Monumentality, Place-making and Social Interaction on Late Bronze Age Cyprus - (Volume 17) - Kevin D. Fisher
The Bigger Picture: Monumentality in Context
Monumentality, Place-making and Social Interaction on Late Bronze Age Cyprus - (Volume 17) - Kevin D. Fisher
Kevin D. Fisher [+]
University of British Columbia
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Description
I begin Chapter 9 by addressing the broader implications of the research through an examination of the role of monumental architecture within the context of changing sociopolitical dynamics over the course of the Late Bronze Age. In doing so, I explore the built environment at the meso-scale by placing the individual monumental buildings analyzed in this study within the context of emerging urban landscapes. This begins by considering the significance of the fortress phenomenon of the MC III-LC I period—the island’s first large-scale monumental buildings. A discussion of the Proto-urban period follows, during which the mortuary sphere, including intramural burials, served as the primary means of displaying status, negotiating identities and demarcating social boundaries. This changed in the fully-urban period of the LC IIC-IIIA, leading to a consideration of how monumentality and urban identities were materialized at various spatial scales within the new urban landscapes, emphasizing the diverse trajectories through which they developed. I conclude by revisiting the relationship between monumentality and social memory, this time by reflecting on the survival of LC monuments in the landscape of the Iron Age where they were used a source of power and legitimation in a prolonged period of state formation. This highlights the historically contingent nature of monumentality as a process rather than a state.