Books by Katharina Zinn
by Ralph Haussler, Gian Franco Chiai, Eris Williams Reed, Francesca Diosono, Leticia López-Mondéjar, Lucia Alberti, Katharina Zinn, Francisco Marco, Anthony C King, Marco García Quintela, María Cruz Cardete, Elena Chepel, Julie Baleriaux, Maxwell Stocker, Marco Palone, Selga Medenieks, Anastasia Tchaplyghine (formerly Amrhein), Gilbert Burleigh, and Daniele Salvoldi ed. by R. Haeussler & G. F. Chiai. Oxford: Oxbow Books (2020), 2020
33 authors collaborated in this volume on sacred landscapes in the ancient world in a comparative... more 33 authors collaborated in this volume on sacred landscapes in the ancient world in a comparative, multi-disciplinary perspective, between Britain and Egypt, Portugal and China.
From generation to generation, people experience their landscapes differently. Humans depend on their natural environment: it shapes their behaviour and it is often felt that one has to appease one's deities that were responsible for natural benefits, but also for natural calamities, like droughts, famines, floods and landslides. In many societies, we presume that lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains, caves and groves were considered sacred. Individual sites and entire landscapes are often associated with divine actions, mythical heroes and etiological myths. Throughout human history, people also felt the need to monumentalise their sacred landscape. But this is where the similarities stop as different societies had very different understandings, believes and practises. The aim of this book is therefore to carefully scrutinise our evidence and rethink our methodologies in a multidisciplinary approach. More than thirty papers investigate diverse sacred landscapes from the Iberian peninsula and Britain in the west to China in the east. They discuss how to interpret the intricate web of ciphers and symbols in the landscape and how people might have experienced it. We see the role of performance, ritual, orality, textuality and memory in people's sacred landscapes. A diachronic view allows us to study how landscapes were 're-written', adapted and redefined in the course of time to suit new cultural, political and religious understandings, not to mention the impact of urbanism on people's understandings. How was the landscape manipulated, transformed and monumentalised, especially the colossal investments in monumental architecture we see in certain socio-historic contexts or the creation of an alternative humanmade, seemingly 'non-natural' landscape, with perfectly astronomically aligned buildings that defines a cosmological order? This volume therefore aims to analyse the complex links between landscape, 'religiosity' and society, developing a dialectic framework that explores sacred landscapes across the ancient world in a dynamic, holistic, contextual and historical perspective.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
People’s embodied engagement with food and the material culture of food are central to their dail... more People’s embodied engagement with food and the material culture of food are central to their daily experiences and their sense of identity. Within anthropological literature (and the related field of food studies) there has been considerable focus on the materiality of foodstuffs. This book builds upon the existing dialogue of the materiality of food by the novel addition of the material culture of food (objects used in packaging, storing, processing and consuming food). Material objects are, and have been since the remote past, central to the production, distribution and consumption of food and drink; people mediate their social worlds through their embodied encounters with these artefacts, as much as with the substance of food.
In this book we explore the sensory experiences of consumption of food and the objects through which these are mediated. Three key themes are identified:
a) Transformations: not only how foodstuffs are transformed into consumables but also changes in material practices surrounding the production and consumption of food;
b) Embodied Encounters: exploring the agencies of production and consumption and the materiality of the consumed, and how these shape social and material worlds;
c) Social and Symbolic Consumption: socialised and ritualised behaviours surrounding interactions with food and drink, including magical substitutes for food, non-consumption, specialised equipments.
The contributors go beyond the materiality of food itself as the object of study, to also incorporate the objects through which food realistically and symbolically comes to life. The articles in this edited volume focus on the material culture, its participation of application of meaning, the encounters with food or ideas of food, and embodied experiences. By looking at cultures spanning from ancient Egypt to 20th century Netherlands, from modern Kenya to ancient China, the interdisciplinary chapters explore the multiple interplays between foods, bodies, material worlds, rituals, and embodied knowledge that emerge from these material encounters and how this knowledge, in turn, shape the material culture of food.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Doctoral Thesis (Dr.phil.), 2013
(Libraries, archives, and the organization of collective wisdom in Ancient Egypt)
In our times of... more (Libraries, archives, and the organization of collective wisdom in Ancient Egypt)
In our times of multimedia networking, libraries are important service institutions. However, libraries are certainly much more than merely an aid for academic research and teaching. The recent multimedia revolution has brought back into focus a traditional function of libraries that has been largely neglected or considered secondary since the beginning of the 20th century: The important role libraries play in the preservation of the collective wisdom and knowledge of a society as well as in the transmission of its cultural inheritance to both the present and the future. Books in libraries are storage space of writings and as such they are at all times representatives and mediators of what the Egyptologist Jan Assmann has called the “cultural memory” of a community.
