From value to desirability: the allure of worldly things

Abstract

In this paper, the author takes the approach that value is a judgment that people make about things based on desire, and the potential of the effects those things engender. On this basis, she argues that there are five principle ways that people desire objects: through material properties; in expense and exclusivity; as materials with conspicuous, sensory appeal; through object biography; and where objects can be substituted one for another, an attribute known as fungibility. These principles provide a multiple perspective through which to investigate why and how people desire things. This approach to value is explored through a case study of the desirability of textiles during the emergence of the early urban centres in central and northern Italy (900-500 BC) within its wider geographical setting. Addressing desirability, rather than fixed concepts of luxury, wealth or prestige, opens up questions as to how and why materials and objects are valued across social matrices and according to changing ambitions during the life course. KEYWORDS Value; desirability; Mediterranean; Etruscan; textiles; representational artefacts 1. From value to desirability 'Value' is a perennial topic in archaeology. For archaeologists faced with the material world of others, a concept of value is essential to interrogating people's decisions surrounding the material culture they make, transact and use. Recently, research has moved away from a strict definition of value found in monetary worth and measure, towards a concept of value where the interconnectedness of people, objects and things (Bokern and Rowan 2014, 2), and mutable categories of value, incorporating bodies, places and objects (Papadopoulos and Urton 2012, 21) is the new status quo, leading to 'unashamedly synthetic approaches to object value' (Bevan 2010, 36). Value then is a broad concept, found in the significance, relevance, worth, sentiment and potential of an object, material or thing (see Porter [2012, 337]). And value is found in all manner of things, material and immaterial: metal, beads, jewellery, coins, ceramics, statues, textiles, gardens, buildings, abilities and events, to name the most obvious. When addressing value, one of the crucial questions that recurs is desirability. Why do people desire things? What is the allure of worldly goods? Why do people want stuff? To Simmel, writing on the philosophy of money, value is not an inherent property of an object (thought or event) in the way that colour or temperature can be, but a subjective judgement made by people (Simmel 1978, 59-63 [1907]). From this, he asserts that value is found in the longing for things that resist our desires, that raise possibilities to us, that in the moment before they are ours create the frustration of wanting (Simmel 1978, 66-8). In this juncture of desiring, value is created though the

Dressing the sacrifice: textiles, textile production and the sacrificial economy at Casas del Turuñuelo in fifth-century BC Iberia

“…While the quantity of tools at Cancho Roano attests a greater emphasis on the production of textiles in a ritual context (Marín-Aguilera in press), the discovery of the textiles themselves at Casas del Turuñuelo demonstrates—for the first time in pre-Roman Iberia—their use as ritual offerings. Textiles with very fine threads and high thread counts, such as those recovered at Casas del Turuñuelo, were extremely valuable, as they required high-quality raw materials and substantial time and skill to produce (Harris 2018). Wool twills from Casas del Turuñuelo—the earliest wool fabrics and twill-woven textiles so far found in Iberia—display characteristics generally associated with garments from earlier and contemporaneous European cultures (Gleba 2017).…”

“…Wool twills from Casas del Turuñuelo—the earliest wool fabrics and twill-woven textiles so far found in Iberia—display characteristics generally associated with garments from earlier and contemporaneous European cultures (Gleba 2017). The high quality and value of these garments made them an enormously prized offering (Harris 2018). Indeed, garments were common sacrificial offerings in Greece and other Mediterranean regions (Gleba 2015; Brøns 2017; Brøns & Nosch 2017).…”

Weaving rural economies: textile production and societal complexity in Iron Age south-western Iberia

“…Fabrics produced at La Mata, Cancho Roano and El Turuñuelo (see Marín-Aguilera et al 2019) were finer than previously, which means that their material properties made them more appealing and desirable. Their value was also associated with the place of their productionthe country estates and Cancho Roano in particular -, and it is precisely the connection with those places that made textiles more exclusive and socially valuable (Harris 2018).…”

Colouring the Mediterranean

“…In particular, it has been argued that processes of societal differentiation and state formation have been accompanied by the production of textiles characterised by increasing added value in ways that made some products stand out from the mass of similar artefacts (McCorriston 1997;Halstead and Isakidou 2011). Time investment © Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2019 in raw materials and new technologies played a key role in this process: ancient Mediterranean societies represent an extreme example of the use of coloured textiles as status symbols (on textile value see Harris 2018), with the use of costly shellfish-based dyes an increasingly common strategy to mark societal differentiation during the Bronze Age and Iron Age (IA) in many cultures around the Mediterranean basin.…”