(mit Clare Rowan) Introduction. A Turkish teapot, or thinking things through, in: Annabel Bokern -...

Embodying Value? The Transformation of Objects in and from the Ancient World

Edited by

Annabel BokernClare Rowan

BAR International Series 25922014

Published by

ArchaeopressPublishers of British Archaeological ReportsGordon House276 Banbury RoadOxford OX2 [email protected]

BAR S2592

Embodying Value? The Transformation of Objects in and from the Ancient World

© Archaeopress and the individual authors 2014

ISBN 978 1 4073 1220 0

Cover illustration: Seal impression. From W. Müller and I. Pini, Die Siegelabdrücke von Aj. Triada und anderen Zentral- und Ostkretischen Fundorten, Corpus der Minoischen und Mykenischen Siegel, Bd. II.6, Nr. 173 (from Mallia, House Epsilon). Drawing by S. Lieberknnecht, reproduced with the kind permission of Prof. Ingi Pini.

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Introduction

A Turkish teapot, or thinking things through

Annabel Bokern and Clare Rowan

Figure 1 Turkish teapot, © Institute of Archaeology, Goethe University Frankfurt.

We first began seriously thinking about value during a 2010 workshop entitled Theories of Value, organised by the postdoctoral fellows Jennifer Bagley and Hadas Weiss from the Research Training Group Value and Equivalence.1 The workshop examined the concept and meaning of ‘value’ from a largely theoretical perspective, opening the door for a discussion that would last within the group for the next several years. With the aim of exploring new ways of understanding how objects are (de)valued, used by, or influence people over time, a workshop involving archaeologists and anthropologists was organised in 2012 around the theme Momente der Transformation: Die Erzeugung und Zerstörung von Wert. The following week a session was held at the 22nd Theoretical Roman

1 Thanks are due to Dr. des. Jennifer Bagley and Federico Buccellati for their perceptive comments on an earlier draft of this Introduction, and whose comments have improved the final piece.

Archaeology Conference entitled Embodying Value: the Transformation of Objects in and from the Roman World. This volume brings together papers from both these events, which were organised within the framework of the Research Training Group Value and Equivalence: the Genesis and Transformation of Values from an Archaeological and Anthropological Perspective.2

During both events the discussion focused on two central questions. The first was on the ‘moment of transformation’, the moment(s) or processes in which an object gains or loses value. The second focus was on how objects and their

2 The Research Training Group was established in April 2010 by 11 senior researchers at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Eleven PhD students and 2 postdoctoral fellows are funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and about the same number of unfunded PhD candidates are associated members of the group: www.value-and-equivalence.de.

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Embodying ValuE? ThE TransformaTion of objEcTs in and from ThE anciEnT World

associated value(s) transform as they enter new cultures and time periods. As these topics were discussed, broader ideas surrounding the relationship between humans and objects came to the fore, as well as ideas on how archaeology should operate and reconstruct the past. The value of objects is an incredibly complex theme with an impressive history of scholarship; one miscellany cannot hope to examine all aspects of this debate in detail.3 Instead this volume offers differing perspectives and examples of value generation and its connection to social-cultural networks as ‘food for thought’ for future research. The complexity of the subject area is revealed in the differing models and ideas proposed within this work. The interconnectedness of ‘people’, ‘objects’ and ‘things’ as they move through various life courses or biographies means that no one ‘solution’ to the value of objects is ever likely to be (or should be) settled upon, but the topic remains a fruitful one for exploration. In this introduction we limit ourselves to drawing out some of the general themes found within the individual contributions. The discussion to an extent reflects our own interests and thoughts; it is by no means an exhaustive exploration of the topic.

Sitting down in Frankfurt University to write the introduction, we began by preparing a pot of tea. While cleaning the teapot the glass body of the vessel cracked. Disappointed that an object that had served us so well in the past was now at the end of its life, we threw the teapot in the bin, along with its lid. Remembering that our colleague across the hall also had a teapot, we went in to request a loan, which resulted in a Turkish metal vessel, the colleague`s tea from England, and the colleague himself joining us for tea and a chat. In return for the teapot we offered our colleague some of our ‘Kreppel’ (a German delicacy). Having no time to buy a new pot, we borrowed the Turkish teapot from our colleague daily. At some point our beleaguered colleague came in to offer us the use of another, older teapot, which he had recently been using to water his plants. The teapot´s old-fashioned style, and the way the teapot was presented to us (as a watering can) meant we refused the offer, continuing to drink tea out of the Turkish teapot. In this way the destruction of one object brought a series of actors together, building a network of relationships.