My dissertation describes and systematically analyses the existence, function, and working of libraries in Ancient Egypt in its whole social, political and religious context. By providing a clear definition of the distinctive, yet complementary functions of libraries and archives, I give an answer to the question of how ancient Egyptian libraries operated as a place for keeping and circulating written knowledge. My goal is to write a social and cultural history of the management of tradition by the ancient Egyptians. Moreover, by focusing on one of the earliest library traditions in the world, I extend the time frame of library studies beyond the Graeco-Roman antiquity and in this way contribute to the general history of libraries.
While egyptological scholarship on libraries has so far taken only such sources into account that promised to contribute to an institutional topography of archaeologically verifiable libraries, my work takes a different approach, utilising insights of media-sciences as well as Jan Assmann’s ideas about “cultural memory” and its transmission. In addition to material that refers to libraries directly, either in the form of archaeological evidence or in the form of texts that use one or more of the known terms for library/archive in connection with a specific location, I base my study on a significantly extended range of primary sources from all historical periods. These sources include official titles and tomb inscriptions from the Old Kingdom, offering formulas from all periods, king novels and other literary texts from the Middle and New Kingdom, religious papyri of the Late Period and Graeco-Roman times, to name just a few. Close scrutiny of this material revealed a significant number of new terms that were used synonymously with library/archive. The large number of official titles and epitheta associated with libraries and archives further suggests the existence of a developed library/archive system in Ancient Egypt. Finally, sifting through the available evidence, I brought to light phrases, topoi, and intertextual links that do not necessarily include any explicit reference to a library or archive, but clearly constitute a shared discourse centering on the preservation and transmission of knowledge. Because these textual passages stem from the same historic and/or semantic context, I call this group of evidence “cognate sources”.
The dissertation forms the gateway between library science and Egyptology. I present a functional definition of libraries and books as the sine qua for the inclusion of ancient libraries. Important are questions concerning the transmission of knowledge, the usage of this knowledge and its connection to the institution of the library in Ancient Egypt. Amongst others, I describe the position and function of the Ancient Egyptian libraries as part of the all-embracing cosmic and divine order – the Maat. In order to be able to do so, I scrutinise several terms for library, determine their differences and applications. This is essential because different institutions existed which fulfilled the function of transmission of tradition (“Überlieferungsfunktion”). In this context, I also delineate the differences between archive and library, both of which existed from the Old Kingdom onwards: All documents that were not or no longer related to the business of everyday life were stored in a library. Although these documents were no longer relevant for the administrative concerns of the day, they nevertheless retained their significance as records and events that confirmed the Maat. On the other hand, archives collected documents concerning everyday administrative affairs in order to save them as official files for later reference, for instance, in case of juridical or tax conflicts. They have no primary religious or political meaning. Overlap between archives and libraries is thus possible and their stock could sometimes be the same. Additionally, I interpret the archaeological material, translate the written sources – both direct and cognate ones –, give an overview over titles of officials as well as gods, include with an excursus on ancient Egyptian librarians, and discuss the known library catalogues.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Papers by Katharina Zinn
Sacred Landscapes in Antiquity: Creation, Manipulation, Transformation, 2020
When discussing the creation, manipulation and transformation of sacred landscapes for ancient Eg... more When discussing the creation, manipulation and transformation of sacred landscapes for ancient Egypt, two sites immediately spring to mind – Abydos and Amarna. While comparing these two ancient Egyptian sacred landscapes, one main question materialises: what is the major difference between them? To help us answer this issue, we should examine the importance of permanence and temporality of sacred landscapes. Could cultural shifts permanently “kill” a sacred landscape or does it survive dormant? To further shed light on these issues and discuss the temporality and dwelling perspective of sacred landscapes, this paper aims to develop a matrix of comparison between different religious site.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
JOURNAL OF HISTORY AND CULTURES, 2019
full issue open access here - https://historyandcultures.com/issue-10-now-available/
Journal of H... more full issue open access here - https://historyandcultures.com/issue-10-now-available/
Journal of History and Cultures (2019) – Special Issue 10: Myth and Magic: Interdisciplinary Readings of the Reception of Ancient Egypt. 165-190.
This article introduces the activities of and ideas behind the MUSEUM OF LIES pas the latest component of the Cyfarthfa Castle Project started in 2011/12 with cooperation between the museum and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David Wales (UWTSD) led by the author. The overarching venture is aimed at the literal and cultural (re-)discovery of ancient Egyptian artefacts.
The Museum of Lies component outlines a very interesting and innovative case study within a framework of the contemporary discourse regarding the emotional power of both objects and storytelling.It uses alternative narratives (in addition to academic Egyptological object biographies) as a means to structure our understanding of the world.
Storytelling unlocks inherent potential in material culture and forges ‘bonds’ between people and things. This is discussed by focusing on ‘charismatic’ objects, questions about academic vs emotional truth and the negotiation of meaning.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
In: A. Kolb (ed.). Literacy in Ancient Everyday Life - Schriftlichkeit im antiken Alltag. Berlin, Boston: De Guyter, 2018
Abstract (engl.)
