Christopher Chippindale
Biographic Data
| ID | 101143 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Chippindale |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Chippindale |
| SIGNATURE | CHIPPINDALE C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 76 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 448 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 72 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
A Corrupt Cycladic Corpus of Marble Figures
The urgent seeking for Cycladic figures since the nineteenth century has caused significant destruction of the archaeological record and serious corruption of the corpus of knowledge. Unsurprisingly, there is little prospect of this corruption ever being understood in detail due to the lack of records. The problem proves impossible, as the loss of knowledge cannot now be undone. To address this issue, we examined the contribution to knowledge of …
The Forger's tale: An insider's account of corrupting the corpus of Cycladic figures
Many of the known Cycladic figures - the late prehistoric human-shaped sculptures from the Aegean archipelago - came from twentieth-century illicit excavations, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. It is also known that figures were being faked at the time and perhaps also earlier: a few fakes have been identified, whilst other figures are under suspicion. Interviews with a man who faked Cycladic figures in the 1980s and 1990s give us a first insid…
Alpine rock art: Then and Now, and Into the Future
Rock art in the Alps, centred on just two expansive sites, complements the many Scandinavian sites as a major source for open-air art in later European prehistory. A revelatory biography of one of the pioneering researchers there, published simultaneously with a superb monograph on a single rich surface of Alpine art, prompts this review of how we have studied, how we presently study and how we may come to study that art
Seeing and Knowing
Seeing and Knowing: Understanding Rock Art with and Without Ethnography
Neo-Prehistory—Exist. Regenerate. Repeat
As archaeologists we try hard to communicate our insights to a wider public, whether through lucid writing, as exemplified by Brian Fagan's many books, or increasingly through technology such as a 60-second YouTube video. But our subject runs away from us, and our audience, as it gets ever more technical. A century ago, discussion of the chronology of Stonehenge relied on everyday language to describe the order in which the stones were put up; no…
New era for Stonehenge
Provision for visiting Stonehenge was radically reorganised in 2013. Why was it so difficult to achieve? Will the new scheme work? Here we present a multi-part review of the new arrangements. Christopher Chippindale is a former editor of Antiquity and author of Stonehenge complete, which recounts the changing fortunes of the monument down the ages. Mike Pitts has excavated at Stonehenge and written about the site in Hengeworld. Chris Gosden, Prof…
Images of enculturing landscapes: A European perspective
Alpine imagery, Alpine space, Alpine time; and prehistoric human experience
Seeing and Knowing: Rock art with and without ethnography
The Rediscovery of Glastonbury: Frederick Bligh Bond, Architect of the New Age
Rock Art and Ritual: Interpreting the Prehistoric Landscapes of the North York Moors
(2010). Rock Art and Ritual: Interpreting the Prehistoric Landscapes of the North York Moors. Time and Mind: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 99-102
South Italian Pottery in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Acquired Since 1983
The 2006 deaccessioning of antiquities from the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston, for return to Italy drew attention to the networks allowing objects to be sold on the market. This case study analyzes 13 South Italian pots (Apulian and Paestan) acquired by the MFA since its revised accessions policy of 1983. Only three appear to have documentation showing that they were known prior to 1970, and another three were part of the 2006 return. The rem…
The archaeology of Bruce Trigger: Theoretical empiricism – Edited by Ronald F. Williamson & Michael S. Bisson
From Malibu to Rome: Further Developments on the Return of Antiquities
During 2006 three major North American Museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, agreed to return a significant number of antiquities to Italy. Acquisition information relating to the return of 26 items to Italy and 4 to Greece from the Getty can be added to the details known from the objects returned from Boston. A more detailed picture is emerging of how antiq…
Discovering North American Rock Art