This story, at first glance somewhat mundane, reveals an entangled network of people and things. As archaeologists, ‘things’ or material culture have always formed the focus of our work, but recently other disciplines in the social sciences have increasingly turned their attention to material objects.4 And yet in spite of the ever increasing theoretical frameworks in which humans and things are brought together, a sense of dissatisfaction remains, either that we continue to privilege the human at the expense of the object, or that the on-going modern distinction between human and object continues to obscure new ways

3 Graeber 2001 offers a good summary of previous work in the area. 4 For an overview see Hodder 2012.

of understanding human interactions with the material world.5

The moment(s) of transformation: What gives an object value?

This seemingly simple question can have no simple answer, witnessed in the varying approaches and perspectives provided in this volume. Some objects, by virtue of their very material, may hold an intrinsic value. Items of precious metal are a good example of this, obtaining value due to the scarcity of the material they are made from and its physical properties. Both Hensler and Murgan demonstrate this in their contributions: the metal content of Ösenringe in Bronze Age Europe and in pre-monetary objects in Italy and Sicily meant they were objects of value. Conversely, the material of objects may also contribute to a reduction of value: for us the physical appearance of the brown ceramic teapot mentioned above did not appeal to us, and contributed to our decision not to accept it from our colleague. As both Hensler and Murgan demonstrate, the obvious ‘intrinsic’ value of objects was determined and controlled by culture and society. In the case of the Ösenringe, it appears that the particular characteristics of the object were what gave it value (weight, diameter), more so than the metal itself. The differing metal compositions of pre-monetary aes objects suggest a similar phenomenon, where weight and perhaps form were of more importance than the precise type of metal alloy used.

Different materials may be valued differently in different cultures depending on landscape and natural resources (amongst other factors), but value is also generated when the inherent properties of a particular material become apparent: colour, texture, strength, or flexibility, to name a few.6 Indeed, the materiality of some objects may ‘force’ one to notice them, seen in Ciric’s discussion of Roman monuments in medieval Serbia. Here the monumentality of these remains meant that populations living in the surrounding areas had little choice but to engage with them. As Hartman demonstrated for Classical Antiquity, drawing upon Assmann´s theory of collective memory, the physical appearance of these objects within their spatial context could enforce their relevance as Gedächtnismedien.7 Similarly, as Bagley discusses, the rediscovery of Neolithic stone axes throughout history invited differing explanations of their existence.

Value might also be ‘uploaded’ to an object through knowledge. Hodder observes a situation in which students are given a piece of pottery but no contextual information; the interest and sense of wonder increases substantially

5 On the neglect of ‘things’ see Hodder 2012. For dissatisfaction with the categories of ‘human’ and ‘object’ see Henare, Holbraad et al. 2007, 1-31; and Jones and Boivin 2010, 334, amongst others. 6 Renfrew 2005, 92 7 Schnapp 2003 initiated the discourse on the perception and value of ruins; Hartmann 2010 connects literary evidence with objects and focuses on ruins and Ruinenlandschaften in Classical Antiquity.

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A. Bokern And C. rowAn, IntroduCtIon: A turkIsh teApot, or thInkIng thIngs through

when the students are informed the sherd is 3,500 years old and Minoan.8 Thus value is not only derived from the object itself, but from knowledge about the object. Perhaps our colleague’s offer of a substitute teapot would have been more successful had it been promoted as a rare 1970´s design artefact. Thompson added a new category to the socioeconomic model on the value of all ‘possessible’ things. Items without any value could not be grasped by the existing spheres of the transient and the durable. He therefore added rubbish as a category. Alongside other factors the presentation of an object may have the power to transform a thing of no value into a durable object, and lead to a continual increase of value.9 The role of display in the creation of value is touched upon by Recht in this volume, who observes that the presentation and appearance of rhyta in processions may have had an important role in value attribution.

