bayoread:

Exaleiptron - A cosmetics holder.

Aryballos - Used to store perfume or oil.

Oinochoe - A wine jug.

Olpe - Liquid pourer.

Pyxis - A woman’s trinket box.

Alabastron - Used to store perfume or massage oil.

Askos - Mainly used for storing oil and refilling oil lamps.

Lekythos - Used for storing oil, mainly olive oil.

Hydria - A water carrier.

Kalpis - A water carrier.

Amphora - Used to store dry goods such as grain and liquids, mostly wine. Most amphora used for transportation have a pointed base.

Pelike - Stored oil and wine.

Loutrophorous - Water carrier used to bathe the bride before her wedding. It was also employed during funerary rites.

theolduvaigorge:

Selected Images from The Munro Lectures on Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology in Connection with the University of Edinburgh, 1912

• by Robert Munro

Part I: Anthropology;Palaeolithic Man in Europe with Supplementary Chapter on the Transition Period

Part II: Archaeology; Terramare, and their Relation to Lacustrine Pile-Structures

The lectures were scanned in their entirety and made into a PDF. Click through for early 20th century anthropology and its concomitant subtle and not-so-subtle racism and Eurocentrism.

Excerpt:

“Huxley concludes his description with the following words:—“It is in fact a fair average human skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage” ” (read more).

(Source: Internet Archive; via @jorios on Twitter) 

powermeditation:

Mummified child in the crypt of Church of St. Casimir the Prince in Krakow

anotherafrica:

SYMBOLS & MYSTICISM # 9

Eyes without a face

Workers restoring the newly relocated temple of Abu Simbel, Egypt, 1968 created by King Ramesses Il during the 12th Century B.C.

More insight on the salvage of the temple from the encroached Lake Nasser | read more.

victusinveritas:

breakingnews:

Bulldozer destroys Mayan pyramid in Belize

AP:

A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize’s largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced on Monday.

The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said the destruction at the Nohmul complex in northern Belize was detected late last week. The ceremonial center dates back at least 2,300 years and is the most important site in northern Belize, near the border with Mexico.

Archaeological world stands back and says in a unified voice: “What the fuck?!?!”

Michael Peter Edson tweets the best parts of “Smithsonian in 3D” [x]

If I made a twitter account where advice for participating in archaeological excavations was in all caps (so that you would imagine it being shouted), would you follow it? Well then.

archaeologicalnews:

NANAIMO, B.C. — Members of a Nanaimo First Nations group are outraged after crews contracted by BC Hydro damaged a documented ancient rock art site during work last week.

Douglas White, chief of the Snuneymuxw First Nation said the damage is disrespectful of native…

novitas-romanitas:

A very cool (and ominous!) reconstruction and virtual tour of Nero’s famed Domus Aurea an ‘urban villa complex’ of gargantuan proportions. The area of the artificial lake was later the location of the Colosseum.

travelthisworld:

Pompeii, Italy

submitted by: gallimaufrey, thanks!

mucholderthen:

CUEVA DE LAS MAN0S
SOUTH AMERICAN PALEOLITHIC CAVE ART
Santa Cruz province, Argentina  [Patagonia]

This archaeological site in the canyon of Río Pinturas contains an exceptional amount of cave art, created between 13,000 and 9,500 years ago.  

The name - “cave of the hands” - derives from the countless stenciled outlines of human hands in the cave, but there are also many depictions of animals, as well as hunting scenes, and geometric designs.

The people responsible for the paintings may have been the ancestors of the historic hunter-gatherer communities of Patagonia found by European settlers in the 19th century.

( x )  and ( x )
[source of images]
See also wikipedia.

Roman-Era ‘Cosmetics’ May Have Treated Eye Chlamydia 

archaeologicalnews:

Roman-era toiletry sets consisting of tweezers, scrapers and other artifacts have long been interpreted as beauty aids. But it’s possible the tools had a more gruesome use: to treat a type of Chlamydia that infects the eye.

The tools are found across Great Britain and date back to around A.D. 43 to A.D. 410, a time when much of the island was under Roman control. They do bear resemblance to modern-day cosmetic kits, but they’re also similar to tools used in folk treatments of trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness around the world today, said Wendy Morrison, a graduate archaeology student at the University of Oxford.

“Trachoma is a disease which has plagued humans for millennia,” Morrison told LiveScience. “We have ethnographic examples from modern Africa and historical examples from ancient India that show utensils, such as tweezers and rasps, were used to pluck in-turned eyelashes and to scour away the afflicted eyelids.” Read more.

theolduvaigorge:

“I had no power to say ‘that’s not okay:’” Reports of harassment and abuse in the field

• By Kate Clancy 

“It was getting late, the student center all but deserted. My old friend and I had a table to ourselves, awkwardly wedged among the chairs that had been set in a circle for an invited talk I had just given to some undergraduates about issues for women in science.

My friend alluded to having a challenging field site. Her face, which was usually open and bright, with a smile so infectious and delighted and thoroughly optimistic you couldn’t help but love her, was subdued, careful. She talked around it for a while. Then she told me of her sexual assault in the field.

