Images of the Past

Pictures are an essential feature of archaeological discourse. The way they are used and their unconsciously made assertions demonstrate important things about ourselves, our theories, our methods, and the way we think. They subtly convey our convictions and view of the world – especially with regards to gender issues.The papers united in this volume highlight the relationship between words and images, thinking and showing, knowledge and assumptions, scholarly thinking and popular images in archaeology. They cover two main issues: pictorial representations of archaeology in academic and popular media, and pictures in museums. The authors examine the use of gender in academic publications, TV-documentaries, video games, non-fiction books for children and adolescents, and in archaeological museums in Spain and Germany. The volume is the result of two sessions of gender study in archaeology: “Images of the Past: Gender and its Representations” during the 20th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in September 2014 in Istanbul, and “Gender in Museums”, the symposium of the Nordwestdeutscher Verband für Altertumskunde (Northwest German Association for Antiquarian Studies) in September 2013 in Lübeck. This book includes articles in English and in German.