes acts as a framework for the analysis both of some of the central traumatic events and of the unseen fragility which ultimately killed Rouaud's apparently stalwart father (Jo le dur, HI, p. 172); (5) Sylvie Ducas-Spaes's review article focuses on the themes of grief, war and memory in Les Champs d'honneur, (6) while Simona Furdui offers a psychobiographical reading of the obsession du pere in Les Champs d'honneur and Des Hommes illustres. (7) Woollen's recent, revealing article Deepening the Texture: Remembering and Embroidering in Jean Rouaud's Family Cycle, (8) highlights the differences in the treatment of the paternal and maternal family histories, the telling discrepancies in detail between the earlier and later volumes and the role which readers' reactions (notably, the reactions of readers from within the family) have had in the evolution of the cycle and in particular, in the delay or disclosure of information and in the development of the reflexive, self-correcting approach of Sur la scene comme au ciel. Although, in each of the studies cited, the critic has been attentive to the structural and thematic patterns of the series, I would argue, nevertheless, that the critical preoccupation with the role of the family and particularly, with the relationships between Jean and his parents has resulted in the neglect of some of the broader issues explored in the quintet. The personal and family dramas which are evoked in Rouaud's texts are played out within a specific rural community whose traditions and rituals, exemplars, sanctions and prohibitions guarantee a degree of social cohesion, while at the same time serving as a foil to the non-observance and transgressions of individual members and offering a means of measuring deviation from the established norm and personal differentiation from the social group. The present article proposes to examine this broader dynamic interaction between community and individual. I shall argue here that the coherence of the quintet derives in large measure from Rouaud's sustained exploration, across the rive volumes, of the relationships between social identity and personal identity, and especially between the dutiful observance of sacred and secular ritual and the deviant or transgressive affirmation of self. Tradition versus Modernity, Country versus Town The rural world into which Jean Rouaud is born is a world in transition. It is a world which has a very long and often turbulent history and which is proud of its distinctive religious and cultural heritage, but which is undergoing rapid change--the implementation of post-war remembrement policy, the increase in the national parc automobile, the spread of telecommunications--and whose traditions seem to be threatened by the encroachment of the town and its effects on the aspirations and the world-view of the younger generation. …

The ‘civic religion’ of the Resistance in post-war Italy

SummaryThe problem of the legitimacy or otherwise of the Resistance tradition in post-war Italy has been addressed in recent years mainly in terms of the role of the partisan struggle and its political legacy. This article aims to assess the tradition in terms of commemorative practices, rituals, artistic representations and monuments. It seeks to evaluate whether the Resistance gave rise to a civic religion that may be compared to those which existed in the Liberal period, based on the heroic struggles and figures of the Risorgimento, and the Fascist period, which drew on the feelings of loss and injustice that followed the First World War. It is argued that, although the Resistance lacked, prior to the 1960s, a high degree of official sponsorship, it did acquire some of the features of a civic religion. Its appeal was mainly limited to the regions administered by the Left which had seen a significant degree of Resistance activity in 1943-5. Even here, however, it was difficult to sustain the tradition as a key feature of community life during and after the economic boom: the eclipse of public culture, the decline of public mourning and the development of commercial leisure and mass culture all served to deprive it of meaning. Although intellectuals, politicians and ex-partisans reacted to this situation, the visual and rhetorical languages associated with the commemoration of the Resistance became increasingly divorced from everyday life and dominant social values.

La Commémoration : traduction ou trahison ? (Saint-Gaudens, Ives, Lowell)

A commemorative monument is the translation of a historical event into a work of art. Such is the Shaw Memorial on the Boston Common, a high-relief by Augustus Saint-Gaudens which celebrates the valor of the first African-American regiment in the Civil War. This monument later became the inspiration of a musical piece by Charles Ives, and a poem by Robert Lowell. Our aim is to analyse the latter as translations of the original into different artistic media. These tributes to the work of a former master are also attempts at renewing the expression of civic memory, and to judge the present in the light of a heroic past.

