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Lack of contextual evidence for the use of small personal ornaments means that much of our understanding of ornamentation traditions within archaeological cultures is reconstructed from ethnographic comparisons. New in situ finds from the areas around the ears and mouth in burials at Boncuklu Tarla, a Neolithic settlement in Turkiye, add a novel dimension to the interpretation of stone 'tokens' or 'plugs'. This article presents a new typology for these artefacts and argues for their use as ear ornaments or labrets in a practice involving significant and lasting corporal alteration. Keywords: South-west Asia, Neolithic, body augmentation, perforation, ornamentation, labret, Introduction Small, disc or nail-like objects similar to modern and ethnographic examples of labrets--worn through piercings beneath the lower lip--are well documented in the material culture of Neolithic South-west Asia [...]

To speak of the Blackamoor figure is to speak of several intertwined imaginaries, especially along the East/West and North/South double geographical axis. A hybrid of the African Black and the [...]

This article examines episodes from three novels by Guy de Maupassant, Notre Coeur (1890), Bel-Ami (1885), and Pierre et Jean (1888), and analyses how mantelpieces and ornaments become a privileged [...]

Ornament, reviled in avant-garde circles since Adolf Loos associated it with crime, remains an important force in artistic production in many cultures. The Academy Forum invited artist Tom Phillips to [...]

The designs of the Italian Cosmati architecture are most evident on the pavements of churches, and can be categorized into two patterns, the guilloche and quincunx. Guilloche and quincunx are interlaced serpentine motives used to decorate the axis. In the guilloche pattern, roundels are arranged in a linear manner, whereas in quincunx, four disks surround a central disk. Both the patterns incorporate geometric patterns, of fractal nature, between bands and roundels, and in interstices between the bands and the borders. These patterns use tiles cut into various geometric shapes.

Grass-tempered bowls made by the forbears of historical Karoo Bushmen between ca. A.D. 1500 and 1800 were decorated with many different stamp-impressed motifs. Five of the seven observed motif groups appear to be distributed randomly across the 2,000 [km.sup.2] study area in the upper Seacow River valley, South Africa. When their percentage frequencies per site cluster were mapped, however, localized concentrations appeared. The validity of the percentage concentrations is tested here by unconstrained cluster analysis, which is not subject to the closure effect. Also, several other tests, all avoiding the use of percentage frequency maps, are introduced as alternative ways to deal with unevenly distributed sites and scarce artifacts or traits unevenly distributed among the sites themselves. The results demonstrate that percentage-frequency mapping can produce occasionally spurious and misleading patterns. Because stratigraphic evidence is scarce and inconclusive, and direct dating of sherds has not yet been conducted, a test also is proposed for determining contemporaneity of motif groups. Los cuencos con desgrasante de paja hechos por los antepasados del grupo historico Karoo Bushman durante 1500 a 1800 D.C., fueron decorados con diferentes motivos impresos con sellos. Cinco de los siete grupos de motivos observados parecen estar distribuidos al azar a traves del area de estudio que comprende 2.000 [km.sup.2] de la parte alta del valle del Rio Seacow en Africa del Sur. Sin embargo, cuando sus frecuencias de porcentajes fueron mapeadas para cada grupo de sitios, aparecieron concentraciones localizadas. Este articulo examina la validez de dichas concentraciones de porcentajes a traves de un analisis de grupos no restringidos, el cual no esta sujeto a un efecto terminal ("closure effect"). Ademas, se introducen varias pruebas que evitan el uso de mapas de frequencias de porcentajes y que constituyen alternativas para tratar con sitios distribuidos de manera desigual y con escasos artefactos o rasgos desigualmente distribuidos entre los sitios mismos. Los resultados demuestran que los mapas de frecuencias de porcentajes pueden producir ocasionalmente patrones erroneos. Debido a que la evidencia estratigrafica es escasa e inconclusa, y que la datacion directa de tiestos ceramicos aun no se ha producido, se propone una prueba para determinar la contemporaneidad de los motivos.

Good art makes the whole world, and everything in it, into art. When you leave a gallery and can't tell whether the piles of traffic cones outside are a streetwork [...]