Peter Brandes is one of the most significant Danish visual artists alive today. He is represented in the collections of leading museums worldwide, including the Louvre, and is featured in the most important Danish museums. Peter Brandes’ monumental sculptures and jars can be seen throughout Denmark, and he has decorated a number of Danish churches along with churches in Norway and the United States. In Jerusalem, Brandes’ Isaac Vase, approximately five meters tall, stands at the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. Peter Brandes’ oeuvre is gigantic. It spans more than fifty years, and includes such varied forms of artistic expression as painting, sculpture, drawing, graphic art, ceramics, and not least photography and stained glass, for which he has developed new techniques. Dialogue with tradition—particularly the Jewish, Greek, and Christian traditions—runs throughout his work, marking Brandes as one of Denmark’s foremost practitioners of cultural migration. Peter Brandes: Meridian of Art is the first monograph on the art of Peter Brandes. The book pursues a series of central themes that cut across Brandes’ artistic production, connecting and traversing these with lines that the book’s author, Ettore Rocca, calls the “meridian of art.” The expression “meridian” is borrowed from the German poet Paul Celan, the author with whom Brandes has felt the greatest kinship throughout his career. For Celan, a meridian designates the indestructible, invisible line in a poetic conversation. Correspondingly, in the cultural migration that weaves throughout Brandes' art, Rocca finds a meridian that at once appears impossible and indestructible.

Seleucus was the last surviving of the successors of Alexander the Great and the one who conquered the largest part of Alexander’s empire. He was later given the surname ‘Nikator’, the Conqueror. This book is a study of his life and achievements, his time and his legacy. It is based on Greco-Roman and Babylonian written sources as well as on archaeological evidence, which has grown exponentially in recent years.

The Danish neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), who lived most of his life in Rome, was not only one of Europe’s most soughtafter artists; he was also a collector. In addition to his own works and drawings, he built extensive collections of paintings, prints, drawings and books – and of ancient artefacts from Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquity: coins, lockets, containers, vases, lamps, fragments of sculpture and more. He also acquired a large collection of plaster casts, primarily after ancient sculptures and reliefs, but also of works dating from the Renaissance and up until his own lifetime. Thanks to Thorvaldsen’s bequest to the city of Copenhagen, his birthplace, all of these collections are still largely intact and well preserved at his museum. Home to a total of 657 plaster casts, the Thorvaldsen Museum’s cast collection is unique for several reasons: The collection offers us insight into the sculptor’s working methods and the development of his work because it served a clear function as an image bank of forms, motifs and subjects for Thorvaldsen’s own endeavours. Furthermore, the dual fact that the collection is so well preserved and was established over a relatively brief period of time makes it a valuable example illuminating the trade and distribution of plaster casts during the first half of the nineteenth century. These areas of study form the central focal point of Volume I of this publication. Volume II contains a catalogue of the individual objects in the cast collection, while Volume III collects the overviews, inventories, concordances and primary sources referred to in the first two volumes. Arising out of many years of study of Thorvaldsen’s cast collection conducted by their author, the classical archaeologist Jan Zahle, these books contain comprehensive source material from the period, much of it previously unknown.

Homeric Chalkis is situated on the coast of Aetolia at the very ‘gateway’ of the Gulf of Patras. The foundation occurred during an important period in early Greek history when trade and movement of peoples along the Gulf intensified with a resulting strong pull to the coast. Well-preserved stratigraphies date the foundation to the early seventh century BC and testify to a flourishing settlement in the sixth century lasting till the early fifth century BC when the site was temporarily given up. Walls and roads follow a rectilinear layout. A broad spectre of pottery shapes and wares attest to innovative local and regional workshops already from the onset of the settlement. Alongside the pottery, tools for complex textile manufacture were found in all houses, among which were many small, pyramidal loom weights and spools. These findings indicated a high degree of experimental weaving techniques and demonstrated how the courtyard house, as a new house model, was particularly well suited to accommodate this manufacture, probably mantels. The results therefore offer important new evidence on relations between gender behaviour and Greek houses. The catalogue is richly illustrated with profile drawings, plans, black-and- white and colour photos and accompanied by discussions of the material.

