ASIA
2009. —Introducció a les religions de l’Àsia Oriental i Meridional.
—El ioga i la meditació oriental hinduista, budista i taoista.
—Shaolín: el bressol de les arts marcials de l’Àsia Oriental.
Titles translation: "Introduction to East and South Asian religions", "Yoga and Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist oriental meditation" and "Shaolin: the cradle of East Asian martial arts".
Summary: These three chapters are part of an instructive and thematic monograph devoted to synthesize some aspects of East Asian culture related to ancestral wisdom, Eastern beliefs, forms of meditation, traditional practices, alternative therapies and martial arts.
Reference: D’Orient a Occident. Saviesa ancestral, Vision Libros, Madrid, pp. 15-42, 55-76, 165-203.
(Also Spanish translation, by the same publisher)
Download chapter on religions (text in Catalan language)
Download chapter on meditation (text in Catalan language)
Download chapter on martial arts (text in Catalan language)
Amazon.com (buy Catalan paperback book)
Amazon.com (buy Spanish paperback book)
2010. Anàlisi comparativa dels feudalismes japonès i europeu: aspectes militars i fortificacions
Title translation: "Comparative analysis of Japanese and European Feudalism: Military aspects and fortifications".
Summary: This master’s thesis, the first work on its subject published in Catalan language, is a rigorous academic comparative type study, the result of specialized research in the field of Japanese feudal poliorcetics and polemology.
It analyzes the evolution of Japan’s fortifications over time, the types of castles and their constituent elements, the artillery and the assault and siege machines used in their expugnation, as well as the peculiarities and identifying features of the social groups that used them, the samurai, not forgetting the warrior monks, while establishing parallels with medieval European feudalism.
Reference: Vision Libros, Madrid.
Download table of contents (text in Catalan language)
Buy paperback book online (text in Catalan language)
2011. El Tibet y su cultura: pasado y presente
Title translation: "Tibet and its culture: past and present".
Summary: “Tibet in the heart” shows the current reality of the Country of the Snow or Roof of the World from three different but complementary points of view: an introductory synthesis on geography, history, art, society, economy, religion, literature, traditional medicine, festivals and traditions; personal psychosocial reflections based on experiences; and several experiences of Tibetan refugees collected in the form of interviews.
Three authors have collaborated in the writing of this work: Jordi Escartín Solanelles, doctor in organizational and work psychology, professor at the Department of Social Psychology at the University of Barcelona; Manoli García Gil, reiki and meditation teacher, president of the Orient & Occident association; Víctor Lluís Pérez Garcia, doctor in archeology from the University Rovira i Virgili of Tarragona, orientalist and secondary education professor of Geography and History.
Reference: Tíbet en el corazón, Sunya, Barcelona, pp. 19-140.
Download chapter on architecture (text in Spanish language)
Buy paperback book online (text in Spanish language)
2016. La difusión de la planta urbana ortogonal china en los siglos VI-VIII: Corea y Japón
Title translation: "The spread of Chinese urban grid plan in the 6th and 8th centuries: Korean and Japan".
Summary: This article aims to analyze the diffusion process of the Chinese orthogonal city plan existing during the Sui and Tang empires towards the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago during the 6th-8th centuries from the study of the archaeological researches, as well as to try to understand why this event took place at the time of the Tang Dynasty. It is confirmed the great importance of the Chinese model in the urban development of the imperial capitals of Korea and Japan, despite its regional adaptations, in a historic moment of profound cultural assimilation.
Reference: ArqueoWeb 17, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, pp. 1-2.
Download article (text in Spanish language)
2016. South-East Asian fortified stone walls: Angkor Thom (Cambodia), Ho citadel (Vietnam) and Ratu Boko (Indonesia)
Summary: This article aims to analyze three significant examples of defensive walls from South East Asia made of solid stone blocks (both rock as well as stone-like laterite) and provided with different but equivalent functions –a fortified imperial capital-city (Angkor Thom, in Cambodia), a fortified royal citadel (Ho Citadel, in the North of Vietnam) and a royal palace with a partly fortified appearance (Ratu Boko, in Java Island, Indonesia)–, focusing on their constructive and technical characteristics and establishing parallels between them and their closest counterparts, from China and India. We will see how their design and structure can be closely related to the fortifications of neighbouring empires, as places of origin of their strong cultural influences and, at the same time, we will try to identify the local particularities. We will pay special attention to the form of the fortified enceintes, considering the long tradition of the quadrangular plan in the walls of royal capitals, inspired in the ideal model of Chinese and Indian cities. Our research also make us think that the walls of Ratu Boko, despite their functions as symbolic limits or for retaining the soil, could also have had a defensive purpose, no matter if secondary, or at least they could be used to provide protection to the complex in case of external menace.
Reference: Humaniora. Journal of Culture, literature and linguistics, n. 28, vol. 3, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, pp. 238-253.
Download article (text in English)
2017. Fortificacions i la defensa de les capitals permanents coreanes: Kumsông, Kaesông i Hanyang
Title translation: "Fortifications and the defence of the permanent Korean capitals: Kumsông, Kaesông and Hanyang".
