A
monument is a type of structure either
explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or
which has become important to a social group as a part of their
remembrance of past events. They are frequently used to improve the
appearance of a city or location.
Cities that are planned such as Washington D.C.
, New
Delhi
and Brasília
are often
built around monuments. The
Washington Monument's location (and
vertical geometry, though not physical detail) was conceived to
help organize public space in the city before it was ever connected
with
George Washington. Older
cities have monuments placed at locations that are already
important or are sometimes redesigned to focus on one. As
Shelley suggested in his famous poem
"
Ozymandias" ("
Look on my works, ye
Mighty, and despair!"), the purpose of monuments is very often
to impress or awe. In
English the
word "monumental" is often used in reference to something of
extraordinary size and power. The word comes from the Latin
"monere," which means 'to remind' or 'to warn.'
Functional structures made notable by their age, size or historic
significance can also be regarded as monuments.
This can happen
because of great age and size, as in the case of the Great Wall of China, or because an event
of great import occurred there such as the village of Oradour-sur-Glane
in France
. Many
countries use
Ancient monument or
similar terms for the official designation of protected structures
or
archeological sites which may
originally have been ordinary domestic houses or other
buildings.
Monuments are also often designed to convey historical or political
information.
They can be used to reinforce the primacy of
contemporary political power, such as the column of Trajan
or the numerous statues of Lenin in the Soviet Union
. They can be used to educate the populace
about important events or figures from the past, such as in the
renaming of the old General Post Office Building in New York City
to the James A.
Farley Building (James Farley
Post Office
), after former Postmaster General James Farley.
The social meanings of monuments are rarely fixed and certain and
are frequently 'contested' by different social groups. As an
example whilst the former East German socialist state may have seen
the Berlin Wall as a means of 'protection' from the ideological
impurity of the west, dissidents and others would often argue that
it was symbolic of the inherent fascism and paranoia of that state.
This contention of meaning is a central theme of modern 'post
processual' archaeological discourse.
Monuments have been created for thousands of years, and they are
often the most durable 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 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 revealed
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.
Types of monuments
See also
External links
and memorials to
commemorate the dead, usually war casualties - e.g.
Vimy Ridge Memorial
and India
Gate
to inter the dead - e.g. the Great Pyramid
and Taj
Mahal
, almost always to commemorate military successes -
e.g. the Arc de
Triomphe
and Borodino
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