DUMBARTON OAKS PRE-COLUMBIAN SYMPOSIA AND COLLOQUIA
Cover: Making Value, Making Meaning: Techné in the Pre-Columbian World, from Harvard University PressCover: Making Value, Making Meaning in HARDCOVER

Making Value, Making Meaning

Techné in the Pre-Columbian World

Edited by Cathy Lynne Costin

Product Details

HARDCOVER

$75.00 • £65.95 • €68.95

ISBN 9780884024156

Publication Date: 10/31/2016

Text

496 pages

8-1/2 x 11 inches

151 color illustrations, 16 halftones, 198 line illustrations, 30 tables

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection > Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposia and Colloquia

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Making Value, Making Meaning: Techné in the Pre-Columbian World adopts the concept of techné as an analytic tool useful for understanding how the production process created value and meaning for social valuables and public monuments in complex societies in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Andes. In doing so, the archaeologists and art historians contributing to this volume add to the study of ancient artisans and craftsmanship through the exploration of how technology, the organization of production, artisan identity, and the deployment of esoteric knowledge factored into the creation of symbolically and politically charged material culture.

The wide-ranging case studies in this volume demonstrate that the concept of techné—thorough and masterful knowledge of a specific field deployed to create things with social utility—is a powerful one for understanding the political economy of craft production and the role of objects in social life and how their creation and use helps to generate their social, political, and spiritual power.

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