Lutz Klassen (ed.), The Pitted Ware Culture On Djursland. Supra-regional significance and contacts in the Middle Neolithic of southern Scandinavia. Between ca. 3000 and 2800 BC, the Pitted Ware Culture of northeast European descent spread to the northeastern parts of Denmark. Here, by far the best archaeological evidence is known from the Djursland peninsula in eastern Jutland. This volume presents 12 individual papers that present the available finds from the key site of Kainsbakke as well as number of other excavated and not excavates sites. Besides artefacts, the faunal and botanical remains are dealt with in a comprehensive matter. Several papers are devoted to scientific analyses of chronology as well as the provenance of artefacts and selected faunal remains. On this basis, the Pitted Ware culture in Djursland is interpreted as a group that emerged locally from Funnel Beaker culture predecessors. This group choose to distinguish itself from its Funnel Beaker neighbours by giving itself a unique identity. This identity can be understood as a combination of Pitted Ware traits in material culture and ritual conduct obtained through close contact with Neolithic groups on the west coast of Sweden with elements derived from contemporaneous Funnel Beaker groups in other parts of Denmark.

The image is an ontological paradox; it is made of dead matter, yet appears to be alive. For centuries, artists have created images of the living world – images that are static and yet possess the power to bring to life a frozen moment in time. While this tension has constituted a fundamental challenge for as long as theories on the nature of images have existed, recent scholarship has rekindled interest in the question of what images ‘do to us’. Despite the rational discourse of Modernity, we must acknowledge that we view images as half-living entities. Dead or Alive! addresses the perpetual relevance of images’ enigmatic life-likeness. Each of the twelve chapters, written by scholars of art history and visual culture, conveys how the materiality of images generates this powerful effect of animation. Covering a wide range of practices, from early paleolithic stone engravings, medieval tomb sculpture, renaissance death masks and baroque painting to modern fashion, park design, early cinema, robots and bio art, the book demonstrates that the ontological paradox of the image is not limited to a specific historical period or certain types of images, but can be seen throughout the history of images across different cultures.

Illerup Ådal Vol. 13 discusses the relationship between the use of weapons in war and the civilian use of bow and arrow for hunting or axes as a tool for daily tasks. Xenia Pauli Jensen writes about bows and arrows, and Lars Christian Nørbach analyses the axes and the production of them. Also includes chapters on the use of wood in weapons.

Illerup vol. 15 is the last volume in the many publications about the sacrificial weapons find by Danish Illerup Ådal from the late Iron Age. This volume is about the many non-military finds, such as dice for board games, beads, jewellery, amulets, etc. – things that the soldiers have worn as jewellery around their necks, or in purses on their belts. These items therefore give a unique insight into the soldiers’ everyday lives, their appearance and identity.

The capital of ancient Dilmun, Qala’at al-Bahrain, the most important archaeological site in East Arabia, was excavated in 1954-1978 by a Danish expedition from Moesgaard Museum. The first two volumes were published in 1994 and 1997, dealing with the northern city wall, the Islamic fortress and the central monumental buildings. The third volume covers the remaining 13 excavations, presenting their architectures and stratigraphies. A detailed treatment of the finds is given, stamp seals, inscriptions, figurines, incense burners, human bones, pottery, etc., dating from the late 3rd millennium to the Islamic period.

This book concerns the chronology of Roman mythological sarcophagi. The traditional chronology assumes a peak in production during the reign of Gallienus (AD 259-268) that fades away in the reign of Constantine. This chronology has some obvious flaws. The supposed peak under the reign of Gallienus, when the empire was falling apart, can only be described as a mirage. Some very fine sarcophagi were indeed produced in this period, but the number is very limited. With the reign of Constantine (AD 306-337) came wealth, and the so-called ‘villa boom’ that also revived sculpture in the round. At that time, it is believed that production of pagan sarcophagi had ceased to be replaced by Christian sarcophagi. This raises a very simple question, however: how were pagans buried? No doubt production of pagan sarcophagi continued beyond the turn of the century and Symmachus, who died in AD 402, was buried in such a sarcophagus.

Of the five books in the series ‘N.F.S. Grundtvig. Works in English’, this fourth volume on Grundtvig as a politician and contemporary historian is perhaps the most surprising. Grundtvig is best known globally as the founding father of the ‘People’s High School’, with his emphasis on lifelong learning and the living word in interactive conversation. In Denmark his next greatest achievement is his hymn-writing and song-writing. Few think of Grundtvig as a politician. In public discourse he is linked to Nordic mythology and church matters, rather than to parliamentary democracy or contemporary history. However, Grundtvig was a historian and a politician. His historical interests were the driving force of his entry into public politics, as is demonstrated by the texts in this volume. The present volume also presents his opposition to slavery and his support for women’s amancipation.