The table felt too big. I can’t remember if I actually reached across it to take her hand or not, because suddenly the distance between us seemed so great. I was at a loss to know how to help or support my friend.

Another day, another story. Again I’m out of town to give a talk, and an acquaintance and I are borrowing someone’s office for a meeting. This person is eager to meet, bright and interesting and motivated to do her research. There is a shift in her research trajectory, and I ask about it. Without skipping a beat, she explains the systematic sexual harassment she experienced at her field site, and the ways in which her lack of complicity led to her not being welcome there. There were obvious ways in which her departure from this field site has hurt her career. I was struck by her furious, fiery expression.

You know these women, because they have shared their stories on my blog. Since then, my blog comment thread, email inbox, my office and several conferences became spaces where I was bombarded with these stories. These women almost never named names, just rushed through their story as quickly as possible in a torrent of words, each story horrifying in its own way. Some were angry, some were devastated. Some were just numb, not meeting my eyes, telling the story in a monotone. These were fresh encounters from just the last field season, or had happened years ago. Each one felt like a new physical hurt when I heard them.

From there, Heather Shattuck-Heidorn and M. Elle Saine invited me to participate in an American Association of Physical Anthropology symposium on ethics. They wanted me to put together a talk on ethics in field site management, as my blog posts had opened a bit of a can of worms in the field. Yet I struggled to figure out how to speak to my colleagues about the chilly climate at field sites when all I had were confidential anecdotes and two blog posts.

Biological anthropology has a long, feminist tradition of women and men interrogating sexism in the workplace, as well as researching and prioritizing female behaviors and friendships and reproductive strategies in human evolution. If there is any field-based science that has the tools to look at the chilly climate at field sites, it is us” (read more).

***I took part in one of these interviews. My interviewer was a lovely and professional woman. I hope their research helps make the field a better place for everyone.

See also:

• John Hawk’s weblog. 2013. “AAPA hears about ongoing abuse of students at field sites”.

(Source: Scientific American)

anthrocentric:

The Subversive Archaeologist [URL]
Rob Gargett

A great blog posting about anything archaeology (and anthropology) related with great commentary and criticism on articles.

What Careers can an Anthropology Degree Give You Access To? 

anthropologyoutlook:

        Receiving a degree in anthropology supplies a college graduate with skills that can be applied to many career fields including health, business, nutrition and education. Below is a list that contains a substantial number of traditional jobs for any anthropologist. However, no anthropologist should feel constrained to finding a job in one of the listed areas. Instead, one should consider this list and also consider the subjects listed below where applied anthropologists have used their anthropological knowledge to help solve and provide a new perspective to real world problems.

• Archaeology
• Cultural Resource Management (CRM)
• Museum/Curation/Project Design
• Advocacy
• Human/Social Services
• Government and Administration
• Housing
• Human Rights, Racism, and Genocide
• Academia
• Tourism and Heritage

     The above information was accessed from the American Anthropological Association Website.

      Health

      According to Satish Kedia and John van Willigen, authors of Applied Anthropology: Domains of Application, if one decides to go into Medical Anthropology one can, “Examine differences in birth practices, exploring how gender, socioeconomic status, class and ethnicity impact health status and the public health” (24). Applied Medical Anthropology  is one domain of practice that allows an anthropologist to use anthropological skills when examining real word problems. They examine culture, ethnicity, and socio-economic class, and use the  information of other cultures to compare and contrast. This helps Medical Anthropologist draw conclusions that help them implement and better plan health programs not only in the United States but all over the wold.

   Nutrition

   Nutrition is another area where anthropological knowledge and skills can be applied. Kedia and van Willigen explain that this is because, “biological and sociocultural factors influence food selection and consumption in human societies, anthropologists’ expertise in both areas makes them uniquely valuable” (24).Anthropologist can be found the world over planning and implementing better nutritional practices affecting varying communities. In her book Dancing Skeletons, Katherine Dettwyler takes an in depth look at malnourishment in West African communities. Dettwyler combines her anthropological and nutritional knowledge to help educate families on the best nutritional practice to help combat malnourishment and in turn, child mortality.

    Business

You may initially look at look at business and anthropology as being on two completely different sides of the career spectrum. However, Kedia and van Willigen demonstrate how the ability of anthropologists to objectively observe and interpret the workings of other cultures is directly applicable to the business world. Kedia and van Willigen go on to say, “These skills are especially useful in a transnational economy that requires contemporary business professionals to have cross-cultural competency” (26). The knowledge an anthropologist can provide is especially useful when working with a client whose cultural workings are not synonymous with that of your own.

    Education

When you traditionally think of anthropology in the education field you might think of a professor teaching at the college level. This is true and what many view as the traditional area an anthropology major will go into.  However according to Applied Anthropology: Context for Domains of Application, an anthropologist in the education profession may examine, “how humans acquire knowledge deemed important” and also the, “informal means by which children and and youth acquire knowledge beyond the boundaries of school” (28). This information gained from this type of research can be applied to school and community programs to perfect the system in which tomorrow’s generation is educated.