From the high plains of Canada to caves in the southeastern United States, images etched into and painted on stone by ancient Native Americans have aroused in observers the desire to understand their origins and meanings. Rock paintings and engravings can be found in nearly every state and province, and each region has its own distinctive story of discovery and evolving investigation of the rock art record. Rock art in the twenty-first century en…
Tangible-intangible cultural heritage: A sustainable dichotomy? The 7th Annual Cambridge Heritage Seminar, 13 May 2006. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK
(2006). Tangible-intangible cultural heritage: A sustainable dichotomy? The 7th Annual Cambridge Heritage Seminar, 13 May 2006. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites: Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 174-176
John Coles. Shadows of a Northern Past: Rock Carvings of Bohuslän and Østfold. viii+222 pages, 264 illustrations, 16 colour plates. 2005. Oxford: Oxbow; 1-84217-181-X hardback £30
John Coles. Shadows of a Northern Past: Rock Carvings of Bohuslän and Østfold. viii+222 pages, 264 illustrations, 16 colour plates. 2005. Oxford: Oxbow; 1-84217-181-X hardback £30. - Volume 80 Issue 308
From Boston to Rome: Reflections on Returning Antiquities
The return of 13 classical antiquities from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) to Italy provides a glimpse into a major museum's acquisition patterns from 1971 to 1999. Evidence emerging during the trial of Marion True and Robert E. Hecht Jr. in Rome is allowing the Italian authorities to identify antiquities that have been removed from their archaeological contexts by illicit digging. Key dealers and galleries are identified, and with them other…
Before Scotland: The story of Scotland before history - Alistair Moffat
Walter Burley Griffin and A Museum of Archaeology at the Heart of Australia’S Capital
An exhibition at the National Archives of Australia in 2002 put on view the remarkable drawings made by Marion Mahony Griffin for her husband Walter Burley Griffin's designs, the designs that won the 1912 competition for Australia's new national capital in Canberra. Within those designs is an archaeological element, not before noticed, which we report in this note
European Landscapes of Rock-Art
Testing the ‘Three Stages of Trance’ Model
In October of 2002, Patricia A. Helvenston and Paul G. Bahn published a paper entitled ‘Desperately Seeking Trance Plants: Testing the “Three Stages of Trance” Model’. That paper presented a critique of the ‘Three Stages of Trance’ model as proposed by J.D. Lewis-Williams and T.A. Dowson in 1988 to account for mental imagery as perceived by people in ‘certain altered states of consciousness’ that they believed inspired Palaeolithic cave art. Helv…
Stan Beckensall. Prehistoric rock art in Northumberland. 192 pages, 244 figures, 30 colour photographs. 2001. Stroud & Charleston (SC): Tempus; 0-7524-1945-5 paperback £16.99 & $27.50
Stan Beckensall. Prehistoric rock art in Northumberland. 192 pages, 244 figures, 30 colour photographs. 2001. Stroud & Charleston (SC): Tempus; 0-7524-1945-5 paperback £16.99 & $27.50. - Volume 76 Issue 291
From ‘national disgrace’ to flagship monument: Recent attempts to manage the future of Stonehenge
The public presentation of Stonehenge is acknowledged to be poor. Many years of planned improvements have come to naught. Why is this? Seven enduring essentials of the Stonehenge problem are identified, and three obstacles to progress. The present provision, dating to 1968–70, is described, with its merits and defects. Four schemes for transformation are then reported, those of Heritage Projects, 1984; Cullinan, 1991; Tussauds, 1996; and the curr…
Processual Archaeology and the Radical Critique [and Comments and Reply]
Australia's Ancient Warriors: Changing Depictions of Fighting in the Rock Art of Arnhem Land, N.T
Depictions of battle scenes, skirmishes and hand-to-hand combat are rare in hunter-gatherer art and when they do occur most often result from contact with agriculturalist or industrialized invaders. In the Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory of Australia we have been documenting rare depictions of fighting and are able to show that there has been a long tradition of warrior art. At least three phases have been identified and in each of t…
Material and Intellectual Consequences of Esteem for Cycladic Figures
The purpose of this paper is to document the consequences, material and intellectual, of a recent rising regard for Cycladic figures as objects of the connoisseur's zeal. It explores the nature of the known corpus, which is composed of figures that have either come to light through archaeological excavation or by "surfacing" on the art market. The growing esteem for Cycladic figures has had certain material consequences for their study: archaeolo…