The Hammerum Burial Site is the story of a burial site told by more than 20 academics; a fascinating combination of different archaeological and scientific studies analyzing individuals, objects and context from different angles. The site was named after the small modern-day town of Hammerum, 5 km east of Herning in the central part of Jutland, Denmark. As early as 1993 the museum investigated this burial site, where seven inhumation graves emerged within a small area, most of which turned out to be empty of finds. Three of the graves did turn out, however, to contain well preserved organic material, so they were removed as block samples in large wooden crates with a view to later excavation. Thanks to a grant in 2009 from the Danish Cultural Agency’s special pool for the conservation of objects of unique national importance (the ENB pool) a collaboration between the museum, the Danish National Research Foundation Centre for Textile Research and the Conservation Centre in Vejle began. These analyses show that grave 83 – known as the Hammerum girls grave – was a sensation. All that remain of the deceased was her hair and her dress, but it was the best-preserved Danish Iron Age textile from an inhumation grave. Therefore, it offers an unique opportunity to analyse an object which in most cases has disappeared. The analysis tells us an extraordinarily nuanced archaeological story of daily life and of pan-Euro­pean ‘slow fashion’: a dress used in everyday life, produced by carefully choosing fine fibres which, together with the coiffure refers to a style recognizable throughout Europe and worn by a mobile, well-groomed, well-connected Iron Age female. Moreover, the preserved organic material permits us a rare glimpse of the grief of the bereaved. We can see how they carefully wrapped the Hammerum Girl in skin and put blueberry twigs under her head before laying her to rest – an act of compassion and mourning.

The articles collected in this volume share a very similar goal: to decolonize our understanding of antiquity, thus allowing modernity to converse with antiquity without constraining the latter to be either the direct precedent or the thoroughly other of the former. It is certainly true that the past is a foreign country. However, history has repeatedly demonstrated that colonialism never contributed to mutual understanding and constructive exchange of ideas, and that such is the dialogue we should strive forthwith our contemporaries as well as with our ancestors.

When images look like something they do so because they are different from what they resemble. This difference is not sufficiently captured by the traditional theories of representation and mimesis, and yet it is the condition for any such theory. Various contemporary image theorists have pointed out that Plato already understood that images are not what they look like. Images have their own existence, which cannot be identified with a concept, but should be examined in terms of actions. This book comprises fifteen articles that investigate what images do, particularly in relation to the disciplines of architecture, design and visual arts. It claims that it is the differentiating power of images—their actions—which constitutes their capacity to look like something they are not, as well as create something that does not yet exist. What Images Do addresses the crucial role that images might play in producing and investigating what we have not yet seen or understood in and of reality.

Life Cyckle Risks and the Politics of the Welfare State presents the dual risk model of the welfare state. Previous research in the field has predominantly studied the role of modernization and the associated labor market risks; this book gives equal weight to a different class of social risks, namely those related to the life cycle. Labor market and life cyckle risks each have profound, but distinct consequences for the political process of the welfare state, including public opinion formation, party competition, and public policy-making. The dual risk model helps us to understand why some social programs are prioritized over others in terms of political attention and public spending - and how this prioritization leads to mounting economic inequalities in modern-day societies.

Behind rolling hills, overlooking the fjord and the islands of Southern Funen, you will find Faaborg Museum. With its boldly coloured walls and decorative tile floors made from local clay, the building has quite literally sprung from Funen soil in a symbiosis of local nature and culture. Inside, visitors will find art by the ‘Funen Painters’, created during the period 1880 to 1928 when Faaborg was home to one of Denmark’s pre-eminent artists’ colonies. With their paintings of rural Funen, farmworkers and domestic scenes, the artists Peter Hansen, Fritz and Anna Syberg, Jens Birkholm and Johannes Larsen introduced new subject matter and new methods of painting in Danish art. Faaborg Museum was founded in 1910 by Mads Rasmussen, art patron and manufacturer of tinned goods and preserves. The museum was intended as a celebration of the art created in and around Faaborg. Together with the artists, he commissioned the architect Carl Petersen to create a building to house the museum’s collection – a building that is now acclaimed as a masterpiece of neoclassical architecture and embodies a rare union of art, architecture and design. Faaborg Museum and the Artists’ Colony presents the history of Faaborg Museum, its architecture, collection and artists to international audiences for the first time. Lavishly illustrated, the book features architectural photographs and plans as well as dozens of reproductions of the museum’s art.