Monumentality

Göbekli Tepe (~9.500–8.000 calBC) is a prehistoric site in Southeast Turkey that dates back to an early stage in the transition from hunter-gathering to farming economies in the Near East. Research undertaken in the period 2015–2019 has included the excavation of deep-soundings and the re-evaluation of some two decades of excavation records. This work is leading to a revision of former interpretations of the prehistoric site which still fuel the popular media image of Göbekli Tepe as home to the »World’s First Temples«.

Mejdan i qëmotshëm, mollë sherri, modernitet i mbetur pezull: prej gati një shekulli, Tirana shpalos ambiciet dhe dëshirat e pushtetarëve shqiptarë, ashtu siç dëshmon edhe për dështimet e tyre të mëdha. Përgjatë dy dekadave të para të shekullit të 20-të, qyteti ishte fare modest. Por aty nga fundi i viteve '30, Tirana shfaqte shenjat e para të dyzimit: njëra gjysmë e qytetit filloi të fliste, edhe pse përçart, me shprehje të perandorisë së Musolinit; tjetra vazhdonte në dialektin e perandorisë së vdekur otomane. Në këtë betejë të heshtur hynë edhe udhëheqësit komunistë pas Çlirimit, duke çmontuar disa pjesë të Tiranës së vjetër, por pa mundur ta zhdukin apo zëvendësojnë tërësisht atë. Gjurmët e këtyre përpjekjeve për të sunduar mbi tjetrin (në hapësirë, po edhe mendërisht) lexohen më qartë në qendrën e kryeqytetit, që është formuar si një amalgamë.

Monuments have been a staple of archaeology since the beginning of the discipline and have been used as case-studies for a diverse range of topics. In recent years, monuments have been considered particularly often in studies of social memory. By materializing memorial ambitions, however, the creation of monuments provides a venue for collective memories to be challenged. Despite their outward appearance of strength and permanence, monuments additionally render the memory of their creators vulnerable and open to contestation. In particular, the practice of counter-monumentality, or active and deliberate interventions in traditional monuments, illustrates how the erection of monuments exposes the inherent fragility of memory. Examples from the present and the past demonstrate these points: a statue of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas ''Stonewall'' Jackson in Baltimore, Maryland, and a corpus of monumental statues from southeastern Anatolian and northern Syria during the Iron Age.

The Decalogue in Exodus was composed and strategically embedded in its literary context in order to reflect the discourse of Northwest Semitic monumental inscriptions. Monument making in the ancient Near East involved primarily the materialization and perpetuation of ideologies as well as the proposition of collective identities, and these functions were easily carried out by text objects. Accordingly, the Decalogue’s commandments reveal a YHWH-centered ideology expressed in terms familiar to Northwest Semitic monumental discourse. These commandments were strategically structured to provoke collective interaction with the text that would persuade its users to accept its proposed perspective as their new collective identity. Finally, the Decalogue is inserted at a point in the narrative where the ancient audience could reasonably expect an account of monument erection—immediately following the account of YHWH’s defeat of Egypt, which makes up the first half of the book of Exodus. The Decalogue
thus acts as the text of an imagined victory monument to YHWH, which materialized YHWH’s newly established kingship over Israel and the divine proposition of the people’s collective identity. The Decalogue thereby fulfills the primary function of royal Northwest Semitic monuments by materializing an imagined encounter between a king and his people and establishing a relationship between them. The text’s monumentality thus provides a new means of conceptualizing
its composition and authority.

This article is currently available at the link provided. Alternatively, feel free to contact me for an offprint.

