Mastering Matters: Magical Sense and Apotropaic Figurine Worlds of Neo‐Assyria

Nakamura, Carolyn

doi:10.1002/9780470774052.ch2

Cited by 15 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The social identity of the producer can add value and inalienability to an object (see also Costin and Wright ), as can the skill it takes to produce an object. The ideology behind production is also important, as certain societies liken production of crafts to the initial creation of humans by the gods (Nakamura ; Reents‐Budet ). As evidenced by the curation and caching of lithic artifacts in all stages of production in the Maya world, the production process was a sacred act, not merely a mundane shaping of what would then become a sacred artifact.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

7 The Inalienability of Jades in Mesoamerica

Kovacevich

2013

Archaeological Papers of the American

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The rarity of jade as well as its hardness, durability, and sacred color gave it a value incomparable to other materials in Mesoamerica. The labor investment of the crafter, the esoteric knowledge used to create the objects, and the identity of the possessor(s) all contributed to the legacy of jades as inalienable possessions. Jades were gifted, displayed, interred, and even destroyed in honor of the history, memory, prestige, and identity of the object and of the possessor, which were mutually constituted. Jades that were once thought to simply legitimate the elite prestige may have had nested social meanings, and the concept of inalienable possessions can help us to understand that complexity.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

7 The Inalienability of Jades in Mesoamerica

Kovacevich

2013

Archaeological Papers of the American

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…More than other kinds of objects, we want to know what human figurines meant, perhaps because they evoke something so distinctly human. But getting at meaning in the past is surely a challenging if not problematic project (Nakamura 2005;Olsen 2003). Meaning can never be fixed.…”

Section: Articulating Bodies: Exaggeration and Abbreviationmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Moving towards exploring figurine work in more socially integral and embedded ways, such studies underscore the body and its materiality as constituitive of social life and critically engage with various relevant literatures such as feminist theories of embodiment (Joyce 1993;Kujit and Chesson 2005;Meskell 1996;Meskell and Joyce 2003), theories of personhood and self-making (Bailey 1994(Bailey , 2005Talalay 2004), and various post-Marxist material discourse theories (Nakamura 2005;Nanoglou 2006). More broadly, research on the body has converged around the broader projects of investigating ancient forms of self-fashioning, sexuality, or the mediation of ritual relations.…”

Section: Articulating Bodies: Exaggeration and Abbreviationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Articulate Bodies: Forms and Figures at Çatalhöyük

Nakamura

Meskell

2009

J Archaeol Method Theory

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examines the materializing practices of bodies at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. We focus on the clay and stone figurine corpus (over 1,800 total, with over 1,000 of those being diagnostic), but also consider other media such as wall paintings and sculptured features, as well as the skeletal evidence. This paper is the first attempt to analyze particular bodily characteristics in the Çatalhöyük figurine repertoire from a perspective that investigates, rather than assumes, a priori the representational priorities of their makers. Within a wide range of anthropomorphic and abbreviated figurines, we find that specific areas such as the stomach and buttocks were often clearly delineated and emphasized, whereas demarcation of primary sexual characteristics was typically downplayed. These traits and their material "prominence" might underscore specific bodily areas that have generally been overlooked as potential sites of articulation and attention. Our work challenges older assumptions that figurines were always engaged in projects of either deification or self-making. Instead, we suggest that these body types might mediate other kinds of social concerns and practices.

show abstract

“…Indeed, it is embedded in their very materiality. As material entities, things both submit to and rebel against human intervention and signification, surviving through ‘continual deferral and deference’ (Nakamura, 2005: 23). Evading full human control, surviving things act upon people and exert their own forms of agency.…”

Section: The Survival Of Thingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: The Surviving Thing: Personal Objects in the Aftermath of Violence

Dziuban

Stańczyk

2020

Journal of Material Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mass violence leaves behind a trail of destruction. Similar to people, things also fall victim to displacement and armed conflict. Possessions swap hands, get voluntarily or forcefully relinquished, exchanged for food and shelter, hidden away, entrusted to friends and neighbours for safekeeping, or brought along into forced exile. Objects find their way to mass graves too, in the pockets and bodily orifices of the killed, on the fingers and wrists of the dead. In times of war, things are also made in response to economic scarcity and deprivation. Produced from waste and debris, such objects come to serve as mementoes, reflecting prison or frontline experiences and attesting to the hardships of the time. In the aftermath of war and conflict, things are often rescued by survivors or the families of victims, inherited, retrieved by forensic experts, or looted from war graves. The surviving thing is mobilized in art practices and storytelling, displayed in museums, or called forth to testify in judicial proceedings. Whether as trophies, souvenir, or evidence, things remain imbued with affect, permeated with memories (both actual and constructed), and burdened with conflicting narratives of the past. 1 This special issue investigates the role of objects in European histories and legacies of war, genocide and forced migration. Combining expertise in anthropology, forensic archaeology, cultural geography, history, and cultural and memory studies, the articles explore how rescued, looted, misappropriated, abandoned, found and recovered things live on in the aftermath of mass violence. Based on a broad range of cases and geographical contexts, from Spain to France, Italy to Poland, this issue looks at material, symbolic and political practices around surviving things and traces their trajectories in post-conflict settings. The authors show that personal objects are endowed with various qualities

show abstract

Mastering Matters: Magical Sense and Apotropaic Figurine Worlds of Neo‐Assyria

Cited by 15 publications

References 28 publications

7 The Inalienability of Jades in Mesoamerica

7 The Inalienability of Jades in Mesoamerica

Articulate Bodies: Forms and Figures at Çatalhöyük

Introduction: The Surviving Thing: Personal Objects in the Aftermath of Violence

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About