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Gifts from the Ancestors: Ancient Ivories of Bering Strait

Amazon.com Price:  $54.97 (as of 06/05/2019 04:30 PST- Details)

Description

The appearance all the way through the first millennium A.D. of small, exquisitely carved artifacts of walrus ivory in the Bering Strait region marks the beginning of an atypical florescence in the art and culture of North The united states. The discovery in the 1930s and 1940s of world-class carvings of animals, mythical beasts, shape-shifting creatures, masks, and human figurines astounded scholars and excited collectors. However, the atypical objects that belong to this fascinating, occasionally frightening, world of hunting-related art remain in large part unknown.

 

Gifts from the Ancestors  examines ancient ivories from the coast of Bering Strait, western Alaska, and the islands in between—illuminating their sophisticated formal aesthetic, cultural complexity, and individual histories. Some of the pieces discussed are from latest Russian excavations and are presented here for the first time in English; others are from private collections not on a regular basis open to the public. The essays, written by an international group of scholars, adopt a refreshing interdisciplinary approach that gives voice to the more than a few competing, and now occasionally cooperating, stakeholders, including Native groups, museums, archaeologists, art historians, art dealers, and private collectors.

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