Diseñada por el arquitecto Louis Kahn y construido para el Dr. Norman Fisher y su familia, en 1967 en Hatboro, Pennsylvania. Caracterizada por sus volúmenes cúbicos duales, cimientos de piedra y revestimientos de cedro detallados, la casa Fisher es una declaración clara de cómo trabajaba Kahn en ese momento y cómo su trabajo difería del de sus contemporáneos. En la Casa Fisher, Kahn evita la linealidad del plan moderno y se centra en una geometría simple, permitiendo que los cubos proporcionen una separación del espacio público y privado. La casa Fisher es un testimonio de la capacidad de Kahn para trabajar con los detalles de la pequeña arquitectura residencial. Se erige como el ejemplo más claro del estilo arquitectónico único de Kahn en ese momento, su uso de los dos cubos difiere mucho de lo que se estaba haciendo en ese momento y lo distingue en su propio campo de diseño. El grupo de estudiantes, los autores a cargo de este Caso de Estudio encomendado por el Profesor Arq. Gonzalo Bustillo. Han dedicado su esfuerzo y atención a la investigación y elaboración durante la 2da parte del curso y en forma no presencial, en el periodo que va desde 18 de junio al 7 de agosto del 2020, en lo que se ha denominado tiempo de coronavirus.

Aihole is known for its temples and temple complexes built by the Early Chalukyas. The megalithic monuments on Meguti Hill, south of the Jain temple are well known, too. In this paper, we study a unique dolmen located among the temples of the Galaganatha group and make a case that this protohistoric monument was modified by the temple builders. We also explore the possibility that many of the early temples were memorial, or even sepulchral, in purpose. The Galaganatha group of temples, as well as the Ramalingeshwara group to the south of it, occupies the northern portion of a ridge that runs nearly parallel to, and west of Meguti Hill. In a clear similarity to Meguti Hill, the portion of the ridge to the south of these temple-groups is strewn with megaliths. We argue that the early sacred landscape of the Aihole region was memorial, maybe even sepulchral in nature.

Considered selected examples of contemporary art (Russian and foreign) addressed to the topic of monumentalization / memorialization. Emphasized the problem of “spiritual emptiness” in the public consciousness, as well as the possibility of its solution by artistic means. In the field of attention - the degree of correspondence of selected works to the declared topic, the possibility of terminological definition of current trends of the latest monumental art.
Анализируются примеры современного искусства (российского и зарубежного), обращенного к теме монументализации / мемориализации. Акцентирована проблема «духовной пустоты» в общественном сознании, а также проблема возможности ее решения художественными средствами. В сфере исследовательского внимания - степень соответствия избранных произведений заявленной теме, возможности терминологического определения актуальных тенденций новейшего монументального искусства.

Nineteenth-century highland Madagascar was a place inhabited by the dead as much as the living. Ghosts, ancestors, and the possessed were important historical actors alongside local kings and queens, soldiers, traders, and missionaries. This book considers the challenges that such actors pose for historical accounts of the past and for thinking about questions of presence and representation. How were the dead made present, and how were they recognized or not? In attending to these multifarious encounters of the nineteenth century, how might we reflect on the ways in which our own history-writing makes the dead present? To tackle these questions, Zoë Crossland tells an anthropological history of highland Madagascar from a perspective rooted in archaeology and Peircean semiotics, as well as in landscape study, oral history, and textual sources.

If mediatization has surprisingly revealed the secret life of inert matter and the 'face of things' , the flipside of this has been the petrification of living organisms, an invasion of stone bodies in a state of suspended animation. Within a contemporary imaginary pervaded by new forms of animism, the paradigm of death looms large in many areas of artistic experimentation, pushing the modern body towards mineral modes of being which revive ancient myths of flesh-made-stone and the issue of the monument. Scholars in media, visual culture and the arts propose studies of bodies of stone, from actors simulating statues to the transmutation of the filmic body into a fossil; from the real treatment of the cadaver as a mineral living object to the rediscovery of materials such as wax; from the quest for a 'thermal' equivalence between stone and flesh to the transformation of the biomedical body into a living monument.

prologue, intro and afterword of book
Publication date: October 20, 2016
Abstract:
Restrictive border protection policies directed toward managing the flow of refugees coming into neoliberal democracies (and out of failing nation-states) are a defining feature of contemporary politics. In this book, Verónica Tello analyses how contemporary artists--such as Tania Bruguera, Isaac Julien, Rosemary Laing, Dierk Schmidt, Hito Steyerl, Lyndell Brown and Charles Green--negotiate their diverse subject positions while addressing and taking part in the production of images associated with refugee experiences and histories. Tello argues that their practices, which manifest across a range of contexts including Cuba, the United States, Australia and Europe, represent an emergent, global paradigm of contemporary art, 'counter-memorial aesthetics'.