Birth of the Rainbow Serpent in Arnhem Land rock art and oral history
The Rainbow Serpent is agreed to be one of the most powerful, all consuming and widespread Ancestral Beings of Aboriginal Australia. It pervades not only oral history but also ceremony, performance and visual art, and is associated with great acts of creation and destruction. Although Rainbow Serpent imagery varies, its supernatural nature is usually emphasised by its form, often through the incorporation of attributes derived from a variety of n…
The archaeology of rock-art
"Pictures, painted and carved in caves and on open rock surfaces, are amongst our loveliest relics from prehistory. This pioneering set of essays goes beyond guesses as to what the pictures mean, instead exploring how we can reliably learn from rock-art as a material record of distant times: in short, rock-art as archaeology." "Sometimes contact-period records offer some direct insight about indigenous meaning, so we can learn in that informed wa…
Material Consequences of Contemporary Classical Collecting
The nature of contemporary classical collecting is explored by studying seven celebrated new collections and exhibitions. The concept of provenance is defined in terms of an object's origins, or findspot, and its modern story, or history. The several hundred objects in these collections are analyzed in terms of their findspot and history since unearthing. These show that the dismaying picture previously demonstrated for Cycladic antiquities appli…
Repainting of images on rock in Australia and the maintenance of Aboriginal culture
Sandra Bowdler reported in the last issue of ANTIQUITY (62: 517-23) on the controversy surrounding the recent repainting of Wandjina figures on the rocks of the western Kimberley, northwest Australia. Here is an Aboriginal Australian's view of the repainting project and its significance, along with an explication and further discussion of implications
From Malibu to Rome: Further Developments on the Return of Antiquities
During 2006 three major North American Museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, agreed to return a significant number of antiquities to Italy. Acquisition information relating to the return of 26 items to Italy and 4 to Greece from the Getty can be added to the details known from the objects returned from Boston. A more detailed picture is emerging of how antiq…
From Boston to Rome: Reflections on Returning Antiquities
The return of 13 classical antiquities from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) to Italy provides a glimpse into a major museum's acquisition patterns from 1971 to 1999. Evidence emerging during the trial of Marion True and Robert E. Hecht Jr. in Rome is allowing the Italian authorities to identify antiquities that have been removed from their archaeological contexts by illicit digging. Key dealers and galleries are identified, and with them other…
Radiocarbon Dates for Beeswax Figures in the Prehistoric Rock Art of Northern Australia
Accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon ages have been taken for a test suite of small samples of material removed from some of the ‘beeswax’art figures found in rock shelters in northern Australia. The results indicate that we can reliably date this unique form of rock art with no noticeable damage. We had not expected to find figures of any great antiquity, and so we were surprised to find that the ages obtained spanned the time period from t…
Piltdown: An Appraisal of the Case against Sir Arthur Keith [and Comments and Reply]
Stoned Henge: Events and issues at the summer solstice, 1985
Indigenous ethnic groups are securing an increasing control over archaeological remains in many parts of the world. European archaeologists, who face no such claims, may feel archaeological interests have given way to non‐scientific pressures. Stonehenge is one European site which presents comparable and intractable problems, as claims to Europe's premier prehistoric site encompass neo‐Druids, 'alternative' archaeologists, and a full‐scale rock f…
Testing the ‘Three Stages of Trance’ Model
In October of 2002, Patricia A. Helvenston and Paul G. Bahn published a paper entitled ‘Desperately Seeking Trance Plants: Testing the “Three Stages of Trance” Model’. That paper presented a critique of the ‘Three Stages of Trance’ model as proposed by J.D. Lewis-Williams and T.A. Dowson in 1988 to account for mental imagery as perceived by people in ‘certain altered states of consciousness’ that they believed inspired Palaeolithic cave art. Helv…
