Color and Meaning in the Art of Achaemenid Persia

Alexander Nagel is Assistant Professor and Chair of the Art History and Museum Professions Program at the State University of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. He is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, where he curated exhibitions on Iran, Iraq, Greece, Egypt, and Yemen.

'Nagel's conceptualization of the topic of the use of color on the surfaces of architectural structures and rock reliefs is outstanding in that it is not limited in scope or method. It brings together archaeological evidence, scientific and technological analyses as well as the theoretical and ethical debates around each of them. He considers these along with historiographies of art history of the Ancient Near East, aspects of collecting antiquities in Western museums and the processes of subjecting them to cleaning and conserving in ways that were not always useful. This book is very timely now in that archaeology of the senses are gaining more attention, and materiality studies in both art history and archaeology are expanding.' Zainab Bahrani, Edith Porada Professor and Chair of the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University

• Preface; Introduction: the most beautiful blues; 1. Defining polychromies; 2. Historiographical overview; Part I. Approaching Achaemenid Persian Polychromies in the Nineteenth Century – Ancient Literary Testimony and Modern Discourses; 3. Historiographical overview; Part II. Approaching Achaemenid Persian Polychromies in the Twentieth Century; 4. Uncomfortable truths: challenges of documenting and preserving Achaemenid Persian polychromies; 5. A discussion: aspects of non-verbal communication in the Achaemenid Persian empire; 6. Concluding contemplations; Bibliography.