Overview

A Forged Glamour, which takes its title from a poem, is an exploration of the lives and deaths of ironworking communities renowned for their spectacular material culture, who lived in modern-day East and North Yorkshire, between the 4th and 1st centuries BC. It evaluates settlement and funerary evidence, analyses farming and craftwork, and explores what some of their ideas and beliefs might have been. It situates this regional material within the broader context of Iron Age Britain, Ireland and the near Continent, and considers what manner of society this was. In order to do this it makes use of theoretical ideas on personhood, and relationships with material culture and landscape, arguing that the making of identity always takes work. It is the character, scale and extent of this work (revealed through objects as small as a glass bead, or as big as a cemetery; as local as an earthenware pot or as exotic as coral-decoration) which enables archaeologists to investigate the web of relations which made up their lives, and explore the means of power which distinguished their leaders.

Full Product Details

9781905119462

Table of Contents

Reviews

Giles' book is much more than an account of the archaeology of East Yorkshire; frequent theoretical discussions exploring varied aspects-from how to interpret burial evidence to the nature of identity and performance-are of much broader resonance; this is certainly not a book to be read only by those interested in the Iron Age. It is an excellent example of how to bring the past to life whilst presenting complex archaeological data. -- Antiquity Antiquity This is a richly detailed book that lives up to the promise of its title and introduction. As well as a sophisticated synthesis, it provides a satisfying exposition of how landscape may be constituted through objects. -- Landscapes Landscapes 'The book will serve as an excellent introduction for students interested in British prehistory... For professionals in the field of archaeology, it is a model of how big questions can be addressed by close attention to the archaeological data. ' -- Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society ...a comprehensive and provocative volume which will be essential reading for all those interested in Iron Age Britain...this book provides an important addition to our knowledge of Iron Age Britain, promoting some of its most spectacular archaeology -- Peter Halkon The Archaeological Journal

'The book will serve as an excellent introduction for students interested in British prehistory... For professionals in the field of archaeology, it is a model of how big questions can be addressed by close attention to the archaeological data. ' -- Peter S. Wells Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society Giles' book is much more than an account of the archaeology of East Yorkshire; frequent theoretical discussions exploring varied aspects-from how to interpret burial evidence to the nature of identity and performance-are of much broader resonance; this is certainly not a book to be read only by those interested in the Iron Age. It is an excellent example of how to bring the past to life whilst presenting complex archaeological data. -- Tom Moore Antiquity Vol. 87, Issue 338, Dec 2013

Author Information

Melanie Giles teaches archaeology at the University of Manchester, specialising in the Iron Age, particularly Celtic art, as well as the bog bodies of north-western Europe. She works not just on the analysis and interpretation of burials but on aspects of visualisation and display.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available