Weapons and tools are frequently found depicted in rock art in many parts of the globe and different periods and in varying social contexts. This collection of papers by leading rock art specialists examines the subjective and metaphorical value of weapons and tools in art, the actions that created them, and their contexts. It also takes into account that such representations incorporate and transmit some kind of understanding about the world and the relationship between objects and humans. Contributors analyse objects and weapons as status symbols, as evidences of cultural contacts, as ideological devices, etc. Divided into regional sections which, for once, do not focus on Scandinavia, chapters deal with the representations of weapons and certain kinds of tools (such as axes and sickles) in different prehistoric, protohistoric and traditional community contexts all over the world. Attention focuses on rock art, but also looks at stelae and statue-menhirs, as well as other kinds of ‘container’ or vehicle for this kind of depiction.
The major concern is to discuss the possible meanings of these embodied signs in different areas and periods, since meanings are permeable both to time and space. Papers either centre their attention in broader approaches based on a specific area, region or people, or focus on particular case studies.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Introduction: depiction of weapons and tools in rock art as ambivalent symbols in time and space
• Part 1. The Iconographic Approach
  • 2. The picturing of weapons, tools and other objects at Australian stencilled and painted rock art sites
  • 3. Weapons, tools, and objects: material culture systems in African rock art
  • 4. The representations of weapons in the rock art of Tunisia
  • 5. Weaponry in Levantine rock art: a general view from the Maestrazgo region, Spain
  • 6. The image of tools and the metaphor for life: a case study in Kosovo
  • 7. Warriors and weapons: engraved motifs in the Early Bronze Age rock art in Sweden
• Part 2. The Contextual Approach
  • 8. Megaliths and weapon representations: a view of the birth of Iberian warrior images
  • 9. The parade of weapons: ritual landscapes in late prehistory in the north-west Iberian Peninsula
  • 10. West Iberian Bronze Age halberds in rock art sites: several ontological considerations
• Part 3. The Ethnographic and Historical Approach
  • 11. Ritual and symbolic significance of weapons in western North American rock art
  • 12. Weapons and rock art engravings: a case study of Recuay filiation in the Queneto site, Viru valley, Peru
  • 13. Painted for war: rock art depictions of archers with arrow headdresses in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
  • 14. Horsemen’s weaponry in the rock art of Jebel Rat (High Atlas, Morocco): signs of a social elite
  • 15. Ancient rites as evidenced in the representation of weapons and tools in a rock art tradition in northern Greece