The article presents a new conceptual framework for understanding literacy in a... more Abstract (engl.)
The article presents a new conceptual framework for understanding literacy in ancient civilisations to conceptualise ‘literacy’ more broadly as a cultural and social practice. For this it is necessary to focus on the complex relationship between orality and writing, accentuate the materiality of writing as well as questions of agency and acknowledge the social role of texts and writing as part of Egyptian memory culture.
Abstract (dt.)
Der vorliegende Artikel schlägt einen erweiterten konzeptuellen Rahmen für das Verständnis von Schriftlichkeit vor. Das Konzept ‘Schriftlichkeit’ wird darin als kulturelle und soziale Anwendung und Tätigkeit verstanden. Das wird möglich bei Beachtung der vielschichtigen Beziehung von Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit/Schreiben. Desweiteren wird die Materialität des erweiterten Schreibprozesses und die Handlungsfähigkeit aller am Prozess beteiligten Instanzen diskutiert. Die soziale Funktion von Texten und Schreiben im Allgemeinen als Teil des altägyptischen kulturellen Gedächtnisses ist der dritte Bereich der diskutiert warden muss, um Schriftlichkeit innerhalb der altägytischen Gesellschaft vollständig erfassen zu können.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections, 2018
readable and available for download from the website of the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconn... more readable and available for download from the website of the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections (https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jaei/article/view/22036/21401)
Abstract: This paper explores how recent anthropological methodologies (materialities approach) as well as concepts at the interface between archaeology and anthropology (experiential and sensual archaeology) inevitably widen the boundaries of Egyptology. The presented case study contributes to a discussion of the physical relationship of material objects and the human body, focusing on states when materiality seeps deliberately and dangerously into immateriality. This is explored at the example of unpublished headrests from the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, Merthyr Tydfil (Wales, UK) by looking on the intersection of bodies with the material that also could be interpreted as inter-material communication. Impressions of fabric on their wooden surface are presumably the imprint of bedding intended to ensure comfortable sleep telling us about the sensual experience using these artefacts. The contact between skin and rough wood needed to be alleviated. This theoretical discussion is then set against an experimental and experiential archaeological approach focusing on sensual experiences with these headrests.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Proceedings of the XI International Congress of Egyptologists, Florence, Italy 23-30 August 2015 edited by Gloria Rosati and Maria Cristina Guidotti, 2017
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Introduction: Exploring the Materiality of Food "Stuffs": Transformations, Symbolic Consumption and Embodiments., 2017
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
he Ancient Near East Today, 2016
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This chapter explores different roles and aspects of women in Amarna during a period of changing ... more This chapter explores different roles and aspects of women in Amarna during a period of changing and revolutionary religious ideas. Starting with the royal women, it is made clear that their role should be seen as continuation of and being inspired by the prominent position of queens of the late 17th and early 18th dynasty. The unusual roles of the royal icons overshadowed the focus on the real women of Amarna. Some is known about royal wet nurses and nurses, but much less of the lower elite or non-elite. However, even this shattered evidence of the lower elite (tomb scenes) or traces of the non-elite (burials, items of private religion or skeletal remains) enable us finally to meet eye-to-eye with women in Amarna.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
In: Königinnen in Ägypten, ed. by M. Eldamaty, F. Hoffmann, M. Minas-Nerpel. Vaterstetten: Brose, 2015. pp. 27-67.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
In: Palace and Temple/ ed. Rolf Gundlach, Kate Spence, 2011
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
In: Spätantike Bibliotheken: Leben und Lesen in den frühen Klöstern Ägyptens, hrsg. von H. Froschauer und C. Römer.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
In: Current Research in Egyptology 2006: Proceedings of the 7th Annual Symposium University of Oxford 2006, ed. by Maria Cannata. pp. 169-176.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Encyclopedia and textbook entries by Katharina Zinn
All Things Ancient Egypt: An Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian World, 2019
In: L. Sabbahi (ed.). All Things Ancient Egypt: An Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian World. Sa... more In: L. Sabbahi (ed.). All Things Ancient Egypt: An Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian World. Santa Barbara, Ca.: ABC-Clio, 2019; 119-123.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
ll Things Ancient Egypt: An Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian World, 2019
In: L. Sabbahi (ed.). All Things Ancient Egypt: An Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian World. Sa... more In: L. Sabbahi (ed.). All Things Ancient Egypt: An Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian World. Santa Barbara, Ca.: ABC-Clio, 2019; 307-311.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
All Things Ancient Egypt: An Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian World, 2019
Scarab. In: L. Sabbahi (ed.). All Things Ancient Egypt: An Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian W... more Scarab. In: L. Sabbahi (ed.). All Things Ancient Egypt: An Encyclopedia of the Ancient Egyptian World. Santa Barbara, Ca.: ABC-Clio, 2019; 463-465.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Books by Katharina Zinn
