scholarly journals Homer's Entangled Objects: Narrative, Agency and Personhood In and Out of Iron Age Texts

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Whitley
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Classical Archaeology ◽  
Narrative Agency ◽  
The World ◽  
Historical Periods ◽  
Of Greece

In recent years, material culture studies have come to embrace contemporary Melanesia and European prehistory, but not classical archaeology and art. Prehistory is still thought, in many quarters, to be intrinsically more ‘ethnographic’ than historical periods; in this discourse, the Greeks (by default) become proto-modern individuals, necessarily opposed to Melanesian ‘dividuals’. Developments in the study of the Iron Age Mediterranean and the world of Homer should undermine such stark polarities. Historic and proto-historic archaeologies have rich potential for refining our notions both of agency and of personhood. This article argues that the forms of material entanglements we find in the Homeric poems, and the forms of agency (sensu Gell 1998) that we can observe in the archaeological record for the Early Iron Age of Greece (broadly 1000–500 bc) are of the same kind. The agency of objects structures Homeric narrative, and Homeric descriptions allow us precisely to define Homeric ‘human–thing entanglement’. This form of ‘material entanglement’ does not appear in the Aegean world before 1100 BC.

IRON AGE MORTUARY PRACTICES AND MATERIAL CULTURE AT THE INLAND CEMETERY OF TSIKALARIO ON NAXOS: DIFFERENTIATION AND CONNECTIVITY

2018 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 143-198
Author(s):  
Xenia Charalambidou
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Mortuary Practice ◽  
The People ◽  
Insight Into

Naxos, the largest of the Cycladic islands, offers a nuanced insight into Iron Age funerary behaviour in the Cyclades and relations between social groups as reflected in the archaeological record. The focus of this paper is the cemetery of Tsikalario in the hinterland of the island, with emphasis on two burial contexts which exhibit a range of activities related to funerary ceremonies and the consumption of grave-offerings. The grave-tumuli found in the Tsikalario cemetery comprise a mortuary ‘phenomenon’ not found otherwise on Naxos during the Early Iron Age. Such a differentiation in mortuary practice can be interpreted as a strategy used by the people of inland Naxos to distinguish their funerary habits from the more typical Naxian practices of, for example, the inhabitants of the coastal Naxos harbour town. This distinctive funerary practice can speak in favour of an attempt by the kinship group(s) that buried their deceased in the cemetery of Tsikalario to articulate status and identity. Beyond these tumuli, evidence from a different type of grave context at Tsikalario – Cist Grave 11 and its vicinity (Burial Context 11) – offers an additional example of a well-thought-out staging of funerary beliefs in the inland region of Naxos. Not only does it illustrate the coexistence of other types of burials in the cemetery, but, alongside the tumuli and their finds, it also demonstrates, through the symbolic package of the grave-offerings and the multifaceted network of interactions they reveal, that inland Naxos participated in the intra- and supra-island circulation of wares and ideas.

Material Culture and Making Visible: On the Portrayal of Philistine Gath in the Book of Samuel

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Daniel Pioske
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Book Of Samuel

Over the past twenty years our understanding of Philistine Gath's history (Tell es-Safl) has been transformed by what has been revealed through the site's early Iron Age remains. But what has received much less attention is the effect these ruins have on how we read references to the location within the Hebrew Bible. The intent of this study is to draw on the archaeological evidence produced from Tell es-Safl as an interpretive lens by which to consider the biblical portrayal of the site rendered in the book of Samuel, where the material traces of more amicable associations between Gath and highland populations invite us to reconsider the city's depiction in this ancient literary work.