Collecting the classical world: First Steps in a Quantitative History
Of the two values of ancient objects, the connoisseur's first concern is with the object today, and the archaeologist's is with its past place and the knowledge it offers about the past. Central to both is provenance, which comprises the 'archaeology' of the item - its story until it went to rest in the ground - and its 'history' - its story once found and brought to human awareness again. Our response to looting of antiquities depends on how ser…
Archaeology and symbolism in the new South African coat of arms
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Visions of Dynamic Power: Archaic Rock-paintings, Altered States of Consciousness and ‘Clever Men’ in Western Arnhem Lane (NT), Australia
The Dynamic figures are a distinctive component in the earlier rock-art of western Arnhem Land, north Australia. They include therianthropic (hybrid human–animal) images. Recent vision experience ethnographically known in the region, and the wider pattern of Altered States of Consciousness (ASC) in hunter-gatherer societies, are consistent with elements of the Dynamics. One key feature is the use of dots and dashes in the Dynamic images, explicab…
Capta and Data: On the True Nature of Archaeological Information
Is the customary word 'data' a good name for archaeological records and facts? 'Data' means the things that are 'given,' but archaeological observations and facts are never given at all. Rather, they are captured by the researcher, who seeks to grasp from the material record the essentials of some complex and little-known phenomenon, often remote in time and usually ambiguous in material expression. We should prefer to use the better word 'capta,…
Meaning in the Later Prehistoric Rock-Engravings of Mont Bégo, Alpes-Maritimes, France
The later prehistoric rock-engravings of Mont Bégo, in the Maritime Alps on the French–Italian border, provide a rare possibility of grasping the meaning of a group in prehistoric art. Two elements in their limited repertoire of forms are daggers and halberds, which also occur as physical objects or as images in the contemporary sites of adjacent north Italy; their contexts show they are, in that area, associated with the status of adult males in…
Theoretical Archaeology Group: 11Th Conference
The Invention of Words for the Idea of ‘Prehistory’
The standard recent authorities on the history of archaeology date the invention of a specific word for prehistory to 1833, saying that Paul Tournal of Narbonne used the adjective préhistorique (‘prehistoric’ in the English translation in Heizer 1969, 91; and in Daniel 1967, 25, following Heizer 1962) or the noun préhistoire (Daniel 1981,48) in an article about French bone-caves. This is not true. The word Tournal used was antéhistorique (Tournal…
South Italian Pottery in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Acquired Since 1983
The 2006 deaccessioning of antiquities from the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston, for return to Italy drew attention to the networks allowing objects to be sold on the market. This case study analyzes 13 South Italian pots (Apulian and Paestan) acquired by the MFA since its revised accessions policy of 1983. Only three appear to have documentation showing that they were known prior to 1970, and another three were part of the 2006 return. The rem…
The Trade in Looted Antiquities and the Return of Cultural Property: A British Parliamentary Inquiry
The British parliamentary report on Cultural Property: Return and Illicit Trade was published in 2000. Three key areas were addressed: the illicit excavation and looting of antiquities, the identification of works of art looted by Nazis, and the return of cultural property now residing in British collections. The evidence presented by interested parties-including law enforcement agencies and dealers in antiquities-to the Culture, Media and Sport …
Stratigraphy, Harris matrices & relative dating of Australian rock-art
Rock-art, despite much ingenious effort (e.g., among many, Watchman et al. 1997), remains difficult to date by absolute methods, so relative dating has a central importance much as applied to dirt archaeology in the era before routine radiometric dating. It is sound relative dating which will show just what the entities are to which absolute dates may be connected. The first basis for relative dating is the determination of sequence: what motifs …
Archaeology, Design Theory, and the Reconstruction of Prehistoric Design Systems
