In a period when the study of archaeological remains is enriched through new methods derived from the natural sciences and when there is general agreement on the need for more investment in the study, restoration and conservation of the tangible cultural heritage, this book presents contributions to these fields from South-Eastern Europe.

This volume explores social responses to stages of childhood from the late Neolithic to Classical Antiquity in Central Europe and the Mediterranean. Comparing osteological and archaeological evidence, as well as integrating images and texts, authors consider whether childhood age classes are archaeologically recognizable.

Research explores cultural policies and specific policy tools aimed at working with heritage dissonance and heritage related conflicts created for and implemented within the region of South East Europe (SEE) with the aim of contributing to reconciliation, mutual understanding and peace-building. The research analyses four distinctive cases which worked with heritage dissonance developed within and for the SEE region (the transnational nomination for UNESCO World Heritage List of Stećaks, medieval tombstones by the Ministries of Culture of Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina; the regional exhibition Imagining the Balkans: Identities and Memory in the Long 19th Century involving.

This Open Access book explores heritage conservation ethics of post conflict and provides an important historical record of the possible reconstruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues, which was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List in Danger in 2003 as “Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley”. With the condition that most surface of the original fragments of the Buddha statues were lost due to acts of deliberate destruction, this publication explores a reference point for conservation practitioners and policy makers around the world as they consider how to respond to on-going acts of destruction of cultural heritage. Whilst there has been an emerging debate to the ethics and nature of heritage reconstruction, this volume provides a plethora of ideas and approaches concerning the future treatment of the Bamiyan Buddha statues. It also addresses a number of fundamental questions on potential heritage reconstruction: how it will be done; who will decide; and what it should be done for. Moreover when it comes to the inscribed World Heritage properties, how can reconstructed heritage using non-original materials be considered to retain authenticity? With a view to serving as a precedent for potential decisions taken elsewhere in the world for cultural properties impacted by acts of violence and destruction, this volume introduces academic researches, experiences and observations of heritage conservation theory and practice of heritage reconstruction. It also addresses the issue not merely from the point of a material conservation philosophy but within the context of holistic strategies for the protection of human rights and promotion of peace building.

A lucid philosophical, theoretical, and practical guide to the creation of an authentic and realistic interpretation of heritage. Demonstrates how sensitivity and ethical approaches can be developed to present the actual history of concentration camps, atrocities, disease, death, and oppression without alienating the observer. Contains planning goals and advice to produce a thoughtful and sympathetic response and lasting understanding of the fate and consequences of real peoples and historic events.

In the Homeric Epics, important references to specific autonomous systems and mechanisms of very advanced technology, such as automata and artificial intelligence, as well as to almost modern methods of design and production are included. Even if those features of Homeric science were just poetic concepts (which on many occasions does not explain the astonishing details of design and manufacture, like the ones included in the present volume), they seem to prove that these achievements were well within human capability. In addition, the substantial development of machine theory during the early post-Homeric age shows that the Homeric descriptions were a kind of prophetic conception of these machines, and scientific research must be a quest for the fundamental principles of knowledge available during the Late Bronze Age and the dawn of the Iron Age. Such investigations must of necessity be strongly interdisciplinary and also proceed continuously in time, since, as science progresses, new elements of knowledge are discovered in the Homeric Epics, amenable to scientific analysis. This book brings together papers presented at the international symposium Science and Technology in Homeric Epics, which took place at Ancient Olympia in 2006. It includes a total of 41 contributions, mostly original research papers, covering diverse fields of science and technology, in the modern sense of these words.