The Iconography of the Heroic Body

2019 ◽  
pp. 97-124
Author(s):  
Brian R. Doak
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
The World ◽  
Crucial Information ◽  
The Common

Chapter 4 departs from the textually oriented studies in the rest of the book and explores the primary ways in which heroic bodies were iconographically portrayed in Israel’s historical and geographical environments, and more specifically, wherever possible, within the Levant and even Iron Age Israel. Texts describe visual aspects of the world in rich and subtle ways, but images have a distinct story to tell. Images function not as mere decorations but rather convey crucial information about their subjects. Specifically, the bodies of warriors in the common posture with arm raised—the “striking,” “smiting,” or “menacing” posture—come to the fore as the preeminent iconography of the heroic body in Egypt and the Levant, where striking heroic figures become a norm for warrior representations. This interaction with material culture allows glimpses into a lived world that texts obscure or simply cannot address.

Memory and its Materiality: The Case of Early Iron Age Khirbet Qeiyafa and Jerusalem

2015 ◽  
Vol 127 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel D. Pioske
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
Over Time

In den wenigen Jahren seitdem Ausgrabungen in Khirbet Qeiyafa durchgeführt wurden, haben sich schon einige wichtige Studien mit seiner beeindruckenden Hinterlassenschaft aus der frühen Eisenzeit beschäftigt. Was bislang unberücksichtigt blieb, sind die Folgerungen der Befunde für die Schriftkultur, die für das Bild dieser Periode in der Hebräischen Bibel verantwortlich ist. Die Absicht dieser Studie besteht darin, das literarische Schicksal von Khirbet Qeiyafa mit dem des frühen und späten eisenzeitlichen Jerusalem zu vergleichen und zu ermitteln, was das Nichtvorkommen bzw. Vorkommen dieser Standorte in der Hebräischen Bibel über die Quellen der biblischen Verfasser aussagt, über die sie im 11. und 10. Jh. v. Chr. verfügten. Zugleich wird gefragt, welchen Beitrag Ort und Erinnerung bei der Überlieferung dieser Geschichten im antiken Israel und Juda hatten.In the few short years since excavations were first carried out at Khirbet Qeiyafa a number of important studies have been devoted to its impressive early Iron Age remains. Yet what has not been pursued within these discussions are the implications of the settlement’s material culture for our understanding of the scribal cultures responsible for the portrayal of this time period in the Hebrew Bible. In comparing the literary fate of Khirbet Qeiyafa with that of the contemporaneous site of late Iron I/early Iron IIA Jerusalem, the intent of this study is to examine what the absence and presence of these two sites in the Hebrew Bible indicates about the sources biblical scribes possessed about the 11th–10th centuries BCE, and how place and memory contributed to the transmission of these stories over time in ancient Israel and Judah.Dans les quelques années qui ont suivi les fouilles à Khirbet Qeiyafa, un bon nombre d’études conséquentes ont été consacrées à ses impressionnants vestiges du début de l’âge de Fer. Cependant, ce qui n’a pas été développé dans ces discussions, ce sont les implications de la culture matérielle de ce site pour notre compréhension milieux de scribes responsables de la description de cette période dans la Bible hébraïque. En comparant le destin littéraire de Khirbet Qeiyafa avec celui de Jérusalem, site contemporain de la fin du Fer I et du début du Fer IIA, cette étude cherche à examiner ce que la présence et l’absence de ces deux sites dans la Bible hébraïque indiquent au sujet des sources que les scribes bibliques possédaient sur les 11–10

Gath of the Philistines

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Pioske
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
The Creation ◽  
A Site ◽  
The City

Chapter 2 begins a series of case studies that are devoted to exploring what knowledge was drawn on by the biblical scribes to develop stories about the early Iron Age period. This chapter’s investigation is devoted to the Philistine city of Gath, one of the largest cities of its time and a site that was destroyed ca. 830 BCE. Significant about Gath, consequently, is that it flourished as an inhabited location before the emergence of a mature Hebrew prose writing tradition, meaning that the information recounted about the city was predicated primarily on older cultural memories of the location. Comparing the biblical references to the site with Gath’s archaeological remains reveals moments of resonance between these stories and the material culture unearthed from the location. Accordingly, what comes to light through this chapter’s analysis is one mode of remembering that informed the creation of these biblical stories: that of resilience.

