The Historiography and Values of Statue Construction: Focus on Global Perspectives

Statues are an image or symbol which carries a dynamic site of meaning and these symbols are instruments of expression, communication, knowledge and control. They have power to tell all aspects of the society. They serve as a time capsule between the past, present and future. Statues also tell concrete evidence about the root identity of one nation. Hence, statues are constructed in the different parts of the world for various purposes. For example, people constructed statues to commemorate their patriots, heroes and heroines, to transmit mythical histories, to represent a nationhood, to preserve cultural heritage, to beautify cities and to legitimize authority. For these and other reasons, the history and values of statue should be clearly known. Accordingly, the main purpose of this paper is to describe the history of statue construction and its values for the society in particular and country in general. To achieve this purpose, different documents written by several scholars of history, geography, art, anthropology, and political sciences were reviewed. Using qualitative research design, discourse analysis is employed as analytic tool. The reviewed materials are categorized into themes and discussed qualitatively. The result of the review shows that the erected statues have their own history and have cultural, economical, aesthetic, political and religious values.