Search Results (4)

Religion played a pivotal role in shaping the political and cultural landscape of early China, particularly through the practice of relocating capitals (遷都). The relocation of capitals is an outstanding theme in early Chinese historiography, setting it apart from many other world traditions. In particular, this practice contrasts sharply with the early Mediterranean context, where the city of Rome transitioned from a modest city-state to a world empire and was celebrated as the “eternal city.” By contrast, early Chinese capitals were deliberately transient, their impermanence rooted in strong religious sentiments and pragmatic considerations. Religious and ideological justifications were central to these relocations. The relocation was not merely a logistical or political exercise; it was imbued with symbolic meaning that reinforced the ruler’s legitimacy and divine mandate. Equally important was the way rulers communicated these decisions to the populace. The ability to garner mass support for such monumental undertakings reveals the intricate relationship between political authority and religious practice in early China. These critical moments of migration offer profound insights into the evolving religious landscape of early China, shedding light on how religion shaped early governance and public persuasion. “Capital relocation” served as a means to rearticulate belief, reaffirm the centrality of worship, and restore faith in the ruling order. Drawing on recent archeological discoveries and updated textual and inscriptional scholarship related to the events of Pan Geng and the Zhou relocation to Luoyi, this article re-examines the motif of “capital relocation” as both a historical and historiographical phenomenon unique to early China. Full article

Challenging the still widespread modernist and Eurocentric understanding of Pollock’s art as a formal advance based in Picasso’s cubism, this study explores the pervasive impact of Mexican art, political culture, and myth on the creation of Pollock’s Birth c. 1941. The recent discovery of Pollock’s early exposure to Diego Rivera’s use of the Mesoamerican myth of Quetzalcoatl invites a reconsideration of the sources of his art. The myth of Quetzalcoatl challenged Pollock, who responded not just to Rivera but also to Siqueiros’ understanding of the political significance of art and to Orozco’s call for Quetzalcoatl’s return in a modern migration of the spirit at Dartmouth College. Made aware of the positive potential of this mythic symbolism by his Jungian psychotherapy, we see Pollock using it to counter the destructive force of fascism depicted in Picasso’s Guernica 1937. In the process he discovers his own artistic identity in Birth as a mythmaker in a time of war, capable of generating new Pan-American symbols and forms to challenge the hegemony of Picasso. Full article

The term “Western Message Petroglyphs” (WMPs) refers to a number of petroglyph sites found scattered among eight western states that are recognized by their shared image content and layout. The imagery is drawn largely from a mash-up of late historic Native American sign-gesture language and picture-writing traditions inter-mixed with pan-cultural imagery from around the world. An increasing number of sites that fit this mold have been reported over the past 85 years or so, currently numbering 39 in all. There is no question that these sites date to post-European contact based on images in some panels that depict Euro-American cultural content (e.g., western-style house, rifle, whiskey keg, horse, etc.). The post-contact era is also apparent in the method used in rendering the engraved images evidenced by the smooth angular lines and chisel strikes produced by metal tools. This paper focuses on narrowing the time frame for these sites based on two additional streams of evidence. First, patterned associations with historic landscape settings tied to the era of western expansion bind the sites together into a coherent whole and set a floor for their oldest probable dates. An example of four sites located in Utah and Arizona illustrates their connection to the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the opening years of the twentieth. Secondly, a study of their imagery supports the proposed dates by revealing a “smoking gun” for the source of many of the individual icons. An example of the methodology used to translate a Western Message Petroglyph panel is described, and a profile of the central author who appears to have acted with a small group of others is suggested in order to aid in the search for this person(s) in the historic record of the American West. Full article

The Han Dynasty Great Wall (GH), one of the largest and most significant ancient defense projects in the whole of northern China, has been studied increasingly not only because it provides important information about the diplomatic and military strategies of the Han Empire (206 B.C.–220 A.D.), but also because it is considered to be a cultural and national symbol of modern China as well as a valuable archaeological monument. Thus, it is crucial to obtain the spatial pattern and preservation situation of the GH for next-step archaeological analysis and conservation management. Nowadays, remote sensing specialists and archaeologists have given priority to manual visualization and a (semi-) automatic extraction approach is lacking. Based on the very high-resolution (VHR) satellite remote sensing imagery, this paper aims to identify automatically the archaeological features of the GH located in ancient Dunhuang, northwest China. Gaofen-1 (GF-1) data were first processed and enhanced after image correction and mathematical morphology, and the M-statistic was then used to analyze the spectral characteristics of GF-1 multispectral (MS) data. In addition, based on GF-1 panchromatic (PAN) data, an auto-identification method that integrates an improved Otsu segmentation algorithm with a Linear Hough Transform (LHT) is proposed. Finally, by making a comparison with visual extraction results, the proposed method was assessed qualitatively and semi-quantitatively to have an accuracy of 80% for the homogenous background in Dunhuang. These automatic identification results could be used to map and evaluate the preservation state of the GH in Dunhuang. Also, the proposed automatic approach was applied to identify similar linear traces of other generations of the Great Wall of China (Western Xia Dynasty (581 A.D.–618 A.D.) and Ming Dynasty (1368 A.D.–1644 A.D.)) in various geographic regions. Moreover, the results indicate that the computer-based automatic identification has great potential in archaeological research, and the proposed method can be generalized and applied to monitor and evaluate the state of preservation of the Great Wall of China in the future. Full article