Edlingham, Northumberland UK. Series – TVRRIS. (The tower appeared on the cover of my 1992 book Experiencing the Past – [Link] ) Archaeographic notes: There emerged in eighteenth-century Europe a distinctively modern aesthetic of ruin, part of an antiquarian and romantic sensibility. This series aims to question, reconfigure, reanimate the picturesque castle ruin in the…
borderlands
Map on a wall
Border county of Northumberland [Link] – Three Landscapes Project, Studio Michael Shanks Stanford University 2000
Applied Archaeology — Applied Humanities
Studio Michael Shanks Stanford University Newsletter 2024 Stanford Archaeology Center Archaeological mission and vision? Ivory tower as lighthouse? In a recent newsletter for Stanford Archaeology Center [Link] I talked of slow archaeology, of the benefits of long-running projects that afford time for unfolding reflection. Three interrelated projects remain ongoing. A kind of archaeological triptych. —…
Archaeological shores: reflections on a metaphysics of cartography
Field notes. The pragmatics of an archaeological sensibility — what might one do in an archaeological visit to the beach? For as long as I can remember maps have made me anxious. Where does one draw the line of a coast, a road, a river? In archaeological excavation one is regularly required to document, record,…
Chris Tilley – mythographic triptych (annotated)
Reflections on the work of Christopher Yates Tilley 2 This is Part 2 of a reflection upon the works of Chris Tilley, prompted by his too-early death in March 2024. I want to do justice to the range and depth, the significance of his work in anthropology and archaeology. My reflections are based on memories,…
Update: December 2022 – slow archaeology
“Our brains aren’t designed for multitasking”, my dear friend Cliff Nass, mathematician, cognitive scientist and psychologist, warned me a good long while ago – and he’d written a book about it! “It will slow you down and cloud your reasoning.” OK — I’m still working on the same big three projects as back then. But…