From generation to generation, people experience their landscapes differently. Humans depend on their natural environment: it shapes their behaviour and it is often felt that one has to appease one's deities that were responsible for natural benefits, but also for natural calamities, like droughts, famines, floods and landslides. In many societies, we presume that lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains, caves and groves were considered sacred. Individual sites and entire landscapes are often associated with divine actions, mythical heroes and etiological myths. Throughout human history, people also felt the need to monumentalise their sacred landscape. But this is where the similarities stop as different societies had very different understandings, believes and practises. The aim of this book is therefore to carefully scrutinise our evidence and rethink our methodologies in a multidisciplinary approach. More than thirty papers investigate diverse sacred landscapes from the Iberian peninsula and Britain in the west to China in the east. They discuss how to interpret the intricate web of ciphers and symbols in the landscape and how people might have experienced it. We see the role of performance, ritual, orality, textuality and memory in people's sacred landscapes. A diachronic view allows us to study how landscapes were 're-written', adapted and redefined in the course of time to suit new cultural, political and religious understandings, not to mention the impact of urbanism on people's understandings. How was the landscape manipulated, transformed and monumentalised, especially the colossal investments in monumental architecture we see in certain socio-historic contexts or the creation of an alternative humanmade, seemingly 'non-natural' landscape, with perfectly astronomically aligned buildings that defines a cosmological order? This volume therefore aims to analyse the complex links between landscape, 'religiosity' and society, developing a dialectic framework that explores sacred landscapes across the ancient world in a dynamic, holistic, contextual and historical perspective.
In this book we explore the sensory experiences of consumption of food and the objects through which these are mediated. Three key themes are identified:
a) Transformations: not only how foodstuffs are transformed into consumables but also changes in material practices surrounding the production and consumption of food;
b) Embodied Encounters: exploring the agencies of production and consumption and the materiality of the consumed, and how these shape social and material worlds;
c) Social and Symbolic Consumption: socialised and ritualised behaviours surrounding interactions with food and drink, including magical substitutes for food, non-consumption, specialised equipments.
The contributors go beyond the materiality of food itself as the object of study, to also incorporate the objects through which food realistically and symbolically comes to life. The articles in this edited volume focus on the material culture, its participation of application of meaning, the encounters with food or ideas of food, and embodied experiences. By looking at cultures spanning from ancient Egypt to 20th century Netherlands, from modern Kenya to ancient China, the interdisciplinary chapters explore the multiple interplays between foods, bodies, material worlds, rituals, and embodied knowledge that emerge from these material encounters and how this knowledge, in turn, shape the material culture of food.
In our times of multimedia networking, libraries are important service institutions. However, libraries are certainly much more than merely an aid for academic research and teaching. The recent multimedia revolution has brought back into focus a traditional function of libraries that has been largely neglected or considered secondary since the beginning of the 20th century: The important role libraries play in the preservation of the collective wisdom and knowledge of a society as well as in the transmission of its cultural inheritance to both the present and the future. Books in libraries are storage space of writings and as such they are at all times representatives and mediators of what the Egyptologist Jan Assmann has called the “cultural memory” of a community.
My dissertation describes and systematically analyses the existence, function, and working of libraries in Ancient Egypt in its whole social, political and religious context. By providing a clear definition of the distinctive, yet complementary functions of libraries and archives, I give an answer to the question of how ancient Egyptian libraries operated as a place for keeping and circulating written knowledge. My goal is to write a social and cultural history of the management of tradition by the ancient Egyptians. Moreover, by focusing on one of the earliest library traditions in the world, I extend the time frame of library studies beyond the Graeco-Roman antiquity and in this way contribute to the general history of libraries.
While egyptological scholarship on libraries has so far taken only such sources into account that promised to contribute to an institutional topography of archaeologically verifiable libraries, my work takes a different approach, utilising insights of media-sciences as well as Jan Assmann’s ideas about “cultural memory” and its transmission. In addition to material that refers to libraries directly, either in the form of archaeological evidence or in the form of texts that use one or more of the known terms for library/archive in connection with a specific location, I base my study on a significantly extended range of primary sources from all historical periods. These sources include official titles and tomb inscriptions from the Old Kingdom, offering formulas from all periods, king novels and other literary texts from the Middle and New Kingdom, religious papyri of the Late Period and Graeco-Roman times, to name just a few. Close scrutiny of this material revealed a significant number of new terms that were used synonymously with library/archive. The large number of official titles and epitheta associated with libraries and archives further suggests the existence of a developed library/archive system in Ancient Egypt. Finally, sifting through the available evidence, I brought to light phrases, topoi, and intertextual links that do not necessarily include any explicit reference to a library or archive, but clearly constitute a shared discourse centering on the preservation and transmission of knowledge. Because these textual passages stem from the same historic and/or semantic context, I call this group of evidence “cognate sources”.
