Illuminating Time: The Visibility of Temporality in Prehistory

Using the astronomical animation software of Stellarium, this chapter will demonstrate how time was ‘staged’ by prehistoric people at particular periods during the solar and lunar years. It will show how they ‘choreographed’ night- and day-lighting and landscape shadowing effects, along with the appearance and travels of other celestial phenomena in relation to the monuments and their horizons. It was this staging of natural lighting through illumination, brightness, luminescence, shine, gleams, glows, glare, and small points of light, and the opposites of all of these, that enabled their concepts of time to be experienced, shared, and acknowledged by prehistoric peoples.

Light and Dark in Prehistoric Malta

The Maltese islands offer an unusual opportunity for the analysis of the interplay of light and dark in a prehistoric context. The potential is provided by the excellent preservation of the architectural monuments which permit the framing of different scenarios of light and dark, tempered by the need to reconstruct tentatively some missing elements such as the roofs. A number of features, such as the intense sunshine and the dramatic storms, have probably remained reasonably constant since prehistory although the modern pluvial patterns may have only developed from about 2200 bc. Other components such as sources of artificial light require archaeological information for their reconstruction. The most difficult task, however, is to understand the reception of light and dark by the prehistoric communities; but the detailed evidence that survives has offered the best possible chance to achieve this objective.

Commentary I

Is light an energetic ray, a beam, the illumination of surfaces, an atmosphere? Is it the shining of the sun, the moon and the stars? Is it a flickering flame, a lamp or torch, the glowing embers of a fire? Is it whiteness, or a spectrum of colour? Is it a release from darkness, an enlivening of the spirit, divine presence, the power of reason? In this commentary I show that light can be all of these things but only because, as we pass from one to another, our understanding of the material world, and of ourselves as beings within it, is profoundly transformed.

Light and Shadow Effects in Megalithic Monuments in the Iberian Peninsula

Atlantic Europe and the Mediterranean, especially the Iberian Peninsula, contain thousands of Megalithic monuments, such as dolmens and passage graves, built at the end of the Neolithic and Bronze Age. These are funereal monuments normally built with large bolders that define a space usually kept in darkness except for a period of time when light may enter the inner parts. These light and shadow displays were used in all likelihood to highlight differences between the realms of the dead and the living, and also incorporated other meanings related to the surrounding landscape and the social concept of time. How direct, indirect or penumbral light is incorporated into the otherwise dark inner parts of a dolmen are investigated. The interplay of light with the inner parts of these monuments, for instance decoration, is scrutinized. This chapter reviews these issues and outlines an interpretation in which the location, orientation, architecture, and perhaps even the shape of megalithic monuments were considered at the moment of their construction in order to incorporate light and shadow into the realm of the dead.

Lighting the Good Life

During late antiquity, the aristocratic house worked as an architectural social filtering system. Many structures of the private residence were used and combined to create, or to strengthen, an impression of social superiority. Ancient sources and archaeological evidence show clearly that light played a key role as an aesthetic element within this aristocratic housing scheme. The function of many key architectural and ornamental features were dependent on lighting. Hence the crucial importance of taking into consideration the ‘variable light’ in any attempt of architectural restitution of domus or villas. This chapter proposes to go deeper into the analysis, attempting to determine whether light should be regarded as a simple variable of aesthetic enhancement or whether, like any other ‘hard’ structures of the house, it should be considered as a fully structuring feature of the aristocratic residential space.

Lighting in Reconstructed Contexts

Light in the context of experimental and experiential archaeology can offer valuable information on the ergonomics of work and sensoriality, especially in cases where visual interpretation of variations in intensity and colour of flame light are a determining factor in the use of technologies of fire, called pyrotechnologies. For studying the relationship of the operator with light during the technological process, one experimental approach is the reconstruction of the original context of work, where the natural and artificial illumination conditions could be restored. This chapter discusses the visual ergonomics and the sensorial experience of ceramic and glass technologists during the different stages of diurnal and nocturnal illumination in the reconstructed context of a Roman workshop.

Modalities of Meaning

Images do many things: they capture data, they analyse and explain it in very particular ways; they are used as evidence to give weight to arguments; they stand in for the original; they contain and convey information to specialists and the public alike and they do this by transforming vastly complex material into usable and visible form. But they are not neutral. All images are sign systems that are more or less effective for the uses they have been chosen. Some are even purposely misleading. This chapter explores the phenomenon of light in pictorial images, showing its many and varied applications in archaeological and rock-art imaging, and how each genre carries conceptual, metaphysical, and phenomenological weight. Examples from fine art are used as examples to explain some of the genres used in archaeological illustration and their links to past and present conventions of visual imaging.

Household Consumption of Artificial Light at Pompeii

The ability to engage in nocturnal household activities influences human interactions with each other and the urban environment. The illumination of Pompeian households, through both natural and artificial means, had an impact on architectural proportions, decoration, and the organization and use of space. The Roman period witnessed dramatic increases in the scale of consumption for all types of goods and services throughout the empire. This was also the case for the consumption of artificial light, where there is abundant evidence for lighting devices, especially from Pompeian households, but also for the supply of lamp fuel through the presence of olive oil amphora at most Roman sites throughout the Mediterranean. This chapter presents the contextual analysis of the use of artificial light at ten households in Pompeii in 79 ce.

Çatalhöyük

This photo essay outlines the experimental work undertaken in summer 2007 in Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, Turkey, while the author was the artist in residence. The work done in this Neolithic settlement led to the discovery of a sun clock, i.e. a beam of light present in each dwelling entering from the roof and drifting like a sun dial to different areas of the house. The parallelogram of light produced by the beam created a pattern of light and shadow, showing the archaeological importance of shadows and their power to reveal aspects of people’s lives in the settlement. Based on the study of the shadows observed and filmed in Çatalhöyük indoors and outdoors, this chapter examines the functions and purposes of selected shadows that show how approaching archaeology from an artist’s viewpoint can enhance interpretation, understanding, and the production of knowledge.

The Beautiful Face of Ra

In the famous projects of ancient Egyptian architecture, sunlight had always a special role. An expert use of light and shadows helped in creating halls filled with sacredness in many temples; but most of all the Sun was the visible face of Ra, the Sun God. As a consequence, religious and funerary architectural projects were connected with the sun rays on special days of the year through astronomical alignments. The chapter focuses on a few key examples—the Akhet hierophanies at Giza and Amarna, and the winter solstice alignment at Karnak—showing the potentialities of modern archaeoastronomy in understanding key aspects of ancient Egyptian monuments and religion.