Archaeology, systematic inquiry into the past using its material relics, is largely concerned with the study of artefacts, of the design systems that created them, and of the social and economic inferences that may be drawn. Artefact study, which began with typological sorting within an evolutionary framework, is more usefully seen as a systematic ‘archaeological morphology’ of artefacts, with regard to the character of the design systems which p…
Clarence Bicknell: Archaeology and Science in the 19th Century
The Italian resort of Bordighera, on the Riviera close by the French border, still has a little to show from the time, a century ago, when its British population-at least in the winter 'invalid season'- ran to more than 3,000 and outnumbered the native Italians. The Hotel T. Windsor ('T' stands for tennis; the Bordighera tennis club, founded by the British, is the oldest in Italy) flourishes; prim municipal notices-'A polite behaviour will be enj…
The Making of the First Ancient Monuments Act, 1882, and Its Administration Under General Pitt-Rivers
The first Ancient Monuments Act was the first measure to protect part of the built and artistic heritage of the United Kingdom. Gives a full account, from the documentary sources, of the Act's genesis, as a private member's Bill of the Liberal MP Sir John Lubbock, baron Avebury, and its administration by General A.H.L. Fox-Pitt-Rivers, first Inspector of Ancient Monuments. Discusses Lubbock's and Fox-Pitt-Rivers's concern with prehistoric monumen…
What future for Stonehenge
Like many researchers since, William Stukeley in the mid-eighteenth century wondered why the site of Stonehenge had been selected for the Britons' most sublime temple. It was chosen, he decided, according to the ancient notion of placing temples 'in clean and distinct areas, distant from profane buildings and traffic' (Stukeley, 1740, 11) (Pl. xxiia). Two hundred years on, Stonehenge is set about with traffic, busy main roads running past on both…
Two Original Drawings for Inigo Jones's and John Webb's Stone-Heng Restored (1655)
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Clarence Bicknell: Archaeology and Science in the 19th Century
The Italian resort of Bordighera, on the Riviera close by the French border, still has a little to show from the time, a century ago, when its British population-at least in the winter 'invalid season'- ran to more than 3,000 and outnumbered the native Italians. The Hotel T. Windsor ('T' stands for tennis; the Bordighera tennis club, founded by the British, is the oldest in Italy) flourishes; prim municipal notices-'A polite behaviour will be enj…
John Britton's ‘Celtic Cabinet’ in Devizes Museum and its Context
The ‘Celtic Cabinet’, acquired from John Britton when the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society and Devizes Museum were founded in 1853, is published for the first time. The cabinet, with its watercolours and plaster models, is described. The megalithic subjects of the watercolours which decorate it are identified; two of the paintings are ascribed to John Sell Cotman; the others are related to topographic artists in John Britton's…
Archaeology, Design Theory, and the Reconstruction of Prehistoric Design Systems
Archaeology, systematic inquiry into the past using its material relics, is largely concerned with the study of artefacts, of the design systems that created them, and of the social and economic inferences that may be drawn. Artefact study, which began with typological sorting within an evolutionary framework, is more usefully seen as a systematic ‘archaeological morphology’ of artefacts, with regard to the character of the design systems which p…
Stoned Henge: Events and issues at the summer solstice, 1985
Indigenous ethnic groups are securing an increasing control over archaeological remains in many parts of the world. European archaeologists, who face no such claims, may feel archaeological interests have given way to non‐scientific pressures. Stonehenge is one European site which presents comparable and intractable problems, as claims to Europe's premier prehistoric site encompass neo‐Druids, 'alternative' archaeologists, and a full‐scale rock f…
Processual Archaeology and the Radical Critique [and Comments and Reply]
Special regional section: The western Pacific rim
Once upon a time, when archaeology was the sole concern of Europeans and north Americans, exploratory expeditions went to exotic parts of the globe. The physical finds came back to the metropolitan museums. The intellectual discoveries were put in metropolitan journals and books, where those without that specific regional focus fell across them
Managing for Effective Archaeological Conservation: The Example of Salisbury Plain Military Training Area, England
