Biography of Objects

Cultural artefacts never stand still. By studying their shifting contexts and by tracking objects' itineraries through time, we can reconstruct their life-histories, or at least parts of them. Influenced by the material turn, the concept of object biographies was first used in socio-anthropological research, but is now widespread and widely applied in ancient studies. The concept has helped to overcome a merely antiquarian interest in artefacts, which previously neglected any temporal and contextual changes. Instead of dating artefacts to one specific period and ascribing a single function to them, recent studies have stressed the different functions, meanings and values of objects in different contexts and time periods. Especially when studying the material culture of the late antique and early medieval world, where older artefacts are constantly reused, translocated and transformed, the notion of object biographies can help us draw new perspectives on broader social and cultural transformations. The workshop will take place over the course of one day (24 th October): the morning session will focus on theoretical frameworks and will be followed by an afternoon session, in which case studies based on late antique and early medieval material culture will be presented. The aim of the afternoon presentations will be to demonstrate the relevance of the concept of object biographies in order to better understand social and historical transformations. The one-day workshop presents an opportunity to discuss the theoretical background of object biographies and to explore their possible applications within the field. As such, all participants will be provided with a reader of selected theoretical literature beforehand in order to guide presentations and discussions throughout the workshop.

In the history of the research on human speech, the work carried out by Armando de Lacerda, a 20th-century Portuguese phonetician, is of great importance. A specialist in Experimental Phonetics at the Phonetics Laboratory in Hamburg and the Institute of Phonetics in Bonn from 1930 to 1933, Lacerda established the first laboratory of Experimental Phonetics in Portugal, in Coimbra in 1936, whose "splendid technical facilities", along with the international prestige of its founder and director, attracted countless foreign scientists. In this paper, we highlight the discovery of some important scientific material used at the laboratory, recently unearthed in the reserve collection of the Museu da Ciência da Universidade de Coimbra, including documents and instruments, some of them created by Lacerda, whose inventorship deserves recognition.

Los objetos de Humboldt: una colección para un mundo global cultura.nexos.com.mx/ Como parte de la actual revaloración historiográfica de la vida y obra de Humboldt, el siguiente ensayo -- una versión de la conferencia magistral celebrando el aniversario 250 de Humboldt en el Humboldt Forum en Berlín -- ilumina el camino tortuoso que tuvo que recorrer su colección y reivindica su trabajo como obra colectiva y bulliciosa, contraria a la de un héroe y científico solitario.

This article provides a contextual analysis of an enigmatic object—dubbed the “Confucius Dressing Mirror” (Kongzi yijing 孔子衣鏡)—recently unearthed from the tomb of Liu He 劉賀 (Marquis of Haihun 海昏侯, d. 59 B.C.E.) in 2015. I raise questions about the prevailing identification of this object as a “dressing mirror” and a “lived object” used by Liu He for moral self-cultivation or political self-preservation in his volatile life of being the deposed ninth emperor of Han. Instead, I treat the object as an assemblage and analyze its complete material composition and physical placement in Liu He’s tomb in the broader context of funerary material culture and burial practice in early imperial China. I propose to consider the entombed object as a composite talisman to protect the deceased against baleful and harmful influences in the tomb and in his afterlife. Methodologically, this article stresses the importance of contextual analysis in shedding light on the traditional conceptual categories such as  “lived object” (shengqi 生器) and “funerary objects” (mingqi 明器) in actual funerary ritual processes.

Resumen: El propósito de la ponencia es indagar al patrimonio de las Misiones Jesuíticas-Guaraníes mediante una perspectiva alternativa, de acuerdo con lineamientos teóricos procedentes de la arqueología y la antropología del arte. A partir de una aproximación biográfica y la intencionalidad de la agencia, se abordará la circulación de un corpus de restos materiales procedentes de las reducciones, con posterioridad a la expulsión de la Compañía de Jesús en 1767. En este sentido, el trabajo se centrará en determinadas colecciones de museos arqueológicos e históricos en las actuales Provincias de Misiones y Córdoba (Museo Regional Aníbal Cambas, Museo Histórico y Arqueológico Andrés Guacurarí, Casa Museo Miguel Nádasdy, Museo de las Ruinas de San Ignacio, Museo Jesuítico Nacional Estancia de Jesús María, Museo Nacional Estancia Jesuítica de Alta Gracia y Casa del Virrey Liniers), dentro del territorio argentino. A través del relevamiento de los acervos, además de la pesquisa de documentación y bibliografía, el trabajo mostrará el despliegue de ciertos agentes en la formación del patrimonio misionero -i.e. Aníbal Cambas, Miguel Nádasdy, la Compañía de Jesús, la Comisión Nacional de Museos y Monumentos Históricos, entre otros-, en su variante mueble, aquella en la cual es factible el traslado y descontextualización de fragmentos materiales en diversos ámbitos. Así pues, la ponencia dilucidará la trayectoria de este conjunto de objetos a partir de la década de 1940, desde la recolección hasta el ingreso (vía donación, adquisición o préstamo) a los museos para su alojamiento, exhibición y/o conservación, identificando de este modo los cambios en la redistribución de usos y funciones.

