For more than a hundred years the three colossal limestone figures from Coptos have challenged anyone wishing to write on the development of culture and society in early Egypt. Beginning from a fuller documentation of the three, a reconstruction of their original context is proposed, namely, an array of standing stones, a type of sacred structure of which a growing number of examples are known in the region. A study of the signs carved on their sides answers recent speculations that they record the names of early kings. Both the colossi and the system of symbols to which the signs belong represent a culture which, in consequence of a thoroughgoing ancient process of redefinition, was subsequently overlaid by the significantly different culture of Pharaonic Egypt.

This article suggests that the rare motif on Breton menhirs often interpreted as an axe (of ‘Mané Rutual’ type) or an axe-plough, could be the representation of a whale, and that if so, this might be a mythic creature. The character of myth and narrative is considered. It is mooted that Late Mesolithic people or their immediate descendants could have been responsible for the erection of such menhirs. The juxtaposition of the suggested whale motif with versions of animals with curved horns on the broken menhir of La Table des Marchand and Gavrinis raises the possibility of alternative or competing myths and creation stories. Other representations of natural creatures in the Mesolithic and Neolithic in Europe are briefly noted, and the possible importance of myth in the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition of northwest Europe is discussed.

The ancient Maya and other Mesoamerican peoples showed an intense interest in invoking the senses, especially hearing, sight, and smell. The senses were flagged by graphic devices of synaesthetic or cross-sensory intent; writing and speech scrolls triggered sound, sightlines the acts and consequences of seeing, and flowery ornament indicated both scent and soul essence. As conceived anciently, the senses were projective and procreative, involving the notion of unity and shared essence in material and incorporeal realms. Among the Maya, spaces could be injected with moral and hierarchical valuation through visual fields known as y-ichnal. The inner mind extended to encompass outer worlds, in strong parallel to concepts of monism. From such evidence arises the possibility of reconstructing the phenomenology of ancient Mesoamericans.

The cairns at Balnuaran of Clava show a structural relationship to the annual cycle, most clearly in their alignment on Midwinter sunset. The stones used in their construction fall into simple colour classes: ‘red’, ‘white’ and ‘black’. All three, but especially the black, appear to show selective arrangement in the cairns. A preliminary study of the relationships between the position of coloured stones and certain solar alignments, using both direct opposition and shadow casting, indicates that choice of colour may have been a significant factor in the positioning of stones within the monuments. Moreover the three colours seem to show a consistent pattern of meaning across a wide spectrum of cultures, which may imply a universal psychological factor in their symbolic use.

The interest in the study of the body that is emerging in European archaeologies has not yet penetrated Americanist approaches to prehistoric iconography. Nevertheless, American materials provide an excellent data base with which to work. This article employs the complex human representational imagery of the Moche (Peruvian North Coast, c.AD 100–800) to explore how the body was situated within the context of ritual sacrifice. Employing both the Foucauldian concept of the disciplined body and the work of Mary Douglas, two forms of bodily representation are discussed: the naked male prisoner and the spread-eagled female sacrifice. These bodies are defined iconographically not only by their sex, but also by their qualities of anonymity or individuality. While the sacrificed female represents an individual who is notable because of who she is (i.e. who she embodies), the male prisoners represent an undifferentiated and anonymous group. These two examples suggest that the body can be read as an individual symbolic field (the female body) and, alternatively, can serve as an undifferentiated forum (the bodies of prisoners) for sacrificial discourse. Despite these differences in representation, both forms of the body present potentially liminal sites within the context of sacrificial ritual. This liminality is essential for the discursive re-ordering of the body politic to occur.

Many ancient city sites display a remarkable regularity in their plan which has led to considerable debate on the symbolism and intentionality which may lie behind these arrangements. Grid plan cities of the Greek and Roman world were discussed by Haverfield almost a century ago, but it was above all the cities of South and East Asia analyzed by Wheatley in his influential Pivot of the Four Quarters (1971) which has given new emphasis to the potential of meaning and significance. Such planned cities necessarily incorporate an essential tension between praxis — the practical day-to-day needs of the urban community — and idealism, the desire to impose on those practical concerns a city-plan which expresses a symbolic or cosmological image. Contemporary texts, where they exist, may help towards an answer, but the physicality of the city plan itself provides the crucial ground for argument as to whether symbolic or ideological imperatives governed the actual outcome. Cities may be conceptualized in ideal terms without ever taking on the physical attributes of any ideal form. The contributors to this Viewpoint approach the issue from a diversity of standpoints and with reference to different geographical areas. Were cities built as images? Did powerful belief systems combined with strong centralized control give rise to cities where the moat represented the encircling sea and the raised cathedral the mountain-dwelling of the gods? Or are such readings more the product of Western analysis and wishful thinking than the original intentions of their builders? The discussion here is opened by an architectural historian, who places city-planning firmly within the Western intellectual tradition, and considers it in particular as a product of Greek geometry. A series of regional specialists then take up the baton and assess the evidence for symbolic city planning in Egypt, the Roman world, South and Southeast Asia, and Mesoamerica. How far did cities of the Classical world conform to ideas set out by Aristotle and Vitruvius? Were the regulations of the Artashastra really adopted as a practical guide for city lay-out in South Asia? The balance of evidence — of what may have been intended, against what was actually laid out on the ground — provides fertile ground for a stimulating diversity of opinions.