The dissertation forms the gateway between library science and Egyptology. I present a functional definition of libraries and books as the sine qua for the inclusion of ancient libraries. Important are questions concerning the transmission of knowledge, the usage of this knowledge and its connection to the institution of the library in Ancient Egypt. Amongst others, I describe the position and function of the Ancient Egyptian libraries as part of the all-embracing cosmic and divine order – the Maat. In order to be able to do so, I scrutinise several terms for library, determine their differences and applications. This is essential because different institutions existed which fulfilled the function of transmission of tradition (“Überlieferungsfunktion”). In this context, I also delineate the differences between archive and library, both of which existed from the Old Kingdom onwards: All documents that were not or no longer related to the business of everyday life were stored in a library. Although these documents were no longer relevant for the administrative concerns of the day, they nevertheless retained their significance as records and events that confirmed the Maat. On the other hand, archives collected documents concerning everyday administrative affairs in order to save them as official files for later reference, for instance, in case of juridical or tax conflicts. They have no primary religious or political meaning. Overlap between archives and libraries is thus possible and their stock could sometimes be the same. Additionally, I interpret the archaeological material, translate the written sources – both direct and cognate ones –, give an overview over titles of officials as well as gods, include with an excursus on ancient Egyptian librarians, and discuss the known library catalogues.
Papers by Katharina Zinn
Journal of History and Cultures (2019) – Special Issue 10: Myth and Magic: Interdisciplinary Readings of the Reception of Ancient Egypt. 165-190.
This article introduces the activities of and ideas behind the MUSEUM OF LIES pas the latest component of the Cyfarthfa Castle Project started in 2011/12 with cooperation between the museum and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David Wales (UWTSD) led by the author. The overarching venture is aimed at the literal and cultural (re-)discovery of ancient Egyptian artefacts.
The Museum of Lies component outlines a very interesting and innovative case study within a framework of the contemporary discourse regarding the emotional power of both objects and storytelling.It uses alternative narratives (in addition to academic Egyptological object biographies) as a means to structure our understanding of the world.
Storytelling unlocks inherent potential in material culture and forges ‘bonds’ between people and things. This is discussed by focusing on ‘charismatic’ objects, questions about academic vs emotional truth and the negotiation of meaning.
The article presents a new conceptual framework for understanding literacy in ancient civilisations to conceptualise ‘literacy’ more broadly as a cultural and social practice. For this it is necessary to focus on the complex relationship between orality and writing, accentuate the materiality of writing as well as questions of agency and acknowledge the social role of texts and writing as part of Egyptian memory culture.
Abstract (dt.)
Der vorliegende Artikel schlägt einen erweiterten konzeptuellen Rahmen für das Verständnis von Schriftlichkeit vor. Das Konzept ‘Schriftlichkeit’ wird darin als kulturelle und soziale Anwendung und Tätigkeit verstanden. Das wird möglich bei Beachtung der vielschichtigen Beziehung von Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit/Schreiben. Desweiteren wird die Materialität des erweiterten Schreibprozesses und die Handlungsfähigkeit aller am Prozess beteiligten Instanzen diskutiert. Die soziale Funktion von Texten und Schreiben im Allgemeinen als Teil des altägyptischen kulturellen Gedächtnisses ist der dritte Bereich der diskutiert warden muss, um Schriftlichkeit innerhalb der altägytischen Gesellschaft vollständig erfassen zu können.
Abstract: This paper explores how recent anthropological methodologies (materialities approach) as well as concepts at the interface between archaeology and anthropology (experiential and sensual archaeology) inevitably widen the boundaries of Egyptology. The presented case study contributes to a discussion of the physical relationship of material objects and the human body, focusing on states when materiality seeps deliberately and dangerously into immateriality. This is explored at the example of unpublished headrests from the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, Merthyr Tydfil (Wales, UK) by looking on the intersection of bodies with the material that also could be interpreted as inter-material communication. Impressions of fabric on their wooden surface are presumably the imprint of bedding intended to ensure comfortable sleep telling us about the sensual experience using these artefacts. The contact between skin and rough wood needed to be alleviated. This theoretical discussion is then set against an experimental and experiential archaeological approach focusing on sensual experiences with these headrests.