Abstract: The purpose of the paper is inquiry to the Jesuitic-Guarani Missions through an alternative view, according to theoretical lineament coming from the archaeology and the anthropology of art. Through a biographical approach and the intentionality of the agency, it will analyses the circulation of the corpus of material rests from the reductions, subsequently to the expulsion of the Society of Jesus in 1767. In this sense, the work will focus on certain collections of archaeological and historical museums in the current Misiones and Córdoba provinces (Museo Regional Aníbal Cambas, Museo Histórico y Arqueológico Andrés Guacurarí, Casa Museo Miguel Nádasdy, Museo de las Ruinas de San Ignacio, Museo Jesuítico Nacional Estancia de Jesús María, Museo Nacional Estancia Jesuítica de Alta Gracia y Casa del Virrey Liniers), in the argentine territory. Through of the survey of the stocks, in addition to research of documentation and bibliography, the work will show the deployment of certain agents in the formation of missionary -i.e. Aníbal Cambas, Miguel Nádasdy, la Compañía de Jesús, la Comisión Nacional de Museos y Monumentos Históricos, among others-, in its mobile variant, the one in which is feasible the transfer and descontextualization of material fragments in areas various field

4. Mai 2017, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Istanbul


Der Vierte Kreuzzug endete im April 1204 mit der Eroberung Konstantinopels. Venezianer und Franken, die neuen Herrscher am Bosporus, schafften in den folgenden Jahren zahllose Preziosen aus Edelmetall und Reliquien in den Westen. Besonders begehrt waren Heiligenschädel, die fortan in Amiens, Troyes, Halberstadt und andernorts verehrt wurden, meist neugeschaffene Reliquiare erhielten und den empfangenden Kirchen und Klöstern Ansehen, neue Kirchenfeste und Pilger brachten.
Doch welche Rolle spielten byzantinische Schädelreliquien im orthodoxen Heiligenkult? Was für byzantinische Reliquiartypen lassen sich rekonstruieren? Und wie wirkten sich kirchenpolitische Differenzen zwischen Rom und Konstantinopel auf die Wahrnehmung orthodoxer Reliquienverehrung aus? Der Vortrag geht am Beispiel ausgewählter Objekte sowie schriftlicher und visueller Quellen diesen Fragen nach.

In this paper, I focus on the role played by material objects in the evocation of a specific imaginary of the recent past (mainly the 1970s and 1980s) in the literary works of Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov (in the novels “The Physics of Sorrow” and “Natural Novel”) and of Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (in “The Museum of Innocence”). I analyze the presence of feelings of melancholy and loss accompanied by a fixation on objects in the fictional works and describe their possible overcoming through an externalization in the form of museum exhibitions in the city of Sofia and Istanbul such as the “Inventory depository of Socialism” and the “Museum of Innocence”. By viewing objects as actors capable of creating meaningful social networks, I consider their use in the narration of personal and collective histories and their transformation as powerful symbols of a bygone era.

