Archaeolog

a playful parallel to the so much disputed theme of fragmentation in archaeology...

S. Rama Krishna Pisipaty
SCSVM University,
Enathur, Kanchipuram – 631561
India
Email – pisipaty@indiainfo.com

Kanchipuram (12 degrees 50'N & 79 degrees 25'E) is one of the important cities in the southern part of India from its very beginnings. Like so many ancient cities, Kanchipuram is also situated on the banks of a river, Vegavati—a rain fed subterranean river which now rarely has a visible flow of water. Today, the present city is situated a short distance away from the existing channel. Kanchipuram was the capital of the Early Cholas dynasty as far back as the 2nd century BCE and the capital of Pallava between the 6th and 8th centuries CE. The successive dynasties from the Pallavas to the Vijayanagar kings have consciously added to the architectural and religious grandeur of the city (Nilakanta Sastri, K.A. 1966). Rich in ancient monuments and inscriptions Kanchipuram was glorified in both Sanskrit and ancient Tamil literature. It was even eulogized by the Chinese traveler, Yuanchuang (7th century CE). Kanchipuram is revered as one of the seven sacred places of the Hindues. The city was ruled by illustrious monarchs from very celebrated dynasties like the Pallavas, the Cholas, the Rastrakutas, the Vijayanagaras, the Nayakas, the Pandyas, etc. together with Muslims and Britishers (Mahalingam, T.V. 1969). The foundations of south Indian art and architecture were truly laid in the region round sixth century CE. Kailasanath, Vaikunta Perumal, Kamakshi Amman, Ekambaranath, Varadaraja, Ulagananda, etc. are some of the unique examples of their artistic activities. Furthermore, this city was destined to become a great centre of literature. Many references to it can be found in the Sangam Tamil compositions. An institution for the advanced studies in Vedas called the Ghatika (advanced study centre) was also established here and this gave literary pre-eminence to Kanchipuram (Gurumurthy, S. 1970; 1979).

Figure 1: Terracotta single Massive Ring (105 X 55 X 6 cm) TCR 15

This year a record number of archaeologists descended upon “the live music capital of the world” for the 72nd annual meetings of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA). In true Texas style, the conference offered a huge array of opportunities for archaeologists to present, discuss and interact with recent disciplinary contributions. With the sessions running between 8am and 9pm over four days, even the most diligent attendees could merely sample from the hundreds of offerings. This review serves to highlight just a few of the many excellent contributions this year, and some of the sessions that we are still talking about post-conference.

10th – 13th April 2007, in Daniel Libeskind’s ORION building, London Metropolitan University, the annual conference for the Association of Social Anthropologists entitled ‘Thinking through Tourism’ was held.

At one level the Libeskind building operates through the three intersecting structural elements that form the building, emphasising sets of relations between the existing environment, the general public and academia. Certainly, within archaeology it is increasingly discussed whether these divides really exist or are indeed appropriate. From this perspective, Andrew Cochrane and Ian Russell convened a panel that sought to tease out the potentialities and problems of modern archaeological tourism, image conflict and moves towards or with archaeological expressionism.

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Joint Research by Patrick Hunt, Stanford University, and Andreea Seicean, Case Western Reserve University

Fig. 1 Albrecht Dürer, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1498.

Few realize how interconnected the legendary “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” are as a collective metaphor for the ravages of humankind in history, often found together in war, famine, disease and death because they can manifest cause and effect relationships such that one can lead into the other. Is there a connection to be found in Hannibal’s march across the Alps in 218 BCE.

Was the huge reported loss of troops in Hannibal’s wintry montane crossing also partly caused by related sickness or disease exacerbated by the hardship of montane passage? The late Roman author Appian, circa 150 CE, states that Hannibal started with 90,000 infantry soldiers in his march. On the contrary, the more reliable Polybius states that 38,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry actually began the alpine passage from the Rhone crossing and that Hannibal lost about half of this force (Hist. III.60.5). While Appian's number is unverifiable and even maybe hyperbole, several sources tell us that a large portion of the army did not survive the early winter mountain passage, with possibly as few as 25,000 soldiers actually descending into Italy. Polybius also relates that the hardship was greatly exacerbated by the lack of food, loss of pack animals carrying provisions and the cold, and that the men who survived the Alps were like beasts than men due to hardship, toil and near starvation (Hist. III.60.3-4, 6).

This question of disease and related conditions of troop reduction has come up repeatedly in the last few years on the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project’s 2006 field expedition as well as in a recent public lecture at Stanford by one of the co-authors of this brief article.