Counter-memorial aesthetics, Tello argues, is characterized by its conjunction of heterogeneous signifiers and voices of many times and places, generating an experimental, non-teleological approach to the construction of contemporary history, which also takes into account the complex, disorienting spatial affects of globalization. Spanning performance art, experimental 'history painting', aftermath photography and video installation, counter-memorial aesthetics bring to the fore, Tello argues, how contemporary refugee flows and related traumatic events critically challenge and conflict with many existing, tired if not also stubborn notions of national identity, borders, history and memory.

Building on the writings of such thinkers as Michel Foucault and Jacques Rancière, this book offers a useful concept of 'counter-memory' for the twenty-first century. It shows how counter-memorial aesthetics is not only central to the nexus of contemporary art and refugee histories but also how it can offer a way of being critically present with many other, often interrelated, global crises in the contemporary era.

http://bloomsbury.com/us/counter-memorial-aesthetics-9781474252737/

Constantino Vasconcellos (+1668), was a portuguese engineer and architect, probably from Braga, the most Baroque portuguese city.

He arrived at Peru Vice-Reign around 1629, and worked at Huancavelica, Oruro, Potosí and Lima. In 1645 he participated at Valdívia river fortifications.

When in 1656, an earthquake destroided Lima's franciscan convent, Constantino was invited to project the new one. The huge construction with its 5 cloisters become the biggest convent of the Americas.

ERRATA: na página 213, onde se lê 'completar', deve-se ler 'contemplar'."

The ten thousand Islands region of southwest Florida contains extensive prehistoric shell midden sites called shell works that comprise some of the largest and most complicated prehistoric shell constructions in the world. these terraformed landscapes reflect a unique prehistoric tradition of shell-built architecture and large-scale landscape construction. traditionally, shell work sites were considered little more than large midden accumulations formed through the mundane disposal of daily shellfish meals. over the last decade an ambitious program to survey, map and test multiple shell work complexes challenges this assumption. Comparison of shell work forms throughout the region demonstrates significant spatial, temporal and morphological relationships including several recurring site forms, suggesting settlements were connected communities, sharing similar social, political and ideological characteristics that became manifested within these socially constructed shellscapes over time.

The Fen Causeway crosses the East Anglian fenland from Peterborough - Denver, Norfolk. It has long been attributed to Roman engineering, but this paper sets out a case for its Bronze Age origin. A seven point typology for trackway structures found in English wetlands is presented, and a gazetteer has been compiled of known examples from the East Anglian fens. The article explores Bronze Age engineering and project management, and the implications of this for control of resources and the need for retention of specialist knowledge invested in individuals within contemporary society.

Addressing the question of what was essentially socialist about the socialist city, this paper looks for its specificity beyond the sheer urbanist artifact – the urban layout and the architectural form – into the political economy that enacted its construction. Despite focusing on the city center of Sofia and particularly on its political core designed in the early 1950s, the analysis highlights processes of space production transcending the case study. On the one hand, it exemplifies the interactions between the various institutions in the expanded and party-dominated bureaucracy: competition over resources and administrative privileges; clashes between technocratic and party rationales; forced and failed cooperation among state agencies; discrepancies between chains of command and coordination of expertise. On the other hand, it elucidates the political compromise with the professed egalitarian model of development and the party’s commitment to improving living conditions for society at large resulting from the exorbitant investment into the monumental embellishment of the city center as a power seat. Finally, the paper emphasizes that, far from being monolithic and straightforward, the implemented model of the socialist city was shaped as much by deliberate policy-making as it was influenced by systemic deficiencies and structural impediments in the institutional landscape of state socialism.