This PhD sets out to tackle the subject of animal bone material from heterogeneous pits, especially on the edge of Mediaeval European cities. These are often the most common feature encountered by zooarchaeologists yet the analysis given them often does little to add to our understanding of the lives and actions of the people who lived and worked in the city, or of the city’s relationship with its region or hinterland. Chapter 1 reviews the approaches taken to answering some of these questions by zooarchaeologists in the past as well as outlining the history of taphonomic research as it applies to the question. Chapter 2 aims to provide context to current approaches to the subject through a brief overview of relevant urban history. Chapter 3 focuses on how zooarchaeologists have studied butchery, other carcass related products and their waste. This current approach is typified by a standard, or traditional, analysis of an assemblage from Princesshay, Exeter, South West Britain (a previously unstudied assemblage), in Chapter 4. The second half of the PhD takes a different tack. Having presented the status quo, chapter 5 looks at how similar questions from other allied branches of archaeology have been investigated. These conceptual models are used, in combination with the established approaches already identified, to propose a new model based on chaîne opératoire theory for analysing the flow of Mediaeval urban fauna material that make up the final assemblages of individual contexts. It is suggested that through an understanding of the Guilds, and therefore memes, of industry in the city (recognising the raw materials and wastes from the varied processes/trades), the animal bone data can provide further insights into society and the city from the same typical heterogeneous pits and ditches that ordinarily provide so little cheer for zooarchaeologists. In a short test-case, and again in chapter 6 with a large case study, the potential of this new model (using chaîne opératoire theory to inform interpretation of routinely recorded zooarchaeological information (including representation of particular body parts e.g. horns, ribs, vertebra, skulls, feet and modifications such as butchery evidence chop/cut/fracturing)), is explored by applying it to the same dataset from Mediaeval Exeter analysed in the first half of the PhD. The additional insights provided by the new model are then discussed. Employing this model in Princesshay suggests the development of a intricate system of trade specialisation and societal complexity between the earlier and later periods of Medieval Exeter in a more nuanced way than could be understood through the earlier analysis.

This paper explores a collection of embroidered aprons retrieved from under the floor of the Ladies’ Cottage, a building at the Royal Derwent Hospital in New Norfolk, Tasmania — Australia’s oldest continuously operating psychiatric institution (1826–2000). Taking an object biography approach, close study of the aprons draws out many stories illuminating the everyday life of the patients in the past and enriching the narratives of these institutionalised women. Promoting a more nuanced understanding of the breadth of experiences encapsulated in this contentious heritage place, we consider the collection from the perspective of “object-mediated empathy”—the affective capacity of these remarkable textiles to trigger an experience of the humanity of others and to potentially alter ingrained community perceptions.

How did past communities view, understand and communicate their pasts? And how can we, as archaeologists, understand this? In recent years these questions have been approached through studies of the extended occupation and use of landscapes, monuments and artefacts to explore concepts of time and memory. But what of objects that were already old in the past? Interpretations for these items have ranged from the discard of scrap to objects of veneration. Evidence from a range of periods would suggest objects of the past were an important part of many later societies that encountered them, either as heirlooms with remembered histories or rediscovered curiosities from a more distant past.

For the first time, this volume brings together a range of case studies in which objects of the past were encountered and reappropriated. It follows a conference session at the Theoretical Archaeological Group in Cardiff 2017, in which historians, archaeologists, heritage professionals and commercial archaeologists gathered to discuss this topic on a broad (pre)historical scale, highlighting similarities and contrast in depositional practices and reactions to relics of the past in different periods. Through case studies spanning the Bronze Age through to the 18th century AD, this volume presents new research demonstrating that the reappropriation of these already old objects was not anomalous, but instead represents a practice that recurs throughout (pre)history.

The full volume can be downloaded here: http://www.archaeopress.com/ArchaeopressShop/Public/displayProductDetail.asp?id={01A1424E-7D35-4784-8624-824E09CDA8E1}

A partir de casos de estudios de circulación de actores, animales y objetos entre Chile, América y Europa, situados en los siglos XVII y XVIII, se presenta un panorama historiográfico de la “historiografía cultural y global de la ciencia”. Para comprender los artículos que componen el dossier, formulamos la idea de “fragmentos de mundo” que transitan en espacios pluricentrados y epistemológicamente plurales. El intento para encajar todo el mundo posee, en ese sentido, muchas rupturas, geografías, actores, ideas, discontinuidades y pluralidades de sentido, como se demuestra en los experimentos de tránsito presentados desde Chile entre los siglos XVIII y XX.

In this thesis, I argue that the perception of exoticness regarding things brought into Europe from overseas is a historical construction concurrent with the arrival of items at the ports of Lisbon and Seville. I claim that it is necessary to go beyond the exoticness attributed to these goods in order to understand the consumption practises in early modern Iberia. For that purpose, this thesis offers a methodology on how to investigate consumption. It takes into consideration the historical complexity of the moment of interaction between a consumer and a thing. In other words, the main aim of my dissertation is to explain the entanglement between the driving forces that lead to consumption and the mechanisms for accessing non-European goods.