Encyclopedia and textbook entries by Katharina Zinn
From generation to generation, people experience their landscapes differently. Humans depend on their natural environment: it shapes their behaviour and it is often felt that one has to appease one's deities that were responsible for natural benefits, but also for natural calamities, like droughts, famines, floods and landslides. In many societies, we presume that lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains, caves and groves were considered sacred. Individual sites and entire landscapes are often associated with divine actions, mythical heroes and etiological myths. Throughout human history, people also felt the need to monumentalise their sacred landscape. But this is where the similarities stop as different societies had very different understandings, believes and practises. The aim of this book is therefore to carefully scrutinise our evidence and rethink our methodologies in a multidisciplinary approach. More than thirty papers investigate diverse sacred landscapes from the Iberian peninsula and Britain in the west to China in the east. They discuss how to interpret the intricate web of ciphers and symbols in the landscape and how people might have experienced it. We see the role of performance, ritual, orality, textuality and memory in people's sacred landscapes. A diachronic view allows us to study how landscapes were 're-written', adapted and redefined in the course of time to suit new cultural, political and religious understandings, not to mention the impact of urbanism on people's understandings. How was the landscape manipulated, transformed and monumentalised, especially the colossal investments in monumental architecture we see in certain socio-historic contexts or the creation of an alternative humanmade, seemingly 'non-natural' landscape, with perfectly astronomically aligned buildings that defines a cosmological order? This volume therefore aims to analyse the complex links between landscape, 'religiosity' and society, developing a dialectic framework that explores sacred landscapes across the ancient world in a dynamic, holistic, contextual and historical perspective.
In this book we explore the sensory experiences of consumption of food and the objects through which these are mediated. Three key themes are identified:
a) Transformations: not only how foodstuffs are transformed into consumables but also changes in material practices surrounding the production and consumption of food;
b) Embodied Encounters: exploring the agencies of production and consumption and the materiality of the consumed, and how these shape social and material worlds;
c) Social and Symbolic Consumption: socialised and ritualised behaviours surrounding interactions with food and drink, including magical substitutes for food, non-consumption, specialised equipments.
The contributors go beyond the materiality of food itself as the object of study, to also incorporate the objects through which food realistically and symbolically comes to life. The articles in this edited volume focus on the material culture, its participation of application of meaning, the encounters with food or ideas of food, and embodied experiences. By looking at cultures spanning from ancient Egypt to 20th century Netherlands, from modern Kenya to ancient China, the interdisciplinary chapters explore the multiple interplays between foods, bodies, material worlds, rituals, and embodied knowledge that emerge from these material encounters and how this knowledge, in turn, shape the material culture of food.
In our times of multimedia networking, libraries are important service institutions. However, libraries are certainly much more than merely an aid for academic research and teaching. The recent multimedia revolution has brought back into focus a traditional function of libraries that has been largely neglected or considered secondary since the beginning of the 20th century: The important role libraries play in the preservation of the collective wisdom and knowledge of a society as well as in the transmission of its cultural inheritance to both the present and the future. Books in libraries are storage space of writings and as such they are at all times representatives and mediators of what the Egyptologist Jan Assmann has called the “cultural memory” of a community.
My dissertation describes and systematically analyses the existence, function, and working of libraries in Ancient Egypt in its whole social, political and religious context. By providing a clear definition of the distinctive, yet complementary functions of libraries and archives, I give an answer to the question of how ancient Egyptian libraries operated as a place for keeping and circulating written knowledge. My goal is to write a social and cultural history of the management of tradition by the ancient Egyptians. Moreover, by focusing on one of the earliest library traditions in the world, I extend the time frame of library studies beyond the Graeco-Roman antiquity and in this way contribute to the general history of libraries.
While egyptological scholarship on libraries has so far taken only such sources into account that promised to contribute to an institutional topography of archaeologically verifiable libraries, my work takes a different approach, utilising insights of media-sciences as well as Jan Assmann’s ideas about “cultural memory” and its transmission. In addition to material that refers to libraries directly, either in the form of archaeological evidence or in the form of texts that use one or more of the known terms for library/archive in connection with a specific location, I base my study on a significantly extended range of primary sources from all historical periods. These sources include official titles and tomb inscriptions from the Old Kingdom, offering formulas from all periods, king novels and other literary texts from the Middle and New Kingdom, religious papyri of the Late Period and Graeco-Roman times, to name just a few. Close scrutiny of this material revealed a significant number of new terms that were used synonymously with library/archive. The large number of official titles and epitheta associated with libraries and archives further suggests the existence of a developed library/archive system in Ancient Egypt. Finally, sifting through the available evidence, I brought to light phrases, topoi, and intertextual links that do not necessarily include any explicit reference to a library or archive, but clearly constitute a shared discourse centering on the preservation and transmission of knowledge. Because these textual passages stem from the same historic and/or semantic context, I call this group of evidence “cognate sources”.
The dissertation forms the gateway between library science and Egyptology. I present a functional definition of libraries and books as the sine qua for the inclusion of ancient libraries. Important are questions concerning the transmission of knowledge, the usage of this knowledge and its connection to the institution of the library in Ancient Egypt. Amongst others, I describe the position and function of the Ancient Egyptian libraries as part of the all-embracing cosmic and divine order – the Maat. In order to be able to do so, I scrutinise several terms for library, determine their differences and applications. This is essential because different institutions existed which fulfilled the function of transmission of tradition (“Überlieferungsfunktion”). In this context, I also delineate the differences between archive and library, both of which existed from the Old Kingdom onwards: All documents that were not or no longer related to the business of everyday life were stored in a library. Although these documents were no longer relevant for the administrative concerns of the day, they nevertheless retained their significance as records and events that confirmed the Maat. On the other hand, archives collected documents concerning everyday administrative affairs in order to save them as official files for later reference, for instance, in case of juridical or tax conflicts. They have no primary religious or political meaning. Overlap between archives and libraries is thus possible and their stock could sometimes be the same. Additionally, I interpret the archaeological material, translate the written sources – both direct and cognate ones –, give an overview over titles of officials as well as gods, include with an excursus on ancient Egyptian librarians, and discuss the known library catalogues.
