{"id":1005,"date":"2019-07-04T12:05:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T16:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.westernargolid.org\/pro\/?p=1005"},"modified":"2019-07-04T12:05:59","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T16:05:59","slug":"viewsheds-views-and-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/?p=1005","title":{"rendered":"Viewsheds, Views, and Surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[<em>Reposted from <a href=\"https:\/\/mediterraneanworld.wordpress.com\/2019\/07\/03\/viewsheds-views-and-surveillance\/\">Bill&#8217;s blog<\/a><\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the past couple of weeks, we\u2019ve been bringing together the  analysis of a series of fortifications in the Western Argolid. This has  nudged me to re-read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/10.2972\/hesperia.87.3.0451\">Maher and Mowat\u2019s recent <em>Hesperia<\/em> article on the watch towers around Mantinea in Arcadia<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Their article rather than focusing on&nbsp;the plans of towers or their \nconstruction style, emphasized the views from the towers to propose a \ndefensive network that connected the various mountain passes around the \nchora of Mantinea to the city itself. We have been working on similar \narguments with the fortifications around the Western Argolid which \nshares with Mantinea a landscape permeated by passes and plains making \nclear lines of sight complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our work so far has demonstrated that a series of fortified heights  produce a network of overlapping viewsheds that allowed the city of Orneai to monitor traffic in and around the Inachos valley. We\u2019ve been  ground truthing these viewsheds in the field and attempting to determine  whether these fortified places are contemporary in the landscape or, at  very least, represented systematic investments in certain naturally  occurring key points in the local topography. This, of course, prompted  me to think about the ancient equivalent of surveillance society.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mediterraneanworld.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/07\/p1020972.jpg?w=599&amp;h=450\" alt=\"P1020972\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The presence of towers and forts across the landscape both allowed \nindividuals to see and communicate over significant distances \n(especially in an early modern context), but also served as visual \nmarkers of surveillance surely noticed by individuals and groups move \nacross the countryside. We tend to think of surveillance as a purely \nmodern phenomenon (thanks in no small part to Foucault), but the \nvisibility of forts and&nbsp;towers in the ancient countryside, even when \nthey weren\u2019t in use, demonstrated the power of local elite to monitor \nmovement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Reposted from Bill&#8217;s blog] Over the past couple of weeks, we\u2019ve been bringing together the analysis of a series of fortifications in the Western Argolid. This has nudged me to re-read Maher and Mowat\u2019s recent Hesperia article on the watch towers around Mantinea in Arcadia.\u00a0 Their article rather than focusing on&nbsp;the plans of towers or &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/?p=1005\">More <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Viewsheds, Views, and Surveillance<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[146,147],"class_list":["post-1005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bill-caraher","tag-towers","tag-viewshed"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/p1020972.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernargolid.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}