Knowledge (value) may be transmitted by linking information to a situation in a performative act as done by Hodder with his students, or, by contrast, through an association of context(s) over long periods of time. Visiting the exhibition Der grosse Potlatch in Dresden with our group in 2011 we witnessed a discussion between two boys who were both about 10 years old. They were comparing a wooden mask, recently produced in a First Nation community, with a golden mask from the time of Louis XIV, trying to decide which one of the exhibits might be of higher value. One of the boys stated that nothing could be more obvious than the immense value of the wooden mask. This was clear to him, he added, because it was hung up in the context of an exhibition and it looked very old as well. In this short episode the hiatus between material and non-material value becomes clear and highlights the transformations of value-concepts through contextualisation.10

When people view an artwork of Jeff Koons for the first time their initial reaction may be one of scepticism, even though these pieces are usually part of exhibitions: in the case of Sling Hook, a sculptural reproduction of a balloon lobster and dolphin hanging upside down from a fishing hook, spectators very often react with a spontaneous comment that they too could blow up a cheap balloon and display it in a museum. However, when informed that the sculpture is not a mass produced plastic balloon but rather metal sculpted with enormous precision and many hundreds of working hours in order to resemble a cheap mass-produced balloon, scepticism at this stage usually turns into a sense of wonder and appreciation, and thus increases the value of the object in the eyes of the beholder.11 The artistic value of the object is, in terms of the art works of

8 Hodder 2012, 32 9 Thompson 2003 10 On museum objects, art and context see Thiemeyer 2010, 6. 11 This was observed many times in the 2012 exhibition Jeff Koons. Sculptor at the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung in Frankfurt. The ‘cheap’ plastic dolphin seemed out of place, surrounded as it was by ancient Greek sculpture.

Koons, mainly constituted by the artistic idea that precedes production and the transformative process of reproducing things in new combinations, altered dimensions and material.12 Returning to Thompson´s ‘rubbish theory’ at this point, the materials Koons selects for his objects are mainly to be found in the durable category, carrying a high material value, whilst the objects he selects to reproduce belong to the lower-value sphere of the transient category; in a short-term development they will end as rubbish. By the materialistic transformation of the object, as well as the performative act of the presentation and sales process, the art works of Koons cross over from being more or less rubbish to prestige objects of high material as well as non-material value.

The perspective of the beholder

In his Natural History Pliny preserves for us the rivalry between Parrhasios and Zeuxis. The latter became well-known for the grapes he painted in such a realistic manner that birds came flying in to peck at them. He then painted a boy carrying grapes and as the birds flew in again, he got angry, stating that if he had been able to paint the boy as realistically as the grapes, the birds would have surely been scared off by the child.13 The artistic goal in this scene clearly is the effect of trompe l´oeil, thus demonstrating the mimetic skills of the painter, which seem to be the central point of value within this artistic contest. Nevertheless Zeuxis loses the competition in the end, because he tries to open a curtain in front of Parrhasios’ piece only to discover that the linen curtain was a part of the picture. Parrhasios thus demonstrates his skills by not only beguiling animals, but by overcoming the rationality of a human being, in this case of an artist.

The story offers a situation in which a greater or lesser similarity to a real object is the measure of value. This gradual measurement demands a point of comparison, which may be found in another art work, like the one Parrhasios presents, or in nature herself. Secondly, Pliny tells us that the recipient is highly relevant to the effect the art work causes. Up to a certain point it depends on the beholder, by what and when he can be deceived by a work of art. Not only do we have to take into account the level of awareness and knowledge of the viewer (an artist is a stronger obstacle than a bird), but also the sheer functioning of the brain. But what follows when the beholder ‘knows’ that he is looking at a ‘fake’ instead of the ‘real’ object? Zeuxis knew he was about to look at a work of art, but did not expect the curtain to be part of it. Or else he looked at the work of art and was still not capable of defining its

12 Still bound to the concept of the ‘Ready Made’ introduced by Marcel Duchamp, with the workgroup “Popeye” Koons sticks closely to the original appearance of the plastic models (inflatable pool animal toys). For an overview see Archer 2011. 13 Pliny, NH 35.36. For a discussion on the emulation of nature and the definition of mimesis, see Peres 1990.

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components, due to the elaborate level of similitude. In the case of the dolphin created by Jeff Koons, the revelation of the true material of the sculpture also often results in a need to touch the object to reassure oneself of one´s full capacity of senses.14

This opens the question, whether a work of art or other kind of handcrafted object is seen differently when the ‘authenticity’ of it is known. In the Roman world there are many objects that resemble those items we in the modern world value more highly, simply because they are ‘authentic’ objects or made of ‘original’ material.15 But does this knowledge change the way our brains ‘digest’ what we see before our eyes?