Mastaba AS 39 was discovered during the course of the
2013 season in Abusir South. It is located in the
northeastern part of the cemetery of officials dated to the
Fifth Dynasty, spanning the reigns of Nyuserre through
Djedkare (2402–2322 BC). Shepseskafankh was
a person of elevated status at the royal court as indicated
by the titles on his unique unfinished false door. These
include, among others, the title of the chief physician of
the king, property custodian of the king, chief of the
physicians of Upper and Lower Egypt as well as two so
far unattested titles of hem-netjer-priest of Khnum who is
foremost of the House of Life and of the House of
Protection and overseer of the healing substances of the
Great House. These titles attest to his historically unique
position. Shepseskafankh’s duties included supervision
over the House of Life, which was a centre authority for
storing and maintaining written documents. At the same
time he was in charge of the House of Protection, which,
most likely, was a facility where royal children were born.
Based on archaeological and epigraphic evidence, it may
be supposed that it is one of the earliest structures in the
examined cemetery. Despite the fact that most of the
burial facilities of the tomb owner and his family members
were looted in antiquity, the tomb represents a unique
testimony of the latter part of the Fifth Dynasty history on
a microscale

Only a few Yugoslav architects attended PostWar CIAMs, whose reception in Yugoslavia was rather lukewarm. This may perhaps suffice to question the role of Yugoslavia in the European and international architectural debate. However, to understand the importance acquired by memorials and monumental architecture in Yugoslavia, contrary to the Modernist orthodoxy, a series of historical events should come into focus. In Yugoslavia, architects internalized monuments as a specific design field, and monumentality as a quality to achieve. Along this line of thoughts, this paper ends by exploring the 1957 architectural design competition for the Jajinci Memorial in Belgrade, arguing that the architectural representation of state socialism, all but univocal, was actually defying stereotypes, and that the generation emerging in the decade 1950-1960 marked a true political, social and cultural watershed.

During the last decade, the question of the end of the novel has been given new urgency. Authors and critics have expressed their concern about the future of the literary novel. Some worry that shorter textual forms, such as Tweets and the internet’s flashy, distracting overload of textual and visual fragments, are conditioning readers to a point where our shortened attention spans will soon make it impossible to read extended prose narratives. Others argue that novels cannot compete with the ‘screen’ technologies of computer and television. Of course, the ‘death of the novel’ should not be taken too seriously. On the contrary: these last decades have witnessed the publication of such exceedingly large novels as Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 (2004), Karl Ove Knausgård’s My Struggle-series (1009-‘11), William T. Vollmann’s The Atlas (1996) and Mark Z. Danielewski’s Only Revolutions (2006). How should we interpret these authors’ dedication to ‘big books’ and long narratives, and indeed the ambition to transform an ‘old’ medium to unprecedented scopes and volumes, just when the medium was expected to become obsolete? What social and technological factors contribute to this new emphasis on magnitude—in scope, length, weight, and bulk?

This study argues that these authors reinvent the ‘monumental novel’ in a dialogue with changes in media and technology (digitalization, big data, quantification) and the ethical challenges of globalization. I work towards a definition for this under-theorized term ‘monumental novel’ that combines a notion of bigness and lasting greatness with an emphasis on commemorative value. I ask how the material dimensions of such novels and their expansive scope relate to their workings as vehicles of cultural memory, and how the monumental bigness of these works relates to their commemorative dimension of preserving the novel, literature, or the book for future generations. I place aforementioned works in a comparative framework of the nineteenth century, when monumentality was called upon to offer a sense of stability in (national) societies in technological and social flux. I propose that monumentality in the novel today can be read analogously, in the face of transformations in the media-landscape (e.g. the popularity of shorter forms of writing such as tweets, anxieties about attention spans, the shift from narrative to database) and the shift toward a globalized, ‘networked’ world. By foregrounding their own monumental potential, contemporary novels adapt to social, cultural and technological changes while stressing the novel’s unique affordances. Thus, I argue, monumentality as a strategy of writing confronts the challenges of an era in which the spheres of political, ethical, and aesthetic relationships between humans are expanding, by adapting to new aesthetic forms and scopes of reference.