The Public Commemorative Monument: Mino da Fiesole's Tombs in the Florentine Badia

The monumental quattrocento tombs in the Florentine Badia for the jurist and diplomat Bernardo Giugni, d. 1466, and the monastery's legendary founder, Count Hugo of Tuscany, d. 1001, are typically—but unjustifiably—described as simple imitations of the tombs in S. Croce for the Florentine chancellors Leonardo Bruni and Carlo Marsuppini. Like their more famous predecessors, Mino's tombs offer an allegorical discourse on public virtue. By evoking, transforming, and integrating a variety of visual and historical sources, Mino created a sophisticated visual and symbolic language that serves to commemorate two particular individuals and the virtues of justice and charity that they embodied.

The Public Commemorative Monument: Mino da Fiesole's Tombs in the Florentine Badia

The Public Commemorative Monument: Mino da Fiesole's Tombs in the Florentine Badia

The Army's Navy Series . Vol. 2: Assault and Logistics: Union Army Coastal and River Operations, 1861-1866 (review)

270CIVIL WAR HISTORY have expressed their sorrow, elation, and the remembrance of that trauma in numerous memorials. Beginning with the erection of the first one in honor of Capt. John P. Gleeson in 1 866, some sixty-five have been dedicated, the last one in 1 993 in honorofGen. Samuel Garland, Jr. As Susan Cooke Soderberg asserts, "Monuments are testaments to the important events and people of our national past and how we interpret them affects our national identity" (xi). In "Lest We Forget" she chronicles that expression in a book designed both as a guide and as a historical reference for "people interested in Maryland and in architectural history, and social historians" (vii). Reflective of commemorative monuments from the late nineteenth century until the 1920s, they bear the imprint of a "Renaissance aesthetic of beauty" (xxiii). The most popular forms were the statue of the solitary soldier and the obelisk embellished with romantic and classical inscriptions. Larger monuments , in demanding more intricate sculptures, as Soderberg asserts, "gave new life to artistic sculpture in America" (xxiv). Contrary to the assumption that the "soldier-at-parade-rest" was mass produced, the statue was actually tailored from a standard model to meet local demands. By 19 15 the number of companies engaged in their production had grown to sixty-three. Soderberg sees three phases in their use: funereal in honoring the dead, reconciliation in marking the end of hostilities, and commemorative in emphasizing education and historical interpretation. Usefully she divides her book into five tours or chapters, plus a sixth for those not fitting into them. With the exception of those dedicated to Generals Reno, Garland, and Meade, all were erected by Maryland groups, the state, or by the federal government. Numerous private organizations, such as the Society of Army and Navy of the Confederate States in the State of Maryland, United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Women's Relief Corps, and the Grand Army of the Republic, promoted their construction. Importantly she catalogs these monuments, markers, and plaques with illustrations and data that include dedication date and ceremonies, location and tour maps, the medium of the monuments, artists, donors, and inscriptions. For cemeteries, such as Green Mount, New Cathedral, and Loudon Park in the Baltimore area and Mount Olivet in Frederick, she provides maps to mark memorials and the graves of prominent figures. Fortunately for Marylanders, Civil War buffs, and historians, Soderberg has produced a fine handbook that not only reminds us of that history but provides an excellent guide to explore it. Richard R. Duncan Georgetown University The Army's Navy Series. Vol. 2: Assault and Logistics: Union Army Coastal and River Operations, 1861-1866. By Charles Dana Gibson, with E. Kay Gibson. (Camden, Maine: Ensign Press, 1995. Pp. xxi, 655. $45.00.) book reviews271 This oversized volume provides an encyclopedic review ofthe unglamorous and sometimes overlooked activities of the U.S. Army's quartermaster department in procuring and operating vessels of various descriptions for the support ofthe army's land operations. As the title suggests, these activities took place both along the southern coastline and on the many rivers that wound deep into the southern heartland and encompassed both direct combat support and the transportation of supplies. The combat support role included the army's procurement and operation of transports and surf boats for effecting amphibious landings on the southern coast as well as transports and even gunboats and rams for operations on the western rivers. This latter role reached its highest development in the "Mississippi Marine Brigade," a curiously hybrid unit that included riverboat-borne infantry and cavalry as well as army-manned and operated gunboats and rams. Nevertheless, its chief mission was, in a sense, logistical: patroling the western rivers to combat Confederate guerrillas and keep those waterways open and safe for the use of Union transports and supply vessels. This was especially true in the latter stages of the war, after the fall of Vicksburg and the establishment of at least nominal Union control of the Mississippi. The purely logistical side of the Union army's waterborne effort was more mundane and more important and has received even less attention in the otherwise voluminous literature of...

