The volume draws together an impressive compendium of ways with which humans, both prehistoric and more recent, engage with darkness... I’d thoroughly recommend the volume to both aspiring and established archaeologists with an interest in skyscapes, landscapes and art, particularly in how they relate to ritual, belief and experience
Author(s): Marion Dowd, Robert Hensey
Series: Archaeology
Publisher: Oxbow
Year: 2016
Language: English
Pages: 144
1. Past dark: a short introduction to the human relationship with darkness over time
Robert Hensey
2. Darkness visible. Shadows, art, and the ritual experience of caves in Upper Palaeolithic Europe
Paul B. Pettitt
3. Between symbol and senses: the role of darkness in ritual in prehistoric Italy
Ruth D. Whitehouse
4. Experiencing darkness and light in caves: later prehistoric examples from Seulo in central Sardinia
Robin Skeates
5. The dark side of the sky: the orientations of earlier prehistoric monuments in Ireland and Britain
Richard Bradley
6. In search of darkness: cave use in Late Bronze Age Ireland
Marion Dowd
7. Digging into the darkness: the experience of copper mining in the Great Orme, North Wales
Sian James
8. Between realms: entering the darkness of the hare paenga in ancient Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
Sue Hamilton and Colin Richards
9. Dark places and supernatural light in early Ireland
John Carey
10. Enfolded by the long winter’s night
Charlotte Damm
11. ‘The outer darkness of madness’ – the Edwardian Winter Garden at Purdysburn public asylum for the insane
Gillian Allmond
12. Descent into darkness
Tim O’Connell
13. Coming in and out of the dark
Gabriel Cooney
