Editeur - Casa editrice

Asia
Asia Centrale
Mongolia
Siberia

Anno - Date de Parution

Pagine - Pages

Titolo originale

Lingua - language - langue

This book describes the author's intellectual and physical journey to her long-term work in the Altai Mountains of Russia and Mongolia. It recounts the challenges of getting to Siberia and the Russian Altai during the Soviet period and the physical and intellectual challenges of working in the Mongolian Altai—a region that was, at that time, virtually unknown even to researchers.

I was trained as an art historian and worked for many years in Chinese art history. Because of my early fascination with ancient Chinese interactions with the nomadic world, I gradually shifted my focus to North Asia (Siberia, Mongolia, the Altai Mountains) and to the surface archaeology of that vast region. Over several decades I conducted research on rock art in the Russian and Mongolian Altai. That and the relationship of archaeology and landscape have been my publishing focus. I am currently completing two books on rock art, landscape, and the paleo-environment"

The focus of the author's work was the rock art and monumental archaeology of northwestern Mongolia. From her decades of survey, documentation, and mapping emerged an ancient world of deep culture and considerable beauty. The author's years in the Altai also revealed the lives of the local herders, inheritors of traditions going back to the Bronze Age.

The book is liberally illustrated with the photographs of Gary Tepfer, the author's husband and partner in this multi-year exploration.

Leopardi, assaggiando un gelato a Napoli, fantasticava sugli spazi siderali ammirati d ai pastori erranti dell'SAsia. Più fortunato, ho dormito sotto quei cieli. Esther Jacobson ed ul marito Gary Tepfer hanno dormito per più di dieci anni in quell'Hotel a un milione di stelle degli Altai al confine fra Kazachstan, Russia, Mongolia e Cina. Che invidia! Con questo volume, che anche tu puoi scaricare dal mio sito, sono tornato fra i petroglifi più belli della regione, se non di tutta l’Asia centrale, a Tsagaan Sala (GEO 49°19'38.0"N 88°27'35.3"E).
Il volume di Jacobson, corredato da immagini di Tepfer descrive il viaggio intellettuale e fisico dell'autrice nel suo lungo lavoro di ricerca sui monti Altai della Russia e della Mongolia. Racconta le sfide per raggiungere la Siberia e l'Altai russo durante il periodo sovietico e le sfide fisiche e intellettuali di lavorare nell'Altai mongolo, una regione che a quel tempo era praticamente sconosciuta anche ai ricercatori.
"Una macchina del tempo scolpita sulle sponde del fiume. È uno dei complessi di dipinti su roccia più grandi e antichi dell’Asia: ventimila tra pitture rupestri. Le opere, scoperte nel 1989 e divenute patrimonio dell’Unesco nel 1996, risalgono a epoche precedenti all’età del bronzo e riproducono animali selvatici, cavalli, mammuth, cacciatori, soldati, donne. (Anna Smilari 2016)

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer
I was trained as an art historian and worked for many years in Chinese art history. Because of my early fascination with ancient Chinese interactions with the nomadic world, I gradually shifted my focus to North Asia (Siberia, Mongolia, the Altai Mountains) and to the surface archaeology of that vast region. Over several decades I conducted research on rock art in the Russian and Mongolian Altai. That and the relationship of archaeology and landscape have been my publishing focus. I am currently completing two books on rock art, landscape, and the paleo-environment.

Esther Jacobson-Tepfer is the Kerns Professor Emeritus in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Oregon. She received her doctorate in Chinese art history from the University of Chicago, where she also did extensive study in the ancient traditions of India and Central Asia. During her years of graduate study, Jacobson-Tepfer began to explore the cultures of hunters and herders in ancient Siberia and Mongolia. Over the succeeding five decades, her intellectual inquiry took her deep into regions of North Asia then little-known in the West.Jacobson-Tepfer has published more than ten books and many articles on the art and cultures of the ancient Altai Mountains. In 2016 the Mongolian President Elbegdorj awarded Jacobson-Tepfer the highest honor offered by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, the Kublai Khan Gold Medal, for her research in that region and her assistance in the development of two Mongolian World Heritage sites. Jacobson-Tepfer's husband, Gary Tepfer, has been her project photographer and collaborator throughout the Altai years.