Summary: This article aims to analyze the walled defensive system of the long term or permanent Korean capitals through history. Thus, we will study the different fortifications, both from cities (ûpsông or dosông) and surrounding mountains (sansông), which protected Kumsông (Kyôngju), Kaesông i Hanyang (Seoul), capitals during centuries of the kingdoms of Shilla, Koryô and Chosôn, respectively. We will identify the common characteristic features of this double defensive system, we will contextualise them within the East Asian area and we will compare them with the fortifications of the temporary or short-term Korean capitals of the kingdoms of Koguryô (Cholpon, Kungnae, Pyôngyang and Changan-sông), Paekche (Wirye, Ungjin, Sabi) and Parhae (Guguk, Sangg-yông, Chungg-yông, Tongg-yông, Namg-yông, Sog-yông).
Reference: Asiadémica 9, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, pp. 149-176.
Download article (Text in Catalan language)
2017. Las interpretaciones arqueológicas y la aparición de fortificaciones en el período protohistórico de Corea (300 aC–300 dC)
Title translation: "The archaeological interpretations and the emergence of fortifications in the Protohistoric period of Korea, 300 BC-300 AD".
Summary: This article aims to analyze archaeologically the fortifications of the protohistoric period of Korea (300 BC–300 AD), comprising the embankments, palisades and moats of the first urban centres as well as possible border walls, in a key moment in the social, political, cultural and architectonic evolution of the peninsula, of transition from villages to cities and from tribal chiefdoms to the confederation of small city-states that eventually formed the first centralized kingdoms. It is taken into account walled sites of the Koguryo kingdom (in the north), of the Samhan tribal confederations like the city-states of Wirye and Saro (in the south), and of the administrative districts of the Chinese empire in Korea (Han commanderies).
Given the murky and controversial nationalist interpretations of the different East Asian historiographical traditions (Korea, Japan and China), we will try to place within its context the emergence of the urban military architecture in the peninsula and the nearby area, considering the constructions undertaken both by Chinese authorities and by the first Korean confederacies.
Reference: Revista Espacio, tiempo y forma. Serie I. Prehistoria y arqueología 10, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, pp. 95-131.
Download article (text in Spanish language)
2017. Gunung Padang y el megalitismo indo-malayo: Arqueología y pseudoarqueología
Title translation: "Gunung Padang and the Indo-Malay megalithism: Archaeology and pseudoarchaeology".
Summary: This article analyzes the archaeological site of Gunung Padang in Java island (Indonesia) as an example of megalithic heritage of monumental size. It is set in the regional typology of earth and stone terraces with a stepped-pyramid appearance (punden berundak) from the Indo-Malayan Bronze-Iron Age (c. 500 BC–500/1000 AD). It is also related to other megalithic structures of Austronesian tradition, like the Polynesian marae.
Gunung Padang was acclaimed by some sensationalists as the origin of all the world pyramids. We will show how it has inspired recent pseudoarchaeological theories. Those fantastic speculations without any scientific basis defend Pleistocenic dates and the existence of an advanced ancient civilization in South-East Asia (the Sundaland continent) similar to Atlantis. We will also refuse each one of these hypotheses that a big audience has accepted with open arms by its novel and revolutionary nature.
Reference: ArqueoWeb 18, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, pp. 62-104.
Download article (text in Spanish language)
2017. Fortificaciones de piedra de Koguryô a la luz de las excavaciones arqueológicas. Siglos IV-VII
Title translation: "Stone fortifications of Koguryô in the light of the archaeological excavations. 4th–7th c".
Summary: In this article we study the stone fortifications that the ancient Korean kingdom of Koguryô (1st c. BC-668 AD) built in an extensive territory of Northeast Asia –Manchuria (Jilin and Liaoning) and most of the Korean Peninsula–, based on the abundant archaeological discoveries of the recent decades. Leaving behind the formative stage of Koguryô as a small regional state, we will focus on the period of imperialist expansion (IV-mid VII c. AD), analyzing the mountain and flatland fortresses of four large areas in relation to the progress over time of the conquests and the establishment of successive defence lines: 1) the confluence of the Hun River with the Amnok (Yalu), 2) the area between the Amnok and Yesông rivers, 3) the east of the Liao River up to the Liaodong Peninsula, and 4) the Imjin, Han and Kûm rivers.
Reference: Cuadernos de Arquitectura y Fortificación 4, Ediciones La Ergástula, Madrid, pp. 47-84.
Download article (text in Spanish language)
2020. Analysis of the Khmer walled defensive system of Vimayapura (Phimai city, Thailand): symbolism or military effectivity?
Summary: This article analyses the walled defensive system of the Khmer city centre of Vimayapura (modern Phimai, Thailand) to evaluate the theoretical level of military effectivity of both the walls and the moats against potential attackers, considering their technical characteristics and the enemy's weapons. We also study the layout of the urban enceinte, the constructive material, the gateways as well as weakness and strengths of the stronghold and the symbolic, monumental and ornamental functions in the overall role of the walls.).
Based on comparisons with similar cases, as well as in situ observations of the archaeological remains and a bibliographical research, our study reveals that the stone walls were not designed primarily to resist military attacks. Instead, the army, the moat, and possibly the embankments and/or palisades would have been the first lines of defence of the city.
Reference: Manusya: Journal of Humanities, vol. 23, nº 2, Chulalongkorn University / Brill, Bangkok / Leiden, pp. 253-285.
Download article (text in English)
View the article online (text in English)