Heraldry for the Dead: Memory, Identity, and the Engraved Stone Plaques of Neolithic Iberia

Acknowledgments

 That a manuscript on the engraved plaques of Iberia now faces me is a mystery almost as perplexing as the engraved plaques themselves. Three major sources of assistance and inspiration deserve my heartfelt thanks: first, the museums, granting agencies, and educational institutions that provided generous financial and institutional support; second, my colleagues and students, who took part in countless conversations, discussions, and exchanges about ideas developed in this book; and third, my intellectual “ancestors”—former teachers and advisors. The Archaeological Institute of America awarded me an Archaeology of Portugal Grant in 2003 that allowed me to study and photograph hundreds of plaques found in the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia, the Museu do Carmo, and the Museu Geológico in Lisbon. In 2004 I received an Arts and Humanities Initiative grant from the University of Iowa, which funded the technical support that helped produce and ultimately launch the electronic database of the plaques: the Engraved Stone Plaque Registry and Inquiry Tool (ESPRIT). ESPRIT constitutes the empirical basis for the ideas in this work. The University of Iowa Office of the Vice President for Research provided support for the preparation of this manuscript. The actual creation of ESPRIT required a level of collaboration, generosity, and collegiality that I find both overwhelming and humbling. I owe many people many thanks. First I must thank my archaeology students from Ripon College, especially Andrew Rich, who helped me photocopy and catalogue hundreds of plaques on index cards in 2001. Little did they (or I) know where their efforts would lead. The present state of ESPRIT, with records and images of over 1,300 plaques, is the result of being granted access to and being able to photograph and/or reproduce hundreds of plaques found in museums throughout Portugal and Spain. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to the many curators and archaeologists who allowed me to study the plaques in their holdings or to study and photograph plaques from their excavations. They include Dr. Luís Raposo, director of the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia (Lisbon); Dr. José Brandão, curator of the Museu Geológico (Lisbon); Dr. Guillermo S. Kurtz Schaefer, director of the Museo Arqueológico Provincial de Badajoz (Badajoz); Dra. Carmen Cacho, curator at the Museo Arqueol ógico Nacional (Madrid); Dr. José Arnaud, director of the Museu do Carmo acknowledgments x (Lisbon); Dr. António Carrilho, curator of the Museu Municipal de Lagos (Lagos); Dr. Diego Oliva Alonso, curator of the Museo Arqueológico de Sevilla (Seville); Drs. Miguel Lago and António Valera of Era-Arqueologia, S.A. (Lisbon); and Dr. Rui Parreira of Instituto Português do Património Arquitectónico (IPPAR, Faro). I am also grateful to many archaeologists who granted permission to reproduce images of plaques from their publications in ESPRIT: Dr. António Carlos Silva (IPPAR, Évora), Dr. João Cardoso (Universidade Aberta, Lisbon), Dr. Víctor Hurtado Pérez (Universidad de Sevilla), Dra. Raquel Vilaça (Universidade de Coimbra), Dr. Lars Larsson (University of Lund), Dr. Manuel Calado (Universidade de Lisboa), Dr. João Ludgero Gonçalves (Museu Municipal de Cadaval), Dra. Primitiva Bueno Ramírez (Universidad de Alcalá de Henares), and Dr. Victor Gonçalves (Universidade de Lisboa). I owe special thanks to Dr. Dirce Marzoli, director of the German Archaeological Institute, Madrid, for graciously allowing me to reproduce many illustrations from the Leisners’ publications. I am also profoundly grateful for all the technical assistance over the years that ultimately made ESPRIT a reality. Jean Moore, Monika Pawlak, Angela Collins, and Meredith Anderson helped scan and prepare the plaque images for use in ESPRIT . Angela Collins also prepared some of the maps in this book. Stephanie Serlin and María Mercedes Ortiz Rodríguez translated German passages from the Leisners’ publications. Sally Donohue helped set up the original Filemaker Pro version of ESPRIT. For the spatial analyses I carried out on the plaques, I am indebted to Jerry Mount (University of Iowa, Department of Geography). Michael Chibnik, my colleague at the Department of Anthropology, University of Iowa, generously offered advice on the statistical analyses that were conducted by UI graduate student Erica Begun. I owe huge thanks to the Academic Technologies team at the University of Iowa: Steven Bowers, Danny Novo, and especially Denny Crall—for bringing ESPRIT to life on the World Wide Web. I wish also to thank those colleagues and friends who provided encouragement throughout this project’s genesis, offered critical insights on ideas and methods, or pointed...