Journal of History and Cultures (2019) – Special Issue 10: Myth and Magic: Interdisciplinary Readings of the Reception of Ancient Egypt. 165-190.
This article introduces the activities of and ideas behind the MUSEUM OF LIES pas the latest component of the Cyfarthfa Castle Project started in 2011/12 with cooperation between the museum and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David Wales (UWTSD) led by the author. The overarching venture is aimed at the literal and cultural (re-)discovery of ancient Egyptian artefacts.
The Museum of Lies component outlines a very interesting and innovative case study within a framework of the contemporary discourse regarding the emotional power of both objects and storytelling.It uses alternative narratives (in addition to academic Egyptological object biographies) as a means to structure our understanding of the world.
Storytelling unlocks inherent potential in material culture and forges ‘bonds’ between people and things. This is discussed by focusing on ‘charismatic’ objects, questions about academic vs emotional truth and the negotiation of meaning.
The article presents a new conceptual framework for understanding literacy in ancient civilisations to conceptualise ‘literacy’ more broadly as a cultural and social practice. For this it is necessary to focus on the complex relationship between orality and writing, accentuate the materiality of writing as well as questions of agency and acknowledge the social role of texts and writing as part of Egyptian memory culture.
Abstract (dt.)
Der vorliegende Artikel schlägt einen erweiterten konzeptuellen Rahmen für das Verständnis von Schriftlichkeit vor. Das Konzept ‘Schriftlichkeit’ wird darin als kulturelle und soziale Anwendung und Tätigkeit verstanden. Das wird möglich bei Beachtung der vielschichtigen Beziehung von Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit/Schreiben. Desweiteren wird die Materialität des erweiterten Schreibprozesses und die Handlungsfähigkeit aller am Prozess beteiligten Instanzen diskutiert. Die soziale Funktion von Texten und Schreiben im Allgemeinen als Teil des altägyptischen kulturellen Gedächtnisses ist der dritte Bereich der diskutiert warden muss, um Schriftlichkeit innerhalb der altägytischen Gesellschaft vollständig erfassen zu können.
Abstract: This paper explores how recent anthropological methodologies (materialities approach) as well as concepts at the interface between archaeology and anthropology (experiential and sensual archaeology) inevitably widen the boundaries of Egyptology. The presented case study contributes to a discussion of the physical relationship of material objects and the human body, focusing on states when materiality seeps deliberately and dangerously into immateriality. This is explored at the example of unpublished headrests from the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, Merthyr Tydfil (Wales, UK) by looking on the intersection of bodies with the material that also could be interpreted as inter-material communication. Impressions of fabric on their wooden surface are presumably the imprint of bedding intended to ensure comfortable sleep telling us about the sensual experience using these artefacts. The contact between skin and rough wood needed to be alleviated. This theoretical discussion is then set against an experimental and experiential archaeological approach focusing on sensual experiences with these headrests.
and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 2318–2323.
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Challenges and merits of working with small finds
University of Mainz 8–9 April 2019
Theme: Beating Barriers! Overcoming Obstacles to Achievement
Dr Katharina Zinn
Senior Lecturer for Egyptian Archaeology and Heritage, University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Playing around with a few of your favourite things – forgotten Egyptian objects, lost provenance and the Museum of Lies
This paper describes the processes involving the literal and cultural (re-)discovery of ancient Egyptian artefacts in Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales as a joint-venture with the University of Wales Trinity Saint David led by the author. The project aims to bring these mainly un-provenanced objects back to life by creating different simultaneous types of cultural representations via academic outputs, exhibitions, story-telling, art projects with local artists and school children as well as a Museum of Lies collecting fictional stories inspired by the items. The lead is taken by the objects themselves which enchant not only Egyptologists but equally audiences of the community museum and students.
The paper will address the questions:
• How have distinctive settings – national, local, institutional – shaped displays of Egypt? For what aims were such displays created?
• How have displays of artefacts and human remains shaped perceptions and conceptions of Egyptian history and culture for different audiences?
• How has the non-display/storage of certain artefacts influenced research on, and perceptions of, Egypt?
Taking inspiration from Latour’s actants (2005), Barad’s agential realism (2007) and Bennett’s thing power (2010) – relating the potential of agency to materials and objects in human lives – the study discusses the physical relationship of material objects and the human body. With the additional help of experimental and experiential archaeology as well the focus on hitherto neglected objects we not only can bring the objects but also senses in the past to life.
