Art History

In the region of East Greece during the Hellenistic period, we witness the broad emergence of a luxurious type of built stone altar - monumental in scale, architectonic in form, and lavish in sculptural decoration.  While the formal typology and political significance of these altars have been the subject of inquiry, their function as the site of the central cultic ritual - the sacrifice - repays investigation.  In this paper, I examine the ways in which the position, design, and ornamentation of the built altar shaped the experience of the spectator during the performance of the sacrifice, using as examples the altars of Asklepios at Kos, Artemis Leukophryene at Magnesia, and Athena Polias at Priene.

Each altar's position, architectural form, and sculptural decoration were carefully planned to heighten the experience of the ritual.  Marble pavements in front of the altars demarcated the space in which the audience stood.  The architectural form of the altar promoted a tension between inclusion and exclusion.  The height of the podium, the narrow entrance into the interior, and the colonnade surrounding the inner space created a boundary that separated the rituals observed by all from those reserved for a privileged few in the inner sanctum of the altar.  Free-standing or high-relief sculptures of the gods adorned the exterior facades of all three altars.  By means of these sculptures, the gods became permanent witnesses to the sacrificial ritual, accompanying the mortal audience assembled on the surrounding pavement.

Through the manipulation of physical movements, lines of visibility, and the perception of scale, the built altars of Hellenistic East Greece exploited the threshold between mortal and divine, thus amplifying the emotional impact on the spectator.

Here is the schedule for Save Ancient Studies Alliance "Opening the Ancient World" Conference, which will be held on July 23-24, 2023. I will be presenting a paper entitled "Monumental Built Altars in Western Asia Minor during the Hellenistic Period." It is a virtual conference, so please join us!

The structure of the Inka khipu follows a set of rules that are dictated by the state need for uniform record keeping, but also by a "technological style" that Ascher and Ascher refer to as "Inca insistence." Applying Andean textile primacy to the khipu is useful for understanding the mental map used by the khipukamayuq, thereby giving access to principles of status, symbolic meaning, and the use of anomaly in cloth that may be transferred to khipu. In addition to binary switches in directionality and material, it is also important to identify the forms and purposes of anomalies found in certain samples. Analysis of the construction sequence from two museum collections provides a look at deviation and the intentionality of the khipukamayuq.

The Inkas developed the largest native empire in the Americas (ca. 14th-16th c. CE) and transformed much of their heartland region into productive royal estates. Noble factions built palaces, intensified agricultural resources, and re-settled provincial and local populations as estate retainers. While Inka researchers enjoy a vast historical background relevant to these processes, archaeologists have not yet sought the material evidence for the royal estate economy’s operation and organization. Such an undertaking is vital to modeling the role of factionalism in imperial development and consolidation, especially in empires where noble economies claimed significant portions of resources and labor.
In order to assess the role of the royal estate within the Inka political economy, this dissertation evaluates two aspects of the estate: 1) the organization of production of subsistence and craft goods on estate lands and 2) the domestic economies of non-elite laborers and intermediate elite administrators living on the estate. This evaluation is contextualized by a wealth of recent regional survey and archival research. While previous archaeological, ethnohistorical, and architectural investigations of the estate have limited their approaches to just the palace complex and monumental sites, this project takes a new perspective by examining a production enclave and retainer settlement located seven kilometers from the nearest palace complex.
Research on estate labor and administration was conducted via archaeological excavation at the site of Cheqoq in Maras, Cuzco, Peru and contextualized within recent regional studies. Through horizontal excavation of six laborer households, a storehouse, and pottery workshop, I analyzed domestic economy and production to reconstruct the royal estate economy and its relation to the larger imperial political economy. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of artifacts provided a database for assessing production and consumption by household and as a site on the whole.
These comparisons indicate production and consumption patterns similar to some of those laid out through chronicle and archival documents in the early Colonial period (16th to 17th c. CE). However, I find that laborers and administrators negotiated status and identity relative to each other and to their noble patrons in complex and heterogeneous ways. While estate laborers had no status in the empire beyond their attachment to a noble faction, they had access to some goods beyond their station due to their proximity to and participation in estate wealth production. As producers of imperial style pottery and administrators of stored crop surpluses, these non-elites found ways to assimilate Cuzco-Inka material culture into their daily lives.
Data on domestic economy and estate production at Cheqoq contribute to developing a baseline for evaluating the role of royal and noble estates within imperial economies. The methods and results from this study may be applied to other cases within the Inka empire and in other early states and empires. This study can thus increase our understanding of how factionalism promoted imperial growth and how laborer and administrator households participated in the transformation.

By the end of the 13th century CE, campaigns to extend the power of the Inca state began to target local communities outside of the Cuzco Valley. A century or so of state conquests and administrative intensification in the Cuzco region set the stage for generations of rapid imperial growth that commenced around 1400 CE. The subordination of neighboring populations reduced external military threats to the Inca state while simultaneously concentrating more productive land and labor tribute in the hands of the Inca elite. Royal Inca control over rural landscapes in the Cuzco region intensified during the imperial period, but the ways that this affected local societies varied from place to place. By the time of the Spanish conquest (1530s CE), some parts of the Cuzco region had undergone significant changes in their settlement patterns and subsistence economies, whereas others experienced a less transformative relationship with the Inca state and its ruling elite. In this paper, we use regional archaeological data from survey projects as a context for comparing our archaeological excavations from three sites near Cuzco (Ak’awillay, Cheqoq, and Pukara Pantillijlla) to discuss the impact of Inca empire-building on the everyday lives of local farmers and herders. Our results speak to the variability found within the Inca heartland and the uneven distribution of Inca material culture that is found at the level of communities and households. Our excavations at sites with both pre-Inca and Inca occupations permit us to develop long-term perspectives on local populations and their interactions with and responses to the growing Inca state.

Horizontal excavations at the large Inka heartland village of Cheqoq (Maras, Cuzco, Peru) revealed the remains of a ceramic workshop where imperial-style vessels were produced (AD 1400–1530s). Cheqoq was a multiethnic settlement of forcibly migrated retainer laborers working for the noble lineage of the Inka ruler, Wayna Qhapaq. Production of  imperial-style pottery in a small workshop associated with a royal lineage indicates that the heartland craft economy was not centralized
in the urban Cuzco capital. The material remains of in situ production—raw materials, manufacturing facilities, tools, and by-products—provide a baseline for comparing other Inka pottery assemblages to this production locus.

Excavaciones horizontales en el sitio de Cheqoq (Maras, Cuzco, Perú) —un pueblo grande en el centro del territorio imperial Inka— revelaron los restos arqueológicos de un taller alfarero donde se producían vasijas del estilo imperial Cuzco-Inka (datado entre 1400 y la década de 1530 dC). Cheqoq era un asentamiento de yanakuna, obreros de varias etnias quienes fueron re-asentados obligatoriamente por el Sapa Inka, y allí se ubicaban grandes depósitos de productos agrícolas del Inka. Según las fuentes etnohistóricas, el pueblo estaba asociado con el linaje del Inka Wayna Qhapaq. La producción de alfarería de estilo imperial en un pequeño taller asociado con un linaje real indica que la economía alfarera no estaba centralizada en la capital urbana del Cuzco. El análisis de los restos de producción —incluyendo materias primas, instalaciones de fábrica, herramientas y derivados—provee una base de comparación con otros conjuntos de cerámica Inka.