These observations are brought to the fore in van de Liefvoort’s discussion of ‘real’ and ‘fake’ in Roman domestic marble decoration. Van de Liefvoort notes that information concerning the authenticity of a particular Rembrandt painting affects how the brain processes the image.16 The example demonstrates the effect object information has on human cognitive processes, and ultimately on how a particular object is valued. Van de Liefvoort’s exploration of Room 34 in the House of Sallust in Pompeii suggests that ‘authentic’ and ‘fake’ could be placed side by side in the Roman world without differentiation in its perception and evaluation. Eremić’s exploration of the use of gold coins in Late Antique Barbaricum also highlights the idea that there was no essential distinction between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ in this context: ‘fake’ Roman gold coins were used alongside ‘the real thing’ in the creation of jewellery. It seems that the authenticity of these objects was not essentially what made them valuable to their barbarian users. In the case of Roman imagery carried on coinage into Barbaricum, it may be the very unintelligibility of the image, now out of its original context, which may have given the object value.17 However, the clear preference for images of the emperor in the conversion of these coins into jewellery suggests some understanding on the part of the user.

Conceptions of ‘authentic’ versus ‘fake’ seem to be more of a concern in the modern world, where industrialisation has brought forth ways of reproducing things without the use of human hands, while in antiquity copying and imitating implied the manual and artistic skills such a process required.18 The value of the ‘fake’ in ancient times may differ from culture to culture and from object to object as van Wijngaarden has demonstrated for Mycenean

14 On what archaeologists can learn from artists see Renfrew, Gosden and DeMarrais 2004. 15 Rübel, Wagner and Wolf 2005, 143-4; Olsen, Shanks et. al. 2012, 22-6 16 Huang, Bridge, Kemp and Parker 2011 17 Morphy 2010, 282-3 18 Rübel, Wagner and Wolf 2005, 95-6 (Materialgerechtigkeit) and 142-93 (Materialimitationen); Zanker 1992; Olsen, Shanks et. al. 2012, 23. On the effect of ‘mechanical reproduction’ on our perceptions of art, the chief work remains Walter Benjamin (Benjamin 1996). See also Berger 1972.

pottery in the Mediterranean.19 Indeed, the ‘fake’ may even at times be valued more than an ‘authentic’ object. Pliny records that in Rome ‘fake’ or counterfeit coins were often purchased for more than the ‘real’ coin was worth;20 here the value of the ‘fake’ was to be found in the ability to study counterfeiting techniques and thus protect the Roman monetary system, something of greater value than whatever amount of money the ‘fake’ coin was worth.

Dealing with things

Objects also gain value as they are used within society, often reinforcing social hierarchies or power structures. Here the value of an object is less tied to its material (though one can argue this is still important) and more to desire and access to particular objects. The manipulation of the perception of goods and access to them actively creates and reflects social hierarchy, defining relations between people.21 In Ciric’s example focusing on the reuse of Roman materials in medieval graves, the social status of the deceased determined how the objects were to be used, reinforcing the existing social hierarchy. Rowan’s discussion of the acceptability of coinage during the Second Punic War also highlights the connection between social hierarchy, power, and who determines an object’s ‘face’ value. Ingham suggested that money is produced in a struggle for power, and the value of the money concerned is a direct result of that power.22 The clear separation of the coinage of the Roman Republic and the Bretti demonstrates this idea in practice. But here the value strictly enforced by conflicting political authorities stands in contrast to the value individuals construct amongst themselves, perhaps in conflict with those in power.

As mentioned above, performative acts have an important role to play in the creation of value. Rituals, performance and other activities may change the value and status of particular objects. Value is thus not only generated through exchange, but through other human performances.23 Recht’s discussion of Bronze Age rhyta shows this idea in action: rhyta played an important role as a ‘transformer’ in ritual by transforming the liquids that passed through them. The existence of ‘trick’ rhyta, designed to mystify the viewer into believing the vessel was refilling itself shows the possible performative use of these pieces. Members of the local elite could make use of these ‘mystical’ objects to strengthen their cultic and social position by keeping the cause of the effect unclear and thus the beholder in awe. Other examples of such objects may be found in objects like the Himmelsscheibe von Nebra, which according to our understanding document astronomical knowledge

19 van Wijngaarden 2008, 135 20 Pliny NH 33.46.132 21 van Wijngaarden 1999, 2-3; Hildebrandt and Veit 2009 22 Ingham 2004, 78 23 Gosdon and Marshall 1999, 174; Joy 2009, 544

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accessible exclusively to a religious and social elite. Today we witness a similar mystification of these objects, some of them made of precious material like gold or bronze, in the way they are displayed in museums. In the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte in Halle the Himmelsscheibe is placed in a dark shrine-like room with a strong spotlight on this singled out semiophore.24 Just like entering a cathedral most visitors lower their voices and move slowly around the relic from the Early Bronze Age, wondering what it might have meant. It is a tightrope walk between the aesthetic presentation of ancient objects and the transmission of historic information to a broad audience.

