2 Books Like Iban Art

For anyone who is interested in early humans and their interactions and wants to look deep into the origins of mankind, this is a must-read! Human movements in East and Southeast Asia have often been overlooked, in spite of the really important discoveries of h. floresiensis, h. luzonensis, and h. longi in the region, and this introduces the current state of the field in easy and approachable language, but also with sufficient detail and discussion of controversial points of interpretation to get a real feel for the key questions that have been answered and the ones that are yet to come. A marvelous book, and one that asks you questions you have probably never considered, like: Did a Neanderthal ever look out at the Pacific Ocean?

Thanks to the brutal robbery of ancient tombs across the Philippines during the colonial era, vast quantities of their ancestral goldwork was torn from graves to be melted down and shipped to Spain, as indigenous art traditions and skills were stamped out and the descendants of these highly skilled people forced into poverty. This wonderful book, featuring pieces currently on display at the Ayala Museum in Manila, focuses on some scattered surviving remnants of this once-vibrant artistic tradition, mostly obtained from tombs on the southern island of Mindanao. A fascinating fusion of Indian, Southeast Asian, and Chinese techniques and artistic styles went into these truly beautiful pieces of goldwork, and this book also features delightful illustrations taken from the Boxer Codex to show how they would have been worn. It's a window into an otherwise lost tradition, and a tribute to the artists who once produced these extraordinary objects.