This is explored using unpublished headrests from Cyfarthfa Castle Museum by looking on the intersection of bodies with the material that also could be interpreted as inter-material communication. Impressions of fabric on their wooden surface are presumably the imprint of bedding intended to ensure comfortable sleep telling us about the sensual experience using these artefacts. The contact between skin and rough wood needed to be alleviated.
Session: The Archaeology of Forgetting (Sophie Moore, Miriam Rothenberg, Brown University) - 18/12/2017
The article presents a new conceptual framework for understanding literacy in ancient civilisations to conceptualise ‘literacy’ more broadly as a cultural and social practice. For this it is necessary to focus on the complex relationship between orality and writing, accentuate the materiality of writing as well as questions of agency and acknowledge the social role of texts and writing as part of Egyptian memory culture.
Abstract (dt.)
Der vorliegende Artikel schlägt einen erweiterten konzeptuellen Rahmen für das Verständnis von Schriftlichkeit vor. Das Konzept ‘Schriftlichkeit’ wird darin als kulturelle und soziale Anwendung und Tätigkeit verstanden. Das wird möglich bei Beachtung der vielschichtigen Beziehung von Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit/Schreiben. Desweiteren wird die Materialität des erweiterten Schreibprozesses und die Handlungsfähigkeit aller am Prozess beteiligten Instanzen diskutiert. Die soziale Funktion von Texten und Schreiben im Allgemeinen als Teil des altägyptischen kulturellen Gedächtnisses ist der dritte Bereich der diskutiert warden muss, um Schriftlichkeit innerhalb der altägytischen Gesellschaft vollständig erfassen zu können.
Constructing and Re-Writing Sacred Landscapes in the Ancient Near East
A one-day conference session at the BANEA Conference, UWTSD Lampeter, Wales
PROGRAMME:
9.00-9.10 Introduction, Sacred Landscapes (Dr Ralph Haussler, UWTSD)
9.10-9.30 Cyrus the Great of Persia and Acculturation of Religion at Sardis (Dr Selga Medenieks, Classical Association of Ireland)
9.35-9.55 The Ever-Weeping Mountain: Characterising Baal and Zeus on Jebel Aqra (Eris Williams Reed, Durham)
10.05-10.25 Landscape, Literature and Symbolism in the Theban Necropolis: a Study of the Tomb-Chapel of Neferhotep
(Max Stocker, Edinburgh)
COFFEE BREAK
11.00-11.20 (Re)constructing the Sacred Landscape of Saqqara (Scott Williams, Cardiff)
11.30-12.00 (Re)Constructing the Sacred Landscape of Nubia in the Early Nineteenth Century (Dr Daniele Salvoldi, Berlin)
12.00-12.30 The Deconstruction of New Space Identities for Looted Archaeological Sites: the Case of Abusir el-Malek (Dr Monica Hanna, the Egypt Heritage Task Force / Cairo)
LUNCH
14.00-14.30 Desacralized Landscapes: Nilotic Views in the Ethiopian Stories by Heliodorus (Marco Palone, Freiburg)
14.30-15.00 Christianising the Sacred Landscape in Phrygia: the Case of Hierapolis (Dr Gian Franco Chiai, Berlin)
15.00-15.30 Sacred Landscapes and Achaemenid Imperial Strategies in Central Asia (Dr Wu Xin, Albright Institute Jerusalem)
TEA BREAK
16.00-16.20 Sacred Landscapes of Politics: Ghirza, Gurzil and the Romans ( Prof. Cordovana Orietta, Aarhus)
16.25-16.45 Minoan Peak Sanctuaries between Heaven and Earth (Dr Christine Morris, Trinity College Dublin & Dr Alan Peatfield, UCD)
16.50-17.10 Movement and the Religiosity of Routines in the Iron Age Negev: a Deleuzo-Guattarian Approach to the Archaeology of Religion (Neil Erskine, Glasgow)
17.15-17.30 Final Discussion
Discussant: Dr Katharina Zinn, UWTSD
Convenors: Dr Gian Franco Chiai (Berlin) & Dr Ralph Haeussler (Lampeter)
For more information on the BANEA conference and for abstracts, please see:
http://viasacra.org.uk/banea/
http://banea2016.org/
WORKSHOP Object Biography for Archaeologists II: The Object as Magnet - Year Two of a continuing investigation.
Workshop: “Object Biography for Archaeologists: A Practical Workshop”
Lampeter, 5th – 7th May 2014
Panel 4: Sacred landscapes, identity and territorial organisation
Paddle dolls Cyfarthfa Castle Museum CCM 187.996 and CCM 188.996
University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, 26 October 2011.
University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, 05 April 2011
Galerie Erata, Leipzig, 17 March 2000.
Introductory video