Everyday objects may be given additional value through their use or movement into the ritual sphere, as with the knives, plough blades and other objects discussed by Murgan or the rings and coins detailed by Erdman. This process of ‘adding value’ is at times marked on the object itself through an inscription or, more radically, the object’s destruction, as the object is then to some extent freed from the original significance and value that was attached at the moment of production (Bagley). At other moments it appears that the physical movement of the object, from the sacred to the profane sphere, or in a procession, may lead to a change in the object’s value. In these situations the ‘life’ of the object in terms of experience or ‘participation seniority’ adds to its intrinsic worth.

Value lost and (re)found: the biography of the object

The generation of ‘lived’ or ‘additional’ value through ritual or performance leads us to the concept of object biography.25 An object, like a person, might go through several ‘life-stages’, during which the object may gain, lose, or change value, a process that Appadurai labelled ‘tournaments of value’.26 By following the biography of an object we better understand its use and context within society, but in doing so archaeologists must pay close attention to context. This point is underlined in the papers of Anderson and Bagley. Bagley notes that in the case of Neolithic stone axes, only the object’s context, not the object itself, reveals how it was used. For Bagley, the continuous use and engagement with Neolithic stone axes from the moment of their creation until the modern day underscores a vital point for archaeologists – the presence of a stone axe does not necessarily indicate a Neolithic context, since these objects were rediscovered and reinterpreted over time. Anderson’s examination of ceramics in Late Antique Anatolia demonstrates how the tendency of archaeology as a discipline to develop typologies and to publish excavation reports where objects

24 Pomian 1998, 38-54 25 On object biography see Kopytoff 1986, 64-94; Joy 2009, 540-56; Gosdon and Marshall 2010, 169-78; and Hall 2012, 72-91, amongst others. 26 Appadurai 1986, 3-63

are listed by type rather than context obscures the actual use(s) of the objects concerned. Returning to our teapot experience, if we were to classify our colleague’s older teapot according to form, colour, and fabric, rather than focus on its context, we would obscure the use of the object as a watering can.

Object biography focuses not only on the production of the object, but also its consumption ‘as a social action occurring at a local scale’ (Anderson), a process which is a key producer of value and culture.27 In this context we return to Hensler’s discussion of what aspects determined the value of Ösenringe in Bronze Age society. To approach the problem he traces the use of Ösenringe following the process of consumption and shows that consumption as a form of communication implements concepts of value within societies. He suggests that Ösenringe did not only follow a special system of weight and value, but may be the initial object of such a system.

Just as an object may have many different potential biographies, so too can the same object be used and valued differently between cultures, or within the same culture or household. Anderson argues for such discrepant user experience in Late Antique Anatolia, and the idea is underscored by the variety of objects chosen as votive offerings in the contributions throughout this book. Both Erdmann and Murgan list numerous types of votive offerings, and although some objects might be deemed more ‘appropriate’ for particular purposes, the decision over which object to use appears to have remained with the individual. Hodder has also demonstrated the different ways things might be valued by different individuals, dependent on different abstractions like ideas, thoughts, words, feelings and senses; here he utilises Bourdieu’s definition of Habitus as an explanatory model.28 Rather than assuming that humans are bound by a culturally determined method of doing things, Hodder argues we might see that ‘humans are always seeking and searching to find new solutions that ‘work’ in a particular context within a particular strategy’. The alternative model proposed by Hodder and others is one of entangled networks: rather than a linear biography, a network underscores the multiplicity of options that might affect one object’s itinerary.29

At some point objects reach a rupture in their biographies, resulting in a loss of value, or the destruction/discard of the object. As Bauer observes in her discussion of the deconstruction of Roman public monuments, these destructive moments in an object’s life are rarely focused on in archaeology. But understanding an object’s ‘end’ is important, and not merely because this is the context that we most commonly uncover in archaeological excavations. If an object is used within social relationships, then the ‘death’ of the object must necessarily result in a ‘death’