"Lest We Forget": A Guide to Civil War Monuments in Maryland (review)

book reviews269 from First Bull Run to Appomattox, with considerable emphasis on Gettysburg, the subject of sixteen pictures, alternate with meticulous studies of single figures dressed in the precisely rendered uniforms of their units. Every picture exhibits Troiani's painstakingly archaeological approach to his craft. Determined to "Paint it how it was," Troiani carefully studies the uniforms, weapons, and paraphernalia in his own extensive collection and visits historical museums to examine battle flags and the remains of uniforms before beginning a composition . Not surprisingly, an artist ofsuch conscientiousness has little patience with the work of earlier artists in the field such as Gilbert Gaul and William T. Trego, who frequently painted arms and equipment in a historically inaccurate manner. Born in New York City in 1 949, Troiani began to collect military equipment at age eleven, and his fondness for old uniforms became a passion when a year later, while on a family vacation in Paris, he spent an entire day by himself at the Musée de l'Armée. He received his first formal art training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and then during subsequent summers at New York's Art Students League, but prejudices against realist art he encountered at those schools made it necessary for him to teach himself through an intense personal study of nineteenth-century art. Like Frederic Remington, another American illustrator with a commitment to historical accuracy, Troiani gained much from studying the work and working methods of the French military painter Jean-Bapriste Détaille (1848-1912). And like Détaille (and Remington, for that matter) Troiani often dresses and outfits his models from his own collection, sets their pose and photographs them, and uses the photographs as the basis for his compositions. This exacting scholarly approach, in which details are built up incrementally with a consistently sharp focus, often results in dry and static compositions that stand in sharp contrast to such stirring pictures as Winslow Homer's Inviting a Shot before Petersburg, in which details are subordinated to the total dramatic impact. But Civil War enthusiasts who have been reluctant thus far to invest in one or more of Troiani's limited edition prints will be pleased that a collection of dozens of his best pictures has been brought together in this handsome and affordable book. Ben Bassham Kent State University "Lest We Forget": A Guide to Civil War Monuments in Maryland. By Susan Cooke Soderberg. (Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Publishing Company, 1 995. Pp. xxx, 195. $29.95.) Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox may have ended the Civil War, but memories of the battles and the men who fought in them continue to persist. Marylanders, living in a border state and contributing soldiers to both sides as well as experiencing the actual ebb and flow of battle from 1 862 through 1 864, 270CIVIL WAR HISTORY have expressed their sorrow, elation, and the remembrance of that trauma in numerous memorials. Beginning with the erection of the first one in honor of Capt. John P. Gleeson in 1 866, some sixty-five have been dedicated, the last one in 1 993 in honorofGen. Samuel Garland, Jr. As Susan Cooke Soderberg asserts, "Monuments are testaments to the important events and people of our national past and how we interpret them affects our national identity" (xi). In "Lest We Forget" she chronicles that expression in a book designed both as a guide and as a historical reference for "people interested in Maryland and in architectural history, and social historians" (vii). Reflective of commemorative monuments from the late nineteenth century until the 1920s, they bear the imprint of a "Renaissance aesthetic of beauty" (xxiii). The most popular forms were the statue of the solitary soldier and the obelisk embellished with romantic and classical inscriptions. Larger monuments , in demanding more intricate sculptures, as Soderberg asserts, "gave new life to artistic sculpture in America" (xxiv). Contrary to the assumption that the "soldier-at-parade-rest" was mass produced, the statue was actually tailored from a standard model to meet local demands. By 19 15 the number of companies engaged in their production had grown to sixty-three. Soderberg sees three...

