The biggest impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate archaeology students was arguably the lack of opportunities to undertake physical fieldwork. Despite the provision of digital alternatives, the pandemic necessarily resulted in the postponement of a crucial part of archaeological education for many students. As then-undergraduate students, whose first year was abruptly cut short by the first nationwide lockdown in the UK, with in-person instruction only resuming in the summer before our final year, the focus on theoretical training with the switch to online learning meant that when restrictions eased and excavations resumed, we were especially cognizant of the divide between the theoretical aspects of the discipline and the epistemic infrastructure deployed in the field-as well as the set of power relations in which fieldwork is embedded. This article is premised upon Edgeworth's (2003) argument that the fundamental ritual of archaeological knowledge-making consists of practical transactions between practitioners and material phenomena, which take place during the process of excavation. Situating our discussion within the context of international research excavations, we argue that these material transactions are most often the domain of students and local labourers, who frequently possess privileged insight into the artefacts recovered, the excavation procedures, and the material environment which they form part of. Simultaneously, however, these are also the people who are the most disempowered within the academic discipline of archaeology, defined here as both intellectual discourse and social institution. In this article, we trace the theoretical and disciplinary frameworks upholding this particular division of labour-manual versus intellectual-and its epistemological and political consequences. We contend that, if archaeology is to survive its own moral and political fissures, we must not only advance towards a more distributed, heterarchical form of knowledge-making that transcends traditional disciplinary divides between theory and practice, but also towards a kind of action that goes beyond self-centred theorising, to challenge the political economy of archaeology.
Interactions, Trade and Mobility in Archaeology edited by Karampas and Falezza is a summative work of the 2021 Graduate Archaeology Oxford conference. Its purpose is to present the work of young researchers from different institutions on three subjects: social interactions, trade and maritime networks. Its chapters are subdivided into three groups each dedicated to one of these specific topics. The following article provides a summary and review of the research presented within this book.
This photo essay describes how a COVID-19 lockdown led to the creative investigation of an unlikely archaeological site: Royston Beach on the shoreline of north Edinburgh (Scotland). Much of the Beach and the land behind it was reclaimed from the tidal estuary of the Firth of Forth between the 1950s and 1990s using vast quantities of demolition rubble produced by the reconstruction of the city. This material - most likely produced from 'slum' clearance and factory demolitions - comprises a heterotemporal jumble of hundreds -of -thousands of bricks, eighteenth and nineteenth century sandstone building fragments, mid -twentieth century concrete foundations, asbestos, plastic waste and much else besides. While some of the reclaimed land was built upon in the 1970s, a large part of this dumped material is now eroding into the sea as tides and storms grow more extreme. Royston Beach became part of my research project (a three-year, cross -UK comparison of waste -modified terrain entitled, 'Reimagining British Waste Landscapes') as a result of travel -restrictions due to lockdowns. Though emerging from a period of restricted movement, my experiences investigating the Beach fundamentally shaped my approach to understanding the archaeology of waste landscapes and my methodological approach for this ongoing project. Using a combination of traditional archaeological photography and creative research, in this paper I explore the site and follow the complex spatio-temporal 'itineraries' of waste materials.
The integration of archaeology and community engagement in Latin America remains a new challenge, largely because the multiple social configurations, practices, and theories intrinsic in each need to be considered instead of creating a unified pattern. In Brazil, there are more than 16,000 communities of Indigenous, Maroon, and traditional membership, all with many demands that test the collaborative capacity of researchers. Seeking a basis for action within a decolonization perspective, this paper provides the theoretical background that outlines some benefits of an affective alliance and collaboration based on the equivalence of knowledge and practices from different epistemes. This paper also offers regional cases of the persistence of agroforestry communities that require the re-evaluation of academic and bureaucratic erasure. On one side, the Tupi Guarani of Peruíbe that manifest interest in recovering the language and practices of their ancestors. On the other side, the persistence of social and cultural practices that started in Indigenous contexts but extended beyond them, with people from different places and times joining the communities of women potters.
Even though figurines are a ubiquitous find on many Neolithic sites, some aspects of figurines are still poorly understood. Figurines have been studied as symbolic messages to be decoded, as art, and as ritual/cult objects. The main drawback of these interpretative frameworks is that they fail to analyse figurines as artefacts. Instead, figurines are treated primarily, or even exclusively, as images or texts. In this paper it will be argued that in order to understand figurines we need to engage with their materiality in order to understand how figurines worked in their social setting. Within the framework of craft theory a sensory approach will be applied to the chaîne opératoire, and formulate perceptive categories, or those aspects of the material(s) that are recognisable and (possibly) relevant to craftspeople and elements that reflect choices made during the production process. This chaîne opératoire is embedded within a larger aim of creating object biographies for figurines where production, use and deposition are analysed holistically.