27 Dietler 2010, 59 28 Hodder 2012, 123; Bourdieu 1977 29 Hahn and Weiss 2013, 4

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or transformation of the said relationship.30 In Bauer’s exploration of the destruction of bronze monuments, often the destruction occurs in connection with a change in social and/or political relationships, underlining the connection between objects and human society. But in many ways the ‘end’ of an object is somewhat ambiguous – objects may be rediscovered and given new meanings and values, as in the case with the Neolithic stone axes (Bagley).31 Metal objects that are ‘destroyed’ in the process of recycling are then necessarily transformed into other objects, like the metal inscription Bauer discusses that was used to fashion spare car parts. The material of the object in this situation is thus not touched by the destruction, but is instead transformed. Similarly the conversion of Brettian coinage into Roman denarii discussed by Rowan is a transformation of material (silver) from one object to another, in this case a transformation of a coin into a coin. In fact we might separate ‘object biographies’ from ‘material biographies’ – the destruction of an object does not necessarily bring about the ‘end life’ of the material concerned, evidenced in the grinding of Neolithic stone axes into powder for medicine (Bagley), or the grinding down of Samian ware for use as a colorant.32 In thinking about ‘things’ perhaps we need to acknowledge more the essential relationship between ‘materials’ and ‘forces’, in which materials react with the world to (re)generate things.33

Some objects, however, may be intentionally made for destruction or may need to come to an end to fulfil their purpose; the very value of their creation lies in their ability to be destroyed.34 Such is the case with totem poles, which are meant to decay and eventually return to the earth. This expectation was a cause of conflict during the repatriation of the famous G’psgolox pole from Sweden to its traditional Haisla owners, since museum representatives wanted the ‘priceless treasure’ to be preserved.35 The stone rhyta mentioned by Recht also appear to be an example of such objects, which may have been destroyed in a performative act. The need to destroy objects indicates their role as bearers of memory and culture; when a society needs to forget, objects are targeted. Well-known examples of this are the Roman practice of damnatio memoriae or the Bildersturm of the Middle Ages. The rejection of things, moving away from things, the declaration of that thing is of little or no value, seen in the ‘Latin’ invasion and destruction of bronze monuments in Constantinople (Bauer), is as important in the creation of identity, culture and relationships as more ‘positive’ interactions.

Bauer’s example of the reuse of bronze monuments to repair other monuments in the city of Brescia in the Roman

30 Pollard 2004, 47 31 Hahn and Weiss 2013, 4 32 Campbell 2012, 17 33 Ingold 2010 34 Rowlands 1993, 149 35 Jessiman 2011, 369, 374. The museum representative noted that ‘I would be very unhappy if [they] put the pole back according to [their] tradition because it would be destroyed’.

period highlights the fact that the relationship between humans and things is one of entanglement.36 Humans interact with and come to rely on things, these things rely on other things to function, and things rely on people to repair and use them. In this instance the Roman people had placed great value, energy and resources into the creation of a monumental culture. The monuments created sparked ever greater and larger monuments, intensifying the relationship and dependency between person and object. These monuments needed other objects to function fully – a forum for display, for example, and in the case of large bronze doors, a temple or monumental building to which they were attached. These monuments, particularly those in bronze, were somewhat ‘unruly’ and could break or demand maintenance. This in turn led to the creation of a repair workshop in Brescia, where such maintenance could take place, in turn demanding the reuse of other monuments whose value was deemed to be lower by the ruling government. In some cases these relationships of dependency may outlive the culture that initially created them, as in the case of the repair of Roman aqueducts in the medieval period in Spain.37 The interdependency of things may again be illustrated by our teapot experience: once the glass body of the teapot broke, the rest of the object (the lid and the metal skeleton that held the body of the vessel) was also deemed to be destroyed or without use value. Since we were not capable of reusing the materials of the object, all these items were thrown away, underlining how things interact with and rely on other things.