This article explores an important chapter in the visual memory  and historical legacy of a key imperial monument of Constantinople, the bronze equestrian statue of the emperor Justinian.  The late-antique sculpture survived pillages of the Fourth Crusade to become a centerpiece of Constantinople's identity.  Though it was destroyed by the Ottomans after the capture of Constantinople in 1453, its international renown outlived the physical monument.  This study investigates how and why the bronze equestrian monument of Justinian was remembered in late-medieval Slavic images of Constantinople.

This article explores how the priestly wilderness shrine functions as a monumental space in the sanctuary construction account of Exod 25–31, 35–40. It draws on spatial theory and studies of monumental architecture to identify five features of the tent of meeting that infuse it with monumentality: first, its significance in negotiating the patron-client relationship between Yhwh and Israel; second, the collective energy and material resources required to construct it; third, its ingenious design as a mobile shrine; fourth, the manner in which its construction pattern mirrors monumental temple building projects described in royal inscriptions; and fifth, its role in commemorating the imagined time of socio-cultic unity of the Israelites at Sinai. The article concludes by exploring the link between monumentality and centrality, and by examining how the image of the priestly wilderness sanctuary might have re- inforced the need for the centralization of collective attention and resources in the Yahwistic cult of the post-monarchic period.

The megalithic phenomenon is one of the most exciting subjects of study in prehistory. The practice of monumentalising places of special significance by erecting large stones started during the Neolithic period, approximately 10.000 years ago. On time, it acquired such a social and ideological depth that it became one of the most geographically and temporally widespread cultural phenomena ever known in Europe. In Andalusia,  megalithic sites and landscapes express themselves with great richness and diversity, representing an exceptional source of scientific information for our understanding of our forebears’ ways of life, as well as a unique and beautiful historical legacy. This book combines the contributions of various university professors, who bring us up to date with their research, with excellent photographic illustrations and, for the first time, reflects the spread of this cultural phenomenon throughout Andalusia. It is suitable for both those who wish to deepen their knowledge of this professional specialisation and those who seek the pleasure of a satisfied interest.

English abstract: Since the discovery in 1860 of La Pastora, one of the most beautiful and outstanding megalithic constructions of Iberia, the Copper Age and Bronze Age site of Valencina de la Concepción – Castilleja de Guzmán has provided an unceasing series of archaeological finds of the utmost significance. Today, a hundred and fifty years after the earliest discoveries, this volume offers an up-to-date and comprehensive review of the research carried out at this site, which underlines, first and foremost, its importance as a scientific and cultural resource. Among the contributions to this volume the reader will find some of the keys to the human occupation of the lower Guadalquivir basin 5000 years ago, the process of social aggregation that gave way to the formation of the city of Seville itself. In addition, this book reflects some of the current discussions that dominate today’s scientific agenda on Iberian Copper Age (c. 3200-2200 cal BC), a period of fascinating social and cultural dynamism that laid the basis for the consolidation of social ranking, long-distance contact and exchange, as well as metallurgy and productive specialization.

Spanish abstract: Desde que en 1860 se produjera el descubrimiento de La Pastora, una de las construcciones megalíticas más bellas y singulares de España, el yacimiento de la Edad del Cobre y de la Edad del Bronce de Valencina de la Concepción – Castilleja de Guzmán no ha cesado de deparar hallazgos arqueológicos de la mayor significación. Hoy, 150 años después de los primeros descubrimientos, este volumen ofrece una puesta al día de las investigaciones que están revelando la extraordinaria importancia de este yacimiento como recurso científico y patrimonial. Entre las colaboraciones de esta obra el lector encontrará algunas de las claves de la ocupación de la desembocadura del río Guadalquivir hace 5000 años: el proceso de agregación humana que representa el origen de la misma ciudad de Sevilla. Igualmente, en las páginas de este libro encuentra reflejo el debate que en la actualidad preside el estudio de la Edad del Cobre (c. 3200-2200 antes de nuestra era), un periodo de apasionante dinamismo social y cultural en el que se consolidaron las bases de la jerarquización social, las relaciones comerciales a larga distancia, la metalurgia y la especialización productiva.