Les mémorials prestigieux au Royaume Kongo

The author has taken interest in the funerary monuments erected by the Bakongo ba Boma group which lives not very far from the town of Boma. Signs of contacts with Europeans appear on these monuments among which two different types can be distinguished: stone sculptures and ceramics. These richly decorated sculptures were used as commemorative monuments erected in honour of individuals entrusted with power or in memory of rich people. The use of stone or of ceramics is primarily related to the type of ground.To glorify a recognized chief, it is determining that he is represented looking his best, surrounded by his court. This out-looking court is intended for the world of the living, it has its counterpart in another court inside the tomb which is entrusted with accompanying and serving the chief in the ancestors' village. There, we can find the chief's spouses and slaves, as well as his everyday and prestigious objects.Tradition explains the function of these statues. They aim to embellish and identify certain tombs as long as possible; such is the role of elephant tusks, natural elements considered imposing since they come from an animal renouned for its tenacity and strength. Therefore, in order for a prestigious tomb to be identified, the synthesis of nature and culture expressed by the stone statue is of a great importance.

La torre de Cádiz: un monumento de la Antigüedad clásica en textos medievales

The information transmitted through a great amount of mediaeval texts reveals that in Cadiz there existed an old colossal tower ending in a large human statue. No archaelogical vestiges remain of this structure, as it was completely demolished in 1145 A. D. However, the analysis of the data obtained from de texts allows a fairly exact knowledge of the characteristics and historical circumstances of the construction. The tower was probably erected in the 2nd century A. D., as a commemorative monument in honour of Emperor Hadrian himself, who would have been the personage represented in the statue. The architectural whole must have very soon formed part of the Herculean legend, with which the ancient history of Cadiz is deeply connected, and, furthermore, became a much admired work of art and a symbol of the city and citizens of Cadiz. As a consequence of all this, while the building remained standing, it was the object of manifold legends and interpretations which are widespread in written transmission.

The Järsta Stone

One of the most puzzling of eleventh-century runic inscriptions appears on the Järsta stone, a commemorative monument from Sweden. Its major features—the text band, zoomorphic ornamentation, and shape—unite to form a balanced and harmonious whole. Past interpretations of the Järsta inscription accord neither with the general grammatical, orthographic and formulaic conventions of Uppland commemorative stones nor with the particular variations typical of the carver, Asmund Karasun. A careful consideration of the artistic design suggests that Asmund intended this inscription to be read in a sequence quite different from that proposed by past scholars. This new reading conforms to Asmund's characteristic orthography and phraseology, as we know them from his many other stones, and follows the patterns of formulation traditional to runic carving.

Potters, Oculists and Eye-Troubles

Malain Vernhet has published in Gallia a summary of one of the most important discoveries made at La Graufesenque for many years; a mass of waste associated with a large kiln contained the work of about forty potters, some familiar in the last stages of the export-trade to Britain. Among the decorated bowls were some with the potter's stamp L.COSI, conventionally dated to the late Flavian period. Several of them bore reliefs which prove that the style continued down towards 120: thus, on one bowl, which is illustrated, we see figures of a seated warrior turning his sword on himself, labelled DECIBALV, and of a prisoner condemned ad bestias, identified as PARTV. AS M. Vernhet remarks, reference is to the suicide of the Dacian king, Decebalus, in 106 and to the Parthian triumph, which Trajan did not live to experience, in 117. The design thus epitomizes the great conquests of the reign, and in all its provincial crudity speaks to us directly of facts, away from which the noble commemorative monuments in Rome and at Benevento all too readily, perhaps, beguile us.