1st Edition

Infrastructures of Religion and Power Archaeologies of Landscape, Ritual, and Semiotics

By Edward Swenson Copyright 2024
430 Pages 70 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

430 Pages 70 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

430 Pages 70 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book explores the central role of religion in place-making and infrastructural projects in ancient polities.  It presents a trilectic approach to archaeological study of religious landscapes that combines Indigenous philosophies with the spatial and semiotic thinking of Lefebvre, Peirce, and proponents of assemblage theories. Case studies from ancient Angkor and the Andes reveal... Read more

Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Excavating the Theoretical Landscape: The Archaeological Search for Significance; Chapter 3:  Sublime Infrastructures: Emplacing Ritual, Religion, and Power; Chapter 4: Ceremonial Architecture as Semiotic Machines; Chapter 5: Sacred Infrastructures and Rituals of Place Making in the Ancient Andes; Chapter 6: A Tale of Three Temples: The Changing Religious Landscape of the Southern Jequetepeque Valley, Peru; Chapter 7: Karma Ecologies: Khmer Place-Making, Infrastructures, and Ideologies of Space; Chapter 8: the Āśrama and Hospital Foundations of Ancient Angkor; Chapter 9: Conclusion: Landscapes of History; Index.

Biography

Edward Swenson is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Director of the Archaeology Centre at the University of Toronto. Swenson has conducted archaeological research in the Jequetepeque Valley on the North Coast of Peru and in Cambodia as member of the Yaśodharāśramas Archaeological Project. Swenson has published extensively, and his theoretical interests include the pre-industrial city, the rise of social inequality, the archaeology of ritual and ideology, violence and religion, materiality theory, place-making and ancient infrastructures, the archaeology of time and landscape, semiotics, and the politics of spatial experience and social memory.