Dichotomies and beyond? People, objects and the human body

The value(s) generated by the human-object relationship, like most of the themes touched upon in this introduction, is far too large to be treated exhaustively here and again we can only touch upon points of interest. A startling or perhaps not so startling common thread throughout this book is the way that objects appear to gain value according to the way they interact with, adorn, or represent the human body.38 The use of coins, deposited in the Douix (Erdmann), reused in Late Antique Barbaricum (Eremić) and medieval societies (Ciric) are one example of such objects, since they bear both human representations and can be worn on the body. Erdmann notes that one reason why particular objects may have been valued above others as votive objects was their connection with the human body.39 Rings, coins, weapons and sculptures are

36 Ingold 2007; Ingold 2010, 4-5 (acknowledging his debt to Heidegger); Hodder 2012 37 Martínez Jiménez 2012, 27-42 38 Graeber 2001, 92 notes how remarkable it is that objects often adopted as money come from materials that are otherwise used to adorn the human body. 39 Huth 2003 points out the scarcity of prehistoric anthropomorphic depictions. There seems to be some connection between the emergence of depictions of the human being and the earliest evidence for sanctuaries.

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all in some way connected to the human being and can be found in ritual and sepulchral contexts. Such objects, when offered, could visibly or symbolically represent the individual performing the sacrifice. Many objects depict humans performing ritual acts, like the engravings on situlae or the decorations on Greek pottery. They connect the object symbolically with the ritual act performed by a human being.40

In some cases these objects even ‘speak’ to us, as we can see from the inscription on the Duenos Vase found in a votive deposit on the Quirinal in Rome, with an oath formula ending with the words ‘may a bad man not present me!’ (Murgan). The inscription directly addresses the reader in a ‘speech act’ performed by the object itself. Thereby a network emerges that connects the maker, the object, the presenter of the sacrifice, the recipient(s) and the act of offering.41 But at what point in the history of mankind did an object made of metal or clay, depicting an isolated part of the body, become intelligible as pars pro toto for its donor? Votive offerings like hands, feet or breasts seem familiar to us and we still know they are synonymous with the wishes for an individual´s health and wellbeing, something that was still common practice in the late Middle Ages and beyond. But such clarity cannot always be found, especially with ancient objects without inscriptions: anthropomorphic objects like the idols of the Cyclades prompt us to question what and whom they represent, though the number of these objects in sepulchral contexts and cultic deposits leaves us without doubt as to their relevance.

The body is perhaps somewhat underrepresented in modern archaeological research,42 and yet increasingly both social science and cognitive research are beginning to identify the extent to which body, mind and objects are intertwined.43 Clark’s theory of the ‘extended mind’ highlights how cognitive processes and thought, once believed to take place within the confines of the brain, depend on external stimuli and ‘things’.44 A good example of this idea is the use of external devices for the storage of memory, whether in the form of Mesopotamian tokens or modern external hard drives.45 Similarly, when presented with a mathematical problem, many of us resort to a pen and paper to find the solution; in this way objects form an integral part of the functioning of the brain. Even when these objects are absent and we do the mathematical sum ‘in our head’, the way we visualise and solve the problem in our minds may still be influenced by ‘the pen and paper’, or how we would have laid out the problem using

40 Huth 2003, 160-244 on situla art and 271-94 for an overview of human depictions in prehistoric art, with a focus on cognitive processes and aspects of individualisation. 41 Bredekamp 2010, 48-100 on first-person inscriptions and the development from Sprechakt to Bildakt. 42 Shilling 2008, 145 43 For an overview of the topic see Malafouris 2013. 44 Clark 2008, 1-18; Malafouris and Renfrew 2010, 1-12; Knappett 2011 45 On the tokens see Schmandt-Besserat 1992.

these objects. Roman orators, for example, recommended visualising a well-laid out house in one’s head to aid one’s memory. Different points to be made during a speech could then be placed in each room, allowing one to recall all the points to be made, and, by ‘walking through the house’ and its many rooms, one could go back and between different sections.46 Thus although the object was not actually present, it nonetheless was active in the cognitive process of human actors.

Malafouris explains that ‘extended mind’ theory and ‘embodied cognition’ means that ‘the body is not as conventionally held, a passive external container of the human mind that has little to do with cognition per se but a constitutive and integral component of the way we think. In other words, the mind does not inhabit the body, it is rather the body that inhabits the mind’.47 Since the body plays an active role in how we think, the material environment that surrounds the body must play a role as well. Thus objects can become a part of the body or a person, demonstrated in neuro-scientific research, which has identified that the systematic association between the body and inanimate objects can result in the incorporation of these objects into the body schema.48 Malafouris cites the example of a 73 year old woman, who, after having had a stroke and having been paralysed on her left side, failed to recognise the rings she had worn for years on her left hand. Once these rings were moved to her right hand, or placed in front of her, she recognised them and was able to link them to her own autobiography.49 Perhaps the natural conclusion of these developments has been the recent call to abandon the ‘human’ - ‘object’ division entirely.50 The value of objects is linked to the way they interact with both our minds and our bodies, and the implications of this need to be considered for present and future research.

The connection between mind, body and the material world raises the controversial topic of object agency. Latour has been instrumental in developing the idea of object agency, or Actor Network Theory, which assigns objects an active role in social and cultural interactions.51 The agency of objects has had a controversial reception, even within the collection of papers in this volume. Many see the assigning of agency to objects as the ‘lazy man’s option’, arguing that instead it is the role of social science to understand how it is that people believe objects have agency.52 Ingold has been instrumental in observing that what we categorise as the ‘agency’ of things in fact can be better understood as the interactions of materials with the forces of the natural world, the ‘flux of materials’.53 If we are to accept the

46 Ad C. Herennium 3.16-24; Cicero de oratore 2.86.351-4; Quintilian instiutio oratoria 11.2.17-22 47 Malafouris 2008, 115 48 Malafouris 2008, 120 49 Malafouris 2008, 120; Berlucchi and Aglioti 1997, 561 50 Henare, Holbraad et al. 2007, 1-31; Jones and Boivin 2010, 348-5151 e.g. Latour 1992, 225-8. See also Jones and Boivin 2010, 333-51; Pickering 2010, 192-208 52 Morphy 2010, 279 53 Ingold 2007

8


ideas offered to us by developments in material cognition, we must acknowledge the inherent potential or agency of objects, or the effect of the material world on human actors. As Malafouris observes in his discussion of the role of Mycenean swords in the development of Mycenean culture and ‘being’, ‘to deny the agency of the sword is to misconstrue the cognitive efficacy of material culture’.54 A sword may not be able to move itself, but its very presence invites the hand to perform actions and activities it would not otherwise have performed.

The collapse of the division between mind/body/object is something that has for some time been suggested by anthropological research. Strathern’s study of Melanesian society demonstrated that the ‘person’ or ‘dividual’ within Melanesian culture was constructed and construed through exchange, relations and objects.55 In such a culture ‘objects make persons’.56 Mauss’ famous work The Gift noted that in Maori society when an object is given as a gift it contained a part of the giver within it (the hau).57 Mauss, with a westernised idea of what constituted an individual, explained this phenomenon through the concept of alienable and inalienable objects, maintaining that the person and the gift were still essentially separate. We may look at this interpretation anew in light of recent developments in ethnography. Instead of interpreting activities like gift giving in Maori society according to westernised notions of peoples and objects, ethnologists have sought to ‘think through things’ and to create new categories of understanding societal practices by abandoning the human/object division.58 The conceptual division between humans and things is a recent western understanding of the world, influenced by our notions of the individual and their rights. Seitz’s exploration of how a person might become an object for sale with a particular price emphasises what can be gained from abandoning this essentially modern understanding of the world. Seitz’s philological discussion of Homeric Greek and other terminologies underscores how other cultures, particularly those that have institutions of slavery, bride-price and Wergeld, conceptualise the ‘person’ differently, not distinguishing between the human being as a biological entity and the ‘individual’.

In considering how value is constructed and transformed, we are forced to reflect on our own practice and its associated values. Our own experience as archaeologists working alongside anthropologists has resulted in the realisation that although both disciplines work on similar topics our perceptions can often be very far apart. To us this was particularly apparent in group discussion when both disciplines tried to find a common ground. Anthropologists

54 Malafouris 2008, 118 55 Strathern 1988 56 Fontijn 2002, 27 57 Mauss 1990 58 Henare, Holbraad et al. 2007, 1-31; Jones and Boivin 2010, 348-51

often have the benefit of first hand observation and interviews, something denied to archaeologists, who can then be accused of focusing only the object to the detriment of human actors. We are constrained by our material; it goes without saying that every archaeologist dreams of being able to time travel and observe ancient societies as living cultures. But in spite of the differences and constraints, the dialogue is well worth having.

The conflict between interdisciplinary theory and the constraints of our material is something that we keenly feel and consequently this book offers case studies in how this gap might be breached. Instead of an overtly theoretical discussion we focus instead on the ancient material and how it might be interpreted. The contributions are not presented as ‘definitive solutions’ to the problems of value, and the use of theories of value in archaeological research. Rather they highlight the complexity of value and its transformation over time, and demonstrate the understanding to be gained from pursuing research in this area, particularly when conducted in collaboration with other disciplines.

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