creamandcheese

Monuments are also often intended to convey historical or political information. They can be used to strengthen the primacy of contemporary political power, such as the column of Trajan or the several statues of Lenin in the Soviet Union. More benevolently they can be used to educate the public about important events or figures from the past. Monuments also serve as demarcators of public spaces.

Most large monuments are built by governments, but smaller ones are still often built by individuals.Monuments have been formed for thousands of years, and they are often the most long-lasting and famous symbols of ancient civilizations. The Egyptian Pyramids, the Greek Parthenon, and the Moai of Easter Island have become symbols of their civilizations. In more recent times, monumental structures such as the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower have become iconic emblems of modern nation-states. The term monumentality relates to the symbolic status and physical presence of a monument.

Until relatively recently, it was customary for archaeologists to study large monuments and pay less attention to the everyday lives of the societies that created them. New ideas about what constitutes the archaeological record have exposed that certain legislative and theoretical approaches to the subject are too focused on earlier definitions of monuments. An example has been the United Kingdom's Scheduled Ancient Monument laws.

# posted by faburous @ 5:28 AM