In 1939-1940, Marino Marini was commissioned to create five reliefs for the decoration of one of the most ambitious architectural projects of Fascism in the late Thirties, the Palazzo dell’Arengario in Milan (1938-1956 ca.). Firstly, this paper scrutinizes the sculptor’s renunciation, in 1942. Marino, indeed, decided not to accomplish this task, due to the war and the excessive restraints imposed by the Arengario’s architects. Thus, the only remaining evidence of his involvement can be found in a group of four preliminary plaster reliefs. Against this background, the paper then proceeds to formulate hypotheses as to the fate of the firth lost plaster relief belonging to the original group of his "Glorificazioni milanesi dell’evo moderno" (Milan’s glorifications of modern century). Even if never translated into marble, the reliefs were originally designed as the crucial part of the building’s propagandistic program. The final part of the research aims at providing meaningful insight as to the complex allegorical iconography of the five reliefs. Relying on an analysis of original sketches, contemporary written sources and visual comparisons with other artists, the paper offers an interpretation of the reliefs’ intended themes.

In Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 93, pp.113-136.

This work presents new archaeological evidence, from the interior freshwater tree islands within Everglades National Park’s  Shark River Slough, that demonstrates the south Florida environment was sufficiently stable to have supported intensive occupation of interior freshwater tree islands during the Late Archaic period, suggesting much greater populations than were previously thought to exist. In the Ten Thousand Islands, she presents new evidence demonstrating a long tradition of shell ring and shell architecture spanning the Late Archaic through Woodland Transition within both the interior wetlands and southwest Florida coast. This reflects an emergence of social complexity much earlier than was previously thought.

Barrows, as burial markers, are ubiquitous throughout North-Western Europe. In some regions dense concentrations of monuments form peculiar configurations such as long alignments while in others they are spread out extensively, dotting vast areas with hundreds of mounds. These vast barrow landscapes came about through thousands of years of additions by several successive prehistoric and historic communities. Yet little
is known about how these landscapes developed and originated.

That is what this research set out to do. By unravelling the histories of specific barrow landscapes in the Low Countries, several distinct activity phases of intense barrow construction could be recognised. Each of these phases contributed to how the barrow landscape developed and reveals shifting attitudes to these monuments.
By creating new monuments in a specific place and in a particular fashion, prehistoric communities purposefully transformed the form and shape of the barrow landscape. Using several GIS-techniques such as a skyline-analysis, this research is able to demonstrate how each barrow took up a specific (and different) position within such a social landscape. While the majority of the barrows were only visible from relatively close by, specific monuments took up a dominating position, cresting the horizon, being visible from much further away.
It is argued in this research that these burial mounds remained important landscape monuments on the purple heathlands. They continued to attract attention, and by their visibility ensured to endure in the collective memory of the communities shaping themselves around these monuments.

Hopewell archaeology in the early twenty-first century is radically transforming our vision of the monumental mounds and earthwork enclosures of the Ohio Valley. It is increasingly apparent that the mounds and earthworks-the above-ground architectural features-are only one aspect of the ritual landscapes at these great centers. The recent availability of hardware and software capable of conducting landscape-scale geophysical survey is demonstrating that the vast spaces between the monuments were filled with wooden architecture: wooden post circles and roofed buildings devoted to a range of public ritual and ceremony.