Neo-Assyrian reliefs have been studied as a coherent whole in number of publications, including the notable works by Pauline Albenda and Elena Cassin. Choosing the representation of equids, largely represented in the reliefs, and more precisely the depiction of their expressions, allows us to raise new questions. What was the essence of the relationship between humans and horses in the empire? Did neo-Assyrians really observe their stallions? Are the depictions of horses really accurate? In order to carry out this project, a comparative analysis method has been designed, using tools developed by veterinarians to help understand the animal's expression (EquiFACS). It brings into perspective photographs of actual horses taken during etiopathy sessions and the representations within the reliefs. The main idea is to compare images of horses in stressful or painful context to neo-Assyrian stallions depicted in violent scenes, where they might express the same feelings. This research enhances our perception of the observation quality of the Neo-Assyrian artists themselves. For the present paper, only two reliefs from Ashurbanipal's reign will be studied (BM 124858 and BM 124876). Now held in the British Museum, they bear specific representations of horses being harnessed, or in lion hunting scenes. Bulging eyes, ears pointed to the back, mouth wide open are signs expressing difficult emotions such as fear, distress or pain - emotions which can also be observed on real life horses. These characteristic signs reflect the subtlety and the ability of the Neo-Assyrian artists in their depictions of these animals - emblematic of the empire.
What is the proper approach that scholars should use for understanding cross-cultural artistic exchange in the ancient Near East? There are certainly a number of ways one group may borrow another group’s artistic motifs and incorporate them into their own system. This paper examines a seventh-century BCE silver pendant that was discovered at Tel Miqne-Ekron in 1992. Since the time of publication, the pendant is usually understood as depicting the Mesopotamian goddess Ištar. The present paper challenges the prevailing scholarly opinion on the grounds that the consensus is too simplistic. It is not always the case that when a culture borrows ‘foreign’ imagery it also adopts the meaning that the image possessed in the source culture. It is argued that there is good reason to conclude that the pendant from Ekron incorporated an Assyrianising artistic style, which looks like Ištar but was intended to show a local goddess.
The aim of this paper is to investigate some aspects of fictive kinship in ancient Sumer that we find out through administrative, legal and literary texts. From the Neo-Sumerian period several texts of different nature have survived, which constitutes a breeding ground for this kind of study. In anthropological studies the kinship terminology is considered fundamental to understand the structure and dynamics of human societies. It seems that, both in Sumerian and in Akkadian, the terms of kinship are reduced to the first kinship degree, and are not used to express different relationships, but they are unambiguous. Some scholars (Civil 1974; Götzelt 1995) tried to compare Sumerian terminology with other better-known systems, but the results are discordant due to the complexities of documentation and language. Considering that most attested terms express just the first degree of kinship, we can assume that in Sumerian the juxtaposition of primary terms is used to express the most distant relationships on the family tree. A lot of kinship’s terms appears in the texts, some of that, probably, used also outside familial context. Perhaps in the workplace the family structure and terminology were adopted symbolically practically, which makes it more difficult to interpret some legal texts, as the so called di-til-la, because the ambiguity of terms makes the interpretation unclear. It is necessary to use an interdisciplinary approach through philology and anthropology to enlighten as much information as possible from the texts.
The interpretations of unusual or special archaeological contexts in the Near Eastern Neolithic that might suggest the appearance of the first forms of religious belief in early sedentary communities have commonly been associated with magic practices or other concepts related to ritual performance or symbolism. The present work proposes alternative perspectives that focus on the term “sacred” as outlined by three renowned anthropologists: Girard, Durkheim and Eliade. This paper also discusses interpretative views on the development of symbolic and ritual forms in early Holocene societies in the Near East. It is argued that the sacred in the Neolithic is an externally manifested prosocial reality that is gradually adopted via mimetic practices. A number of Neolithic archaeological examples will be presented and analysed in light of mimetic theory and other key anthropological concepts.
The first edition of the London Postgraduate Conference for the Ancient Near East (LPCANE) took place on 1st and 2nd December 2018 at the British Museum in London. It bore the title Ancient Lives, New Stories: Current Research on the Ancient Near East, which aimed to highlight how new research and new approaches can shed light on hotly debated topics of the past and open new avenues of research. Aimed at graduate students (Master’s and PhD) and early career researchers, the primary objective of this event was to create a forum of discussion for emerging scholars to showcase their research at any stage of progress and to foster exchange between the diverse disciplines working on the Ancient Near East, including Archaeology, Assyriology, Anthropology, Historiography, Conservation and Museum Studies. Near Eastern Archaeology, Assyriology and sister disciplines often tread separate paths in spite of having a common focus of attention. Thus, in this conference we aimed to highlight overlapping ideas and the interaction and complementarity between the knowledge derived from material culture, textual sources and other types of studies, and collaboration among scholars from different disciplines was facilitated and encouraged. The chronological periods under consideration were the Palaeolithic to the Islamic conquest, and the geographical scope, Anatolia to Afghanistan and the Caucasus to the Arabian Peninsula.