Beyond Hadrian’s Wall

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fraser Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Indigenous Population ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Hadrian's Wall ◽  
The Relationship

Britannia’s northern frontier varied considerably over the Roman period, stabilizing only in the early third century. This variation leads to a fascinating archaeological record of the changing Roman military presence and its relation to the local population. This chapter examines the local Iron Age societies, considers military aspects of the invasion, and presents a wider view of life on the frontier. It then turns to the relationship between the indigenous population and Rome over four centuries. Historical sources for conflict indicate an uneasy relationship, but archaeological evidence uncovers other aspects: Roman material culture found varied uses in Iron Age societies, while the long and often difficult relationship had a series of unexpected consequences on both sides.

scholarly journals Beyond the Indigenous/Phoenician divide: Spheres of Interaction and Scales of Integration in the Early Iron Age of Southern Portugal (8th–5th centuries BCE)

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Francisco João Bentes Gomes
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Group Interactions ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Southern Portugal ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Identity Discourses

The arrival of the first Phoenician merchants and colonists in the Iberian Far West tipped off the delicate balance of the regional Late Bronze Age networks, setting in motion a far-ranging process which completely changed the socio-political landscape of Southern Portugal. However, the growing volume of available data seems to show that far from being a linear, straightforward process, the ensuing restructuration was complex and dynamic. In this contribution, it is argued that “traditional” models based on normative views of culture are no longer suited to explain the diversity of the archaeological record, and that new, more nuanced approaches are in order. It is suggested, in particular, that this diversity is the reflection of specific representation discourses in which “traditional” and innovative, often exogenous elements were combined according to variable, situational and socially negotiated identity discourses deployed on multiple levels, from the microregional context of inter- and inter-group interactions to the transregional, Mediterranean level.

Toward a Future Theory of the Historical Document

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter N. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Historical Document ◽  
Applied Learning ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Material Culture Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Future Theory

This concluding chapter emphasizes the importance of material culture studies, bringing up the differences between the laboratory and the library as sites of questioning. Where books or disciplines cut up knowledge in self-affirming and internally consistent ways, the world is indifferent to classroom categories. The gap between the two has been bridged by what we call “applied learning.” The chapter argues that our knowledge of the world will always remain incomplete, and maybe our sense of what constitutes knowledge itself will remain a little distorted, if we do not work from the world back to the books as often as we do from the books to the world. Thus teaching from objects, or landscapes, is a way of forcing an epistemological revolution.

The earliest horse-bits of western Europe

1973 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 425-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. J. Balkwill
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
New Combinations ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Burial Rite

Within recent years, much attention has been focused on the earliest objects of harness which have long been noticed in the archaeological record. They are a matter of some importance in the perception of social structure from extant remains; Kossack (1954) presented strong arguments in favour of interpreting, in this manner, the early Hallstatt (Ha C) horse harness from Bavarian graves. Other major publications have since added to the picture of widespread, supposedly aristocratic adoption of harness and wagons in association with burial rite (northern and central Italy in the Early Iron Age, von Hase 1969; the Iberian peninsula in the same period, Schüle 1969; the Middle Danube to the Russian Steppes and to the Asian hinterland, Potratz 1966). Nor has the thesis of Gallus and Horvath (1939) been ignored, and the activities of ‘Thraco-Cimmerian’ cavalry still play a large part in the interpretation of west European horse harness. Already in 1954, however, Kossack observed the continuing elements of native, western Urnfield Europe in the entirely new combinations of grave-goods in Ha C and he indicated that the cheekpieces, while being modelled closely on the lines of preceding types found in the region of the Middle Danube, were, in fact, local variants chiefly concentrated in the graves of Bohemia and Bavaria. That western Europe had long had its own forms of cheekpiece was demonstrated by Thrane in 1963, yet the mouthpieces themselves have received no consolidated attention. This paper is an attempt to redress the balance, by gathering together the earliest metal bits in Europe west of Slovakia and Hungary, in order to see what light they throw on the problems of continuity and transition at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.

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