Recent landscape-scale geomagnetic surveys demonstrate that many
plowed-down mounds and earthworks retain considerable subsurface integrity, and the spaces between the monuments are filled with a host of magnetic anomalies.This chapter describes three seasons of ground-truth excavations focused on these anomalies between the mounds. One of these is a gigantic pit feature with an estimated volume approaching 15 cubic meters, apparently a borrow pit where distinctive sands were quarried. Another of these is the Great Circle, a circular earthwork nearly 120 meters in diameter thought to have been entirely obliterated by plowing before 1891. Our excavations revealed that the plowed-down earthwork was flanked on the exterior by a deep ditch, and bordered on the interior by a row of huge wooden posts—an enormous Hopewell woodhenge, interpreted here as a World Center shrine. Four outsized pits at the center of the circle likely served as earth ovens capable of provisioning large gatherings. A causeway across the encircling ditch is aligned to the summer solstice sunset, perhaps a clue to the timing of these grand feasts. These recent investigations are revealing ritual landscapes at the Hopewell Mound Group on a scale heretofore unheralded.

"This book presents the papers and discussions held at the second meeting of the European Megalithic Studies Group (Seville, Spain, November 2008). This is therefore a cooperative, international book that brings together leading specialists from several European countries, including France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, and Spain. This volume revolves around two crucial aspects of recent research on prehistoric monuments: time (chronology) and matter (raw materials as used in both architecture and artefacts). Both topics have generated much discussion in recent years and form one of the main cutting edges of current research on prehistoric monuments. These two main themes have recently witnessed major advances thanks to the application of new scientific techniques to old and new archaeological problems. For the chronology theme, specific issues include the origin of prehistoric monuments, the limitations and advantages of newly available high-resolution dating techniques (such as AMS radiocarbon analysis of pigments, thermoluminiscence and OSL), and patterns of utilisation, re-utilisation and abandonment. For rare rocks, some of the specific issues covered by this book are rock selection, the frequency and type of rare materials (variscite, quartz, amber, etc.), trade and exchange, the manipulation of raw materials, the symbolic catchment of geological landscapes, and the sourcing of stones. The idea here is to explore the value, function and symbolism of the materials in their prehistoric context, their placement and positioning in relation to funerary structures (architecture) and human remains (individuals), and the evidence they provide for interregional interaction."

El debate que presentamos en este número de Revista Corpus propone leer en claves históricas y culturales, los gestos y expresiones desmonumentalizadores que ocurren desde hace algunas décadas en nuestras ciudades latinoamericanas. En este debate participamos catorce personas, historiadores, antropólogos/as y fotógrafos que viven e investigan en países con historias y culturas tan diversas como México (E.Krotz y E.Quintral), Colombia (A.Góngora y P.Vignolo), Ecuador (L.Durán, E.León), Brasil (J.Cantor M.), Argentina (C.Masotta) y Chile (J.Bustamante, C.Alvarado, L.Quezada, F.Márquez, A.Hoppe). Sociedades que son y han sido testigos y agentes e procesos de derrumbe, martillazos, ahorcamientos e intervenciones de monumentos y estatuas emplazadas en los espacios públicos de sus ciudades. Tal como se muestra en este debate, el inventario iconoclasta de los monumentos caídos en América Latina es vasto y promete seguir creciendo. A pesar de que la definición e instalación de la monumentalidad en los espacios públicos ha sido históricamente privilegio del Estado y su institucionalidad, en las últimas décadas, esculturas, bustos y edificios patrimoniales se han visto sometidos a una cierta antropofagia ritual (Métraux, 2011) por parte de hordas enardecidas de ciudadanos. En este inventario de los monumentos, derrumbados y devorados, se cuentan las estatuas de Cristóbal Colón; el busto del conquistador Pedro de Valdivia “empalado” a los pies de la estatua del cacique Lautaro en Temuco; el monumento derribado del emprendedor y exterminador de fueguinos José Menéndez, depositado a los pies de la estatua del indio patagón en la Plaza de Armas de Punta Arenas; y más recientemente la icónica estatua de Sebastián de Belalcázar de Cali por parte de comunidades indígenas, entre muchos otros. Todos ellos son parte del botín de guerra de las revueltas e insurrecciones del siglo XXI que arrancan del espacio público los recordatorios que, en nombre del progreso y la civilización, asientan el poder colonial, patriarcal, racista y clasista.