> Artifacts and Art History

3D Art History (7) Ceramics (44) Ancient Artists (10) Curation (5) Artifact Reproductions (17) Glass (25) Beads and Beadmaking (6) Lithics (67) Bone and Ivory (5) Megalithic Site Studies (37) Cave Paintings and Rock Art (56) Museums (19)

Maya Blue
Maya Blue is the name of a pigment used by classic and post-classic Maya civilization to decorate pots, sculpture and murals. Its beautiful turquoise color has been the focus of archaeological study since the 1930s.

Chipped Stone Venus Figurines from Poland
Large resolution images of chipped stone Venus figurines (style Lalinde/Gönnersdorf) from Wilczyce, Poland

A History of Props
While intended for theatrical set designers, and so probably should be taken with a grain of salt, this website contains brief timelines for various historical items. For instance, you can tell your friends that Butch Cassidy could have worn bifocals (commonly in use in 1820s) and that 45 rpm records were first in use in 1949.

Amber Trade
An exotic lithic material made from the sap from pine trees some 35-40 million years old, amber was (and still is) a highly tradeable item.

Benjamin Franklin's Mastodon Tooth: Artifact Spotlight
A tooth from the ancient extinct elephant known as a mastodon was recovered from beneath the floor of a building that at one time belonged to Benjamin Franklin. This artifact undoubtedly belonged to Franklin, and it represents Franklin's role in the scientific understanding of the process of evolution.

Ceramics and Pottery
The term ceramics or pottery refers to artifacts made of heated earth, including storage and cooking vessels, building material such as adobe brick, and occasionally tools and furniture.

Craft Specialization: A Primer
Craft specialization. The concept sounds easy enough; you can easily imagine people sitting around a campfire doing cross-stitch, can't you? But in reality, craft specialization is a cornerstone, or perhaps rather a keystone, on which civilizations are built.

Historical Directories
From the University of Leicester, a digital library of local and trade directories for England and Wales, from 1750 to 1919; completely searchable for information pertaining to what was sold when.

Magnificent Objects: A Review
A new coffee table book from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology gives the reader a taste for the art hstory of the world's peoples.

Obsidian
The volcanic glass called obsidian was highly prized in prehistory where ever it was found.

Opal Phytoliths
An opal phytolith is a tiny, three-dimensional copies of a plant cells created by a plant as a product of taking in water with dissolved silica.

Ostraca
The term ostraca (singular ostracon) is from a Greek word 'ostrakon' meaning 'shell.'

Pots and Potters
From your About.com guide, a collection of pots around the world.

Pottery
The term ceramics or pottery refers to artifacts made of heated earth, including storage and cooking vessels, building material such as adobe brick, and occasionally tools and furniture.

Salt Made the World Go Round
An amazing and integrated research project involving the archaeological, economic, paleoclimatic, etymological and other aspects of salt, from David Bloch.

Shell Middens in Archaeology
What's for dinner? Archaeological studies of shell middens throughout time, including an extensive review of the published literature.

Textiles
Archaeologists use the word textiles to refer to woven cloth, bags, nets, basketry, cord-twisting, sandals and other perishable material created out of organic fibers.

The Archaeology of Performance
An interesting page from Lawrence Coben, who is investigating the role of performance in Inka society, as expressed through the architecture.

The Art of Mehndi
The art of mehndi (or mehandi) has been a long-standing tradition stemming from many ancient cultures dating back as far as about 5,000 years, but is most known today for its history in India. From your About guide to Tattoo and Body Piercing, Karen Hudson.

The Portable Antiquities Scheme
The Portable Antiquities Scheme is a fairly controversial website in the UK, in that it provides a place for members of the general public to record archaeological artifacts they find.

The University of Chicago's Oriental Museum
See images of some of this remarkable collection of Near Eastern artifacts.