The work of Fernand Braudel (1949) should have revolutionized the way archaeology conceptualizes temporal scales and builds chronological narratives. Even though Braudel’s general views did impact... Show moreThe work of Fernand Braudel (1949) should have revolutionized the way archaeology conceptualizes temporal scales and builds chronological narratives. Even though Braudel’s general views did impact archaeological theory deeply, his three different time-scales, together with insights into duration as the inner dialectic between different temporalities, remain neglected in archaeological practice.Nowadays, ceramic chronology building in archaeology still relies on two main variables: time-space and pottery styles. This book aims to challenge this paradigm and propose a new way for narrating vital chronologies. The point of departure for this endeavor consists of a longue durée geographical unit, the valley of Juigalpa, in central Nicaragua. Through a view of materials—and especially ceramics—as complex and embodied palimpsests, as the bundling of unfolding traces; a chronology including five different intervals based on ceramic technologies is presented, from the first traces of human practices in 300 CE through to the present. Show less
This study develops and applies a new approach to study Aegyptiaca Romana from a bottom-up, Roman perspective. Current approaches to these objects are often still plagued by top-down... Show moreThis study develops and applies a new approach to study Aegyptiaca Romana from a bottom-up, Roman perspective. Current approaches to these objects are often still plagued by top-down projections of modern definitions and understandings of Egypt and Egyptian material culture onto the Roman world. Egypt beyond representation instead argues that these artefacts should be studied in their own right, without reducing them from the onset to fixed (Egyptian) meanings. Starting from a novel focus on the materials and materiality of a selection of stone Aegyptiaca from Rome, and by combining archaeological and archaeometric perspectives, this study shows that, while Egyptianness may have been among Roman associations, these objects were able to do much more than merely representing notions of Egypt. Show less
This dissertation was written within the NWO VIDI project __Cultural innovation in a globalising society, Egypt in the Roman world__, (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University) directed by dr.... Show moreThis dissertation was written within the NWO VIDI project __Cultural innovation in a globalising society, Egypt in the Roman world__, (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University) directed by dr. Miguel John Versluys. The general aim of this project is devoted to the understanding of the different contexts in which Egypt as style, imagery, object, and text, was integrated in the Roman world. It thereby wishes to give Egypt its proper place within the process of Roman cultural innovation through carefully studying its material and textual remains in the context in which they were created and appropriated. Studies on the Roman perception of Egypt, concerning both textual and archaeological sources, generally approach Egypt from fixated and normative concepts. For example, Aegyptiaca have traditionally been interpreted within a framework of oriental cults or Egyptomania. The research project, in contrast, demonstrates that the dichotomy Rome versus Egypt should be approached with care. Besides the present thesis, three other PhD-dissertations are written within the scope of the project: Marike van Aerde, examining the role of Egyptian material culture in Augustan Rome, Sander M_skens, focusing on the material analysis of stone Aegyptiaca in Rome, and Maaike Leemreize, studying the Roman literary perceptions of Egypt. The purpose of this particular dissertation is to obtain a better image of the use, perception, and integration of Egyptian artefacts in domestic contexts, using Pompeii (1st century BC __ 1st century AD) as a case study. The houses of Pompeii yielded many objects that scholars nowadays would call Egyptian or Egyptianised artefacts and are subsumed under the denominator of Aegyptiaca. For the case of Pompeii, Aegyptiaca form a heterogeneous group of both imported and locally produced objects spread throughout the town, consisting of statuettes, imported sculptures, furniture, jewellery, or wall paintings. The most predominant interpretations drawn about the use of these objects have mainly been done on the basis of two accounts: they were interpreted as religious artefacts and explained in the context of the cults of Isis, or they were interpreted as exoticum. The interpretations have been drawn mostly without any contextual analysis or any theoretical underpinnings, and more problematic: the collecting and interpretation of artefacts have been based on modern scholarly perceptions of what Egypt entails, while we as scholars recognise something __Egyptian__ on different grounds than the people of Pompeii once did. The category Aegyptiaca in itself should be seriously questioned and the way Romans categorised should be scrutinised. The aim of this thesis therefore is to analyse the perception of these objects from a bottom up perspective, avoiding the a priori cultural labelling of Egyptian artefacts, but starting instead from the object itself with its main goal to contextualise and to give the finds meaning from within their original use-contexts. For this, methods derived from recent developments in object agency and relationality are used. Show less