Recent scholarship has developed an increasing interest in the materiality of ancient manuscripts. Opisthographs, manuscripts that contain writing on both sides, are of special interest in this regard. This short study focuses on two papyrus opisthographs, originating from two different collections: the Oxyrhynchus Papyri and the Dead Sea Scrolls. These manuscripts each bear different compositions on the front side (the recto) and on the back side (the verso). The Greek Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654 (dated to the third century CE) contains on its recto an unpublished survey-list of pieces of land. On the verso we find one of the three copies of the Greek version of the Gospel of Thomas. The Dead Sea Scroll 4Q509, Festival Prayers, is the recto of a Hebrew papyrus that bears copies of two compositions on its verso: the War Scroll (4Q496) and Words of the Luminaries (4Q506). These texts were dated to the first century BCE and the middle of the first century CE. By contextualizing these two manuscripts, I aim to explore the nature of opisthographs as a scribal phenomenon across different cultures in the region. This comparative research will be conducted by considering the materiality of these manuscripts from the perspective of both codicology and palaeography. Subsequently, I will investigate the intertextual relationships between the compositions on both sides of the manuscripts and address related issues such as the ‘useful life’ of these manuscripts and the possibility of personal copies.
This study focuses on the bestiary of Iran in late antiquity, in an administrative context of sealing (seals and bullae) and within an administration characterized by a close relationship with the Zoroastrian Church. Its objective is to understand how man's interrelationship with his environment enters into the production of images of an administrative nature. This study therefore compares the bestiary as represented in the glyptic, what we know about fauna in the Sasanian period and human-animal relations, and what we know about Iran's beliefs in late antiquity, particularly through Zoroastrian texts. This confrontation makes it possible to determine what, in iconography, is or is not related to man's relationship with his natural environment. From there, we try to understand the semantic value attached to this relationship, or whether it is to be sought outside this relationship. It appears that the level of human interaction with animals is inversely proportional to the use of the animal as a bestiary's image: the closer an animal is to humans (domestication, breeding), the less visible it is in the seals. In this context, we see an over-representation of wildlife. However, a low level of interaction does not prevent the creation of images that reflect the observation and knowledge of wildlife and domestic fauna during the Sasanian period. Since the images of the bestiary are used in an administrative context, the animals selected belong mainly to the semantic field of royalty and Zoroastrianism, even if they probably do not have a single interpretation. Sometimes these semantic fields are in contradiction, and we find, in the reality of fauna, elements that adapt one to the other.
Archaeological archives take up a significant amount of shelf space in any archaeological depot or museum, yet these are rarely presented as primary storytelling tools. As the public image of archaeology is still largely defined by the physical remains of sites and the finds that are associated with them, these are also often the focus of archaeological publications and displays, confining the purview of archaeological documentation to behind-the-scenes research. However, these records do not just illustrate an object, feature or site, they connect the past to the present as narratives of human interpretation and changes in archaeological and museological practice. In this paper, I draw from four brief case studies from my own research, each pertaining to different aspects of collection interpretation, display, and engagement. These practical examples highlight the importance of integrating documentary and material collections in research and outreach spaces. This integration helps us to present the diverse aspects of archaeological research, give value to under-resourced collections, explore meaning across different sources, and display the processes through which we create knowledge.
Whittaker G. 2021. Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs: A Guide to NahuatlWriting. London; Thames & Hudson. 224 pages (Hardbound). £25. ISBN 978-0-50051-872-4
Writing at Ugarit has received a great deal of scholarly attention for the wide range of languages and writing systems used, and especially for the city’s distinctive alphabetic cuneiform script which accounts for around half of the inscribed material from the site. The vast majority of the rest is in the Akkadian language and logo-syllabic cuneiform script. This written material is, justifiably, usually seen as scribal, in that the vast majority stems from the state bureaucracy and from professional writers formally trained in a curriculum derived from the Mesopotamian cuneiform tradition. However, by using the blanket term ‘scribe’ we risk obscuring potential diversity in who used writing and why. This paper will explore the extent to which we can identify social diversity within writing practices at Ugarit and will focus in particular on three main areas: gender and women’s literacy; social mobility and writing outside the traditional literate establishment; and the relationship between writing and possible minority communities within Ugaritian society.
Most lithic industries associated with hunter-gatherergroups in Eastern South America, especially the ones with points present, date tothe Early Holocene, with some minor industries and lithic points typologiespersisting until the Middle Holocene and, more rarely, until the Late Holocene.This is the case for the Garivaldinense lithic industry associated pointstypologies. In this article we present the technological analysis of the pointsidentified at the Pororó site, located in central Rio Grande do Sul State,Brazil. The site is an artificial mound dated to around 2,500 BP. We applied anestablished protocol for analysis of stemmed points considering metric,morphological and technological features that allowed us to classify the artefactsin typologies. We identified two types of points associated to theGarivaldinense lithic industry: the Montenegro and Garivaldinense types. Wehave also identified a new type that has never been described before andproposed to refer to it as the Pororó type. At least one Pay Paso point wasidentified at the site, although this type of point is not yet known at other sitesof this region and chronology. The results indicate persistence of theGarivaldinense Culture from the Early to Late Holocene, as well astechnological innovation during the Late Holocene.
