2 results
3 - Excavations
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- By Dominik Bonatz, FU Berlin, Germany
- Edited by Mai Lin Tjoa-Bonatz
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- Book:
- A View from the Highlands
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 24 January 2020
- Print publication:
- 07 November 2019, pp 91-133
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- Chapter
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Summary
The Prehistoric Settlement Site of Tanah Lua (Dominik Bonatz)
During the archaeological survey carried out in 2011, numerous sherds of pottery, a polished stone axe, and other stone objects were found on a slope below Pagaruyung overlooking the Selo River valley, an area that had been terraced shortly before the time of the survey (see Figure 3.1). The coarse construction of the pottery and the discovery of an axe suggested that the site was older than those at Bukit Gombak and Bukit Kincir. It faces Bukit Gombak, which stands beyond the narrow riverbed of the Selo River, and its prominent location helped attract archaeological interest (see Figure 3.2). Only 50 m below the site, a spring called Bapahat flows out of a cliff that rises steeply over the river (see Figure 2.12), and for this reason the area is called Tanah Lua, “Land of the Spring”.
In 2012, excavations began in an 8×12 m area (Trench A) on a natural terrace (see Figure 3.2). To the east, the area was bordered by the rising slope. To the west there was a sharp drop off where the ground had been terraced. Objects collected here in 2011 had been found in a dark layer of earth beneath more recent layers of humus. The layers are clearly visible in the eastern profile section of the terrace wall. The excavations in Trench A were intended to provide information about how far this older cultural layer continued, and whether it contained further finds and traces of settlement activities.
The excavations confirmed the order of the natural deposits seen in the large profile section of the terrace wall. After a dark, black humus layer 15–20 cm thick was a compact, reddish-brown, clay-like layer of earth. After 1 m the clay layer changed to yellowish-brown, sandy, and very compact dirt. There was little to find in the humus layer, while the layer of earth beneath it yielded only a few sherds of very rough ceramic and a small number of obsidian flakes found in the southern area of the trench. No anthropogenic traces were observed. These meagre results led us to shift our investigation to the southern part of the natural terrace, where there had been no modern disturbances (see Figure 3.2).
Ashurbanipal's headhunt: An anthropological perspective
- Dominik Bonatz
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- Article
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The severed head is a topic that has always attracted popular attention. In Christian art, for example, it was an image of martyrdom and fearless resistance against suppression. In contrast, popular accounts of headhunting have been used to convey an image of the primitive for Western audiences since the nineteenth century (e.g. Panel 1992). In anthropology headhunting has long been discussed in terms of materialist and evolutionary models. Only recently attempts have been made to place the phenomenon of headhunting in a wider historical and regional context (Hoskins 1987; idem 1996b; George 1991). The headhunter has become a professional recruiter in the search for executives to fill high-level positions. However, most scholars would not look to urban societies when researching the topic of the practice of headhunting, namely the taking of a head. We still habitually perceive it as an expression of violence and primitive warfare that occurs in stateless societies. In opposition to that view, this article will focus on an urban society in which a headhunt was, in at least one case, carried out in a strict anthropological sense: that is the headhunt of Ashurbanipal, described in the annals as the overthrow of the Elamite king Te-Umman and portrayed on the reliefs at Nineveh.
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