Salisbury Plain Military Training Area, Wiltshire, England is the major zone of southern Engizsh chalk downland where archaeological field monuments are comparatively well preserved over large areas. The land is currently managed with regard to military considerations, to its secondary use for forming, and to conservation concerns. Following expressions of concern about archaeological damage, a working party was set up to evaluate the present sta…
The Invention of Words for the Idea of ‘Prehistory’
The standard recent authorities on the history of archaeology date the invention of a specific word for prehistory to 1833, saying that Paul Tournal of Narbonne used the adjective préhistorique (‘prehistoric’ in the English translation in Heizer 1969, 91; and in Daniel 1967, 25, following Heizer 1962) or the noun préhistoire (Daniel 1981,48) in an article about French bone-caves. This is not true. The word Tournal used was antéhistorique (Tournal…
Special section. Survey, environment and excavation in the English Fenland
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Classical matters
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Repainting of images on rock in Australia and the maintenance of Aboriginal culture
Sandra Bowdler reported in the last issue of ANTIQUITY (62: 517-23) on the controversy surrounding the recent repainting of Wandjina figures on the rocks of the western Kimberley, northwest Australia. Here is an Aboriginal Australian's view of the repainting project and its significance, along with an explication and further discussion of implications
Special section Archaeology and Indo-European languages
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Early setlement of Island Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific
It was a quarter of a century ago that ANTIQUITY first announced the 'Pleistocene colonization of Australia', when Mulvaney (1964) reported secure dates before 12,000 b.p. from Kenniff Cave, Queensland. The last three years alone have seen dates from New Guinea of around 40,000 b.p., early dates from the offshore islands of the Bismarck Archipelago, and dates from Australia itself that show a rapid colonization of both the arid central desert and…
Theoretical Archaeology Group: 11Th Conference
London archaeology
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Special maritime section
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Peerage For Archaeologist
Who is Professor Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn BA PhD ScD FSA FBA? The Lord had better be explained first. Distinguished British archaeologists have been knighted before there was Sir Mortimer Wheeler and Sir Max Mallowan; more recently, Sir John Boardman, the classical archaeologist and Greek-vase wizard who is professor at Oxford. And there have been peers who were archaeologists: Lord William Taylour who died a couple of years ago was a celebrate…
Piltdown: An Appraisal of the Case against Sir Arthur Keith [and Comments and Reply]
Archeology: Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies: Multiple Ways of Knowing the Past . Robert W. Preucel
Material and Intellectual Consequences of Esteem for Cycladic Figures
The purpose of this paper is to document the consequences, material and intellectual, of a recent rising regard for Cycladic figures as objects of the connoisseur's zeal. It explores the nature of the known corpus, which is composed of figures that have either come to light through archaeological excavation or by "surfacing" on the art market. The growing esteem for Cycladic figures has had certain material consequences for their study: archaeolo…
Australia's Ancient Warriors: Changing Depictions of Fighting in the Rock Art of Arnhem Land, N.T
Depictions of battle scenes, skirmishes and hand-to-hand combat are rare in hunter-gatherer art and when they do occur most often result from contact with agriculturalist or industrialized invaders. In the Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory of Australia we have been documenting rare depictions of fighting and are able to show that there has been a long tradition of warrior art. At least three phases have been identified and in each of t…
Training: University of Cambridge one year course, 'archaeological heritage and museums', leading to the Degree of Master of Philosophy
History (65 works) · Archaeology (52 works) · History (32 works) · Art (30 works) · Computer Science (25 works) · Geography (25 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (21 works) · Archaeological Research and Protection (19 works) · Art history (18 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (17 works)