Eurasiatica Quaderni di studi su Balcani, Anatolia, Iran, Caucaso e Asia Centrale

Collana | Eurasiatica
Miscellanea | L’arte armena. Storia critica e nuove prospettive
Capitolo | I višap armeni. Appunti per una storia della ricezione

I višap armeni. Appunti per una storia della ricezione

Abstract

Vishaps are large-scale prehistoric stelae decorated with animal reliefs, erected at secluded mountain locations of the South Caucasus. This paper focuses on the vishaps of modern Armenia and traces their history of re-use and manipulations, from the end of the third millennium BCE to the Middle Ages. Since their creation at an unknown point in time before 2100 BCE, vishaps functioned as symbolic anchors for the creation and transmission of religious and political messages: they were torn down, buried, re-worked, re-erected, transformed and used as a surface for graffiti. This complex sequence of re-contextualisations underscores the primacy of mountains as political arenas for the negotiation of religious and ritual meaning.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Presentato: 30 Giugno 2020 | Accettato: 20 Luglio 2020 | Pubblicato 21 Dicembre 2020 | Lingua: it

Keywords Bronze Age archaeologyDragon-stonesArmenian prehistoryCross-stonesSouth Caucasus archaeologyArmenian historyMegalithic artMedieval artMonumentality


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