scholarly journals Engraved Biographies: Rock Art and the Life-Histories of Bronze Age Objects

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-136
Author(s):  
Joakim Goldhahn
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Cultural Biography ◽  
The Social ◽  
Third Spaces

This article deals with engravings depicting some­ times life­sized Bronze Age metal objects from “closed” burial contexts and “open­air” sites in northern Europe. These rock art images have mainly been used for comparative dating with the purpose of establishing rock art chronologies, or interpreted as a poor man’s” substitute for real ob­ jects that were sacrificed to immaterial gods and goddesses. In this article, these rock art images are pictured from a perspective that highlights the mu­ tual cultural biography of humans and objects. It is argued that the rare engravings of bronze ob­ jects at scale 1:1 are best explained as famous ani­ mated objects that could act as secondary agents, which sometimes allowed them to be depicted and remembered. Moreover, two different social set­ tings are distinguished for such memory practice: maritime nodes or third spaces where Bronze Age Argonauts met before, during or after their jour­ neys, e.g. places where novel technological and/or famous objects entered and re­entered the social realms, and burial contexts where animated objects sometimes was buried at the end of their life­course

scholarly journals Beyond Transgressive Lands and Forgotten Seas: Towards a Maritime Understanding of Rock Art in Bohuslän

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-140
Author(s):  
Johan Ling
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Clay Soil ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Bronze Age

Since the beginning of the 20th century rock art in Bohuslän has traditionally been interpreted, on the basis of its adjacent location to the clay-soil plains, as an indicator ofpermanent pastoral or agrarian settlement units. However, recent results ofthe first substantial and extensive shoreline study, covering the whole of Bohuslän, have shown that, during the entire Bronze Age, many of these lower, clay- soil plains were in fact sea bottoms in shallow bays. On the basis of these results new measurement of the rock art panels and the surrounding terrain were made. The study showed that many rock carvings had been placed on or near the contemporary shore during the Bronze Age. It therefore seemed essential to present new questions about the social and ritual behaviour, as manifested by the rock art in these particular areas. It is here suggested that the rock art in the investigated area may be a materialised reflection of seasonal maritime interactions during the Bronze Age.

North European Rock Art

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joakim Goldhahn
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Migration Period ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Bronze Age

This chapter offers a long-term perspective on rock art in northern Europe. It first provides an overview of research on the rock art traditions of northern Europe before discussing the societies and cultures that created such traditions. It then considers examples of rock art made by hunter-gatherer societies in northern Europe, focusing on the first rock art boom related to Neolithization. It also examines the second rock art boom, which was associated with social and religious changes within farming communities that took place around 1600–1400 bc. The chapter concludes by analysing the breakdown of long-distance networks in the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and its consequences for the making of rock art within the southern traditions, as well as the use of rock art sites during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, Roman Iron Age, and Migration Period.

scholarly journals Animals on display: animal motifs, human-animal relations and social semiotics in the Bronze Age rock carvings from Enköping and Norrköping, Sweden

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-218
Author(s):  
Anna Wessman
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Red Deer ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Social Semiotics ◽  
Common Motif ◽  
Biological Reality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Bronze Age

Animals make up one of the most common motif groups in south Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art, with depictions of pigs and horses, as well as wild animals like red deer and wild boar, occurring in almost all rock art areas. Despite their ubiquity, their treatment in previous research has been inadequate. In this article, the display of animals in the rock art tradition is mapped out and discussed from a perspective based in human-animal relations and social semiotics. The animal figures are analyzed in terms of species, sex, human practice and regional articulations, as well as in relation to the wider archaeological record. The results reveal that animal motifs probably had a dual role during the Bronze Age, showing both the biological reality and the social and symbolic values that were connected to animals. In addition, the animals depicted in rock art also worked as carriers of semiotic resources, which manifested human social and societal ideas and ideals.

scholarly journals The Relational Life of Trees. Ontological Aspects of “Tree-Ness” in the Early Bronze Age of Northern Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 373-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredrik Fahlander
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The Real ◽  
Ontological Shift

AbstractDuring the Early Bronze Age in northern Europe, tree-like features appear in henges, burials, and rock art in ways that differ from earlier periods. Rather than investigating this phenomenon in symbolic or metaphorical terms, a concept of tree-ness is explored that focuses on the real constitution of trees and what trees actually do. It is suggested that the accentuation of tree-ness in Early Bronze Age ritual contexts can be related to an ontological shift in conjunction with emerging bronze technology in which different entities can merge or take advantage of each other’s generative properties.

scholarly journals Interpretations of Footprints in the Bronze Age Rock Art of South Scandinavia

2017 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 289-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Skoglund ◽  
Courtney Nimura ◽  
Richard Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Different Parts

The Scandinavian landscape is littered with postglacial outcrops, many of which carry engraved motifs. Although drawings of ships are most often discussed, this paper focuses on representations of feet. In Northern Europe ship motifs are often associated with cosmologies based on the movement of the sun. This paper investigates whether drawings of feet could have been associated with the same worldview. A number of interpretations are offered of the images at two sites in different parts of Sweden: Järrestad 13:1 and Boglösa 138:1.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE AMARNA LETTERS TOWARDS A STUDY OF SYRO-PALESTINIAN SOCIAL STRUCTURE (1). TERMINOLOGY FOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 788-832
Author(s):  
Lukas M. Muntingh
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Social ◽  
Amarna Letters ◽  
Free People ◽  
Shed Light

Egyptian domination under the 18th and 19th Dynasties deeply influenced political and social life in Syria and Palestine. The correspondence between Egypt and her vassals in Syria and Palestine in the Amarna age, first half of the fourteenth century B.C., preserved for us in the Amarna letters, written in cuneiform on clay tablets discovered in 1887, offer several terms that can shed light on the social structure during the Late Bronze Age. In the social stratification of Syria and Palestine under Egyptian rule according to the Amarna letters, three classes are discernible:1) government officials and military personnel, 2) free people, and 3) half-free people and slaves. In this study, I shall limit myself to the first, the upper class. This article deals with terminology for government officials.

scholarly journals Artificial Intelligence, 3D Documentation, and Rock Art—Approaching and Reflecting on the Automation of Identification and Classification of Rock Art Images

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Horn ◽  
Oscar Ivarsson ◽  
Cecilia Lindhé ◽  
Rich Potter ◽  
Ashely Green ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Data Augmentation ◽  
Rock Art ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Rock Surface ◽  
Southern Scandinavia ◽  
Bounding Boxes

AbstractRock art carvings, which are best described as petroglyphs, were produced by removing parts of the rock surface to create a negative relief. This tradition was particularly strong during the Nordic Bronze Age (1700–550 BC) in southern Scandinavia with over 20,000 boats and thousands of humans, animals, wagons, etc. This vivid and highly engaging material provides quantitative data of high potential to understand Bronze Age social structures and ideologies. The ability to provide the technically best possible documentation and to automate identification and classification of images would help to take full advantage of the research potential of petroglyphs in southern Scandinavia and elsewhere. We, therefore, attempted to train a model that locates and classifies image objects using faster region-based convolutional neural network (Faster-RCNN) based on data produced by a novel method to improve visualizing the content of 3D documentations. A newly created layer of 3D rock art documentation provides the best data currently available and has reduced inscribed bias compared to older methods. Several models were trained based on input images annotated with bounding boxes produced with different parameters to find the best solution. The data included 4305 individual images in 408 scans of rock art sites. To enhance the models and enrich the training data, we used data augmentation and transfer learning. The successful models perform exceptionally well on boats and circles, as well as with human figures and wheels. This work was an interdisciplinary undertaking which led to important reflections about archaeology, digital humanities, and artificial intelligence. The reflections and the success represented by the trained models open novel avenues for future research on rock art.

Organization of Flint Sickle Blade Production at an Early Bronze Age Workshop in Anatolia

2002 ◽  
Vol 712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Britt E. Hartenberger
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Complete Sequence ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
Period 2 ◽  
The Social ◽  
Titris Hoyuk ◽  
Administrative Center ◽  
Local Farmers

ABSTRACTA specialized workshop for the manufacture of flint sickle blades has recently been excavated at the site of Titris Hoyuk in southeastern Anatolia [1]. This paper will examine the sequence of production for the blades as well as the social context of this craft within the site. The workshop is the first example found containing evidence of the complete sequence of production for the ‘Canaanean blade,’ a type commonly used across the Near East in this period [2]. Since bronze was still new and relatively expensive, high-quality flint was used to manufacture sickle blades. Tabular flint was imported in the form of large slabs from several sources in the nearby hills. Specialists then prepared the blade cores, removed the blades, and then traded the final products to local farmers. A range of manufacturing debris has been found to illustrate the production sequence, including chunks of raw flint, core-shaping pieces, debitage pits, and stacks of exhausted and used cores. The large sample of over 1000 blade cores collected ensures a sizable data set for statistical analyses. Several types of raw flint were utilized for making the blades and production appears to vary slightly by these material types. The workshop is located within a household setting and is the only area within the excavated site containing debris from this craft. Spatial analyses of the types of flint used within the household workshop reveal its division into largely distinct areas for domestic versus specialist craft activities. The placement of the workshop in the suburbs far from the site's administrative center may indicate that its activities were independent of any elite. An estimate of the volume of blades produced combined with the location of the workshop at a major regional center suggest that it also supplied blades to other sites in the region.

The Younghusband-Waddell Collection and Its People: the Social Life of Tibetan Books Gathered in a Late-colonial Enterprise

Inner Asia ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-171
Author(s):  
Hildegard Diemberger
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Social Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Academic Institutions ◽  
Cultural Biography ◽  
The Social ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractIn this paper I follow the social life of the Tibetan books belonging to the Younghusband-Waddell collection. I show how books as literary artefacts can transform from ritual objects into loot, into commodities and into academic treasures and how books can have agency over people, creating networks and shaping identities. Exploring connections between books and people, I look at colonial collecting, Orientalist scholarship and imperial visions from an unusual perspective in which the social life and cultural biography of people and things intertwine and mutually define each other. By following the trajectory of these literary artefacts, I show how their traces left in letters, minutes and acquisition documents give insight into the functioning of academic institutions and their relationship to imperial governing structures and individual aspirations. In particular, I outline the lives of a group of scholars who were involved with this collection in different capacities and whose deeds are unevenly known. This adds a new perspective to the study of this period, which has so far been largely focused on the deeds of key individuals and the political and military setting in which they operated. Finally, I show how the books of this collection have continued to exercise their attraction and moral pressure on twenty-first-century scholars, both Tibetan and international, linking them through digital technology and cyberspace.

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