Consuming Material Ambiguity: the Social and Symbolic Implications of Mycenaean Pottery in Ugarit. (original) (raw)
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Annabel Bokern and Clare Rowan (eds), Embodying Value? The Transformation of Objects in and from the Ancient World, 131-44. Archaeopress: Oxford., 2014
Roman-period table ceramics such as bowls and dishes display a basic uniformity across large spans of time and space, and this sameness has led archaeologists to ways of thinking about the material as reflecting political, economic and cultural integration -a global consumer market in which people bought into a set of material-cultural values. But while certain shapes, fabrics, colours and decorations seem to make up a language that was understood across geographical and political boundaries, within the pottery medium countless dialects related to practices and identities specific to regions, settlements, and at the scale of neighbourhoods and households. Recognising these contingent meanings opens up possibilities for seeing manufactured objects not as a gauge of systemic economic conditions or cultural groupings but as 'significant possessions' which had value and agency in the past. This article focuses on the consumption of pottery in central Anatolia, using a case study from Pessinus to consider how mass-produced objects, which were available to most social classes, gained value through their deployment in specific physical situations.
METAPHYSIS: Ritual, Myth and Symbolism in the Aegean Bronze Age (Aegeaum 39), ed. Alram-Stern, E., F. Blakolmer, S. Deger-Jalkotzy, R. Laffineur, and J. Weilhartner, Leuven: Peeters, 2016, pp. 97–108.., 2016
This paper explores the mutually enforcing dynamic between religion, myth, and the realities of material existence. I discuss the symbols of double axe, double horns, and bucranium as decorative motifs and marks on pre- and protopalatial pottery (EMIIa to MMIIb), and their special association with jugs and spouted vessels. This ceramic imagery is connected to the wider adoption of same themes in the iconography, scripts, and marking systems of the period. The symbols discussed here were key components of the religious thought and ritual apparatus throughout the Minoan era, prominent in a wide spectrum of material forms and representations. Pots decorated and marked with these motifs also span the time from pre- to post-palatial, albeit in varying spatio-temporal distibutions. Distinctive traits of ambiguity distinguish these ceramics from other material supports of the same iconography . First, the non-narrative style of depicting the motifs isolated, arranged in repetitive or emblematic patterns, or integrated in decorative compositions. Second, the potentially fluid and multiple function of the pots –as tableware, offering containers, storage or burial receptacles, household utensils and cult paraphernalia. In this capacity, ceramics bridge across maintenance activities and ceremony, domesticity and communal affairs, economy and ritual, production and social reproduction. Through their evocative iconography and ambivalent function, the symbol-bearing pots can be interpreted as tangible references to an archetypical, ritual order which informed, and was in turn informed by, material and social experience. Such semantic possibilities are examined in the contexts of craft, signification, administration, and collective ceremony.
Material Culture Artefacts as Entangled Narratives with Reference to Roman Pottery.
2015
The research essay explores new scientific approaches in the study of the artefact as material culture and in particular the contemporary theory that the artefact embodies a narrative of itself, its time, and its society. There has been a progressive shift away from object-specific archaeology where attention tended to focus on sign values with which to identify and date cultures. Artefacts ranging from something as simple as a glass bead to a monumental architectural structure, are now considered to connect or become entangled with their cultural and historical environments beyond their obvious functional forms and usages. Such theorising requires a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach in research and interpretation. Reference will be made to pottery artefacts in Roman material culture to illustrate contemporary theories and methodologies . To put the contemporary theories and methodologies in perspective, the science of archaeology in its classical form as well as the related sciences which archaeology drew into its ambit, require some discussion. The artefact per se will be defined with commentary on how it fits into, and participates in the material culture of a society. The current literature in which authors argue in favour of the agency of the artefact to affect makers, owners and users, will be reviewed. In the final section of the essay, reference is made to Roman material culture to illustrate that the artefact can be ‘read’ as a narrative of entangled social, economic, ideological, and religious values and practises. Though Roman primary sources offer very limited insights into the aesthetic values assigned to pottery in material culture, this will nevertheless receive attention. The essay reflects academic arguments to support contemporary debate that artefacts, when considered only as archaeological objects, will reveal little beyond their cultural origin, typology, dating, materials, method of production, circulation and usage. The alternative which is being promoted, is a meta-methodology with which artefact can be ‘read’ as having agency to generate and gain reciprocal meanings and values. When the artefact can be understood from that point of view, it can be considered as an entangled narrative.
Review of The Meanings of Things: Material Culture and Symbolic Expression
American Antiquity, 1990
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Karami et al 2021 On Meanings and Values. A (Re ) Construction from the Archaeological Record
A (Re-) Construction from the Archaeological Record, 2021
Summary: Although the meaning and value of ancient artefacts are the focus of each archaeological endeavour, its reconstruction proofs to be rather difficult. Unfortunately, this may lead to over-simplified and one-dimensional interpretations. This is partly related to the lack of clearly formulated approaches to the topic. The present contribution, therefore, proposes a systematic way for the reconstruction of socio-cultural meanings and values, using three different sets of data, namely ‘contextual data’, ‘immaterial data’ and ‘material data’. While archaeology contributes to the interpretation of the contextual data, other disciplines like ethnology, history, philology as well as archaeometry, art history and experimental archaeology contribute to the immaterial respectively to the material set of data. Each data set generates certain insights into the different roles of artefacts within their past contexts. By combining all of this information, a multi-layered picture emerges, which allows the development of a sophisticated idea about the importance of an object. Thus, we suggest an interdisciplinary and multi-causal model for the reconstruction of meanings and values from the archaeological record. A case study from the Jiroft region of Southeast Iran illustrates the application of the model in practice. It shows that the socio-cultural importance of ‘Intercultural Style’ chlorite vessels resulted from their value as prestigious goods as well as from religious and economic meanings.
Empty Vessels or Laden Signifiers? Imported Greek pottery in Levantine Social Practice
Pearls of the Past. Studies in Honour of Frances Pinnock. Alter Orient und Altes Testament AOAT (Ugarit-Verlag), 2017
The contextual study of Greek pottery is quite important in understanding the religious life of the inhabitants of the Levantine coast or specifically "central Phoe-nicia", 1 particularly through the use of Attic pottery in ritual ceremonies and as offerings in tombs. The study of the exchanges between Greece and the Phoenician coast, during the Achaemenid Empire, does not only implicate the study of the circulation of the objects, but also the study of the reception, the intercultural phenomenon and the definitions of the cultural contexts. With that in mind we have to focus on the receptors, or the inhabitant of the Levantine coasts, this can only be achieved by following a contextual approach while dealing with the Greek pottery or any other type of cultural material. 2 The objects are looked at in their precise archeological context. Even if we do not have a lot of coherent data, taking into consideration the urban aspect of the Phoenician cities can be of great use in clarifying the exchanges contexts. The archaeological excavations in the Levant indicate an urban development during the Persian Period resulting in the improvement of the living conditions and the enrichment of part of the population. 3 The archaeological evidence , from Iron Age cities, illustrates emerging urban societies and what could be considered as a wealthy elite that managed to flourish in a period characterized by intense Mediterranean commerce in a rather stable political atmosphere. During this same period, we notice that Greek and East Greek pottery were imported in mass quantities all over the Levantine coast. While studying this extensive material we noticed that only specific typologies 4 and iconographies made their way to this part of the Mediterranean. This phenomenon cannot be arbitral but rather an indicator of sophisticated and urbanized societies that borrowed specific forms and stories from foreign cultures and adapted them into their own so-1
Adalya, 2023
Syro-Cilician Ware was the prevailing painted pottery style of the Amuq Valley, Cilicia and northwestern Syria in the first half of the second millennium BC and is characterized by its specific painted motif arrangements applied on particular vessel shapes. This paper investigates the consumption of this ware type at Tell Atchana / Alalakh (modern Hatay, Türkiye) in the Amuq Valley as a case study. Embracing a multi-dimensional approach, a functional analysis is conducted based on technological and morphological characteristics of the vessels as well as the nature of selected contexts from different parts of the site. The results have shown that Syro-Cilician Ware was likely appreciated as a serving set, in either abbreviated or elaborated variations, which completed a larger consumption set consisting of other ware and shape types. This is a pattern that reoccurs throughout both time and space at Tell Atchana / Alalakh, except for rare cases, signifying its role within the food and / or drink consumption traditions at the site. Moreover, several lines of evidence further point to the possible symbolic function of Syro-Cilician Ware, which appears to be reflected in the bird motif.
As published excavated contexts become more plentiful and as older contexts are reexamined, it has become increasingly possible to consider Greek figure-decorated pottery from the perspective of its use. The essays in this volume explore the relationship between image and use in different contexts, with an emphasis on the user and consumer—that is, they explore the possible meanings images had for the individuals who obtained the objects on which they appear. The essays pose questions concerning why a consumer might choose a particular pot, why it might be part of an assemblage, or why a particular set of pots might have moved in a particular direction. The contributors are Sheramy D. Bundrick, An Jiang, Kathleen M. Lynch, Bice Peruzzi, Vivi Sarapanidi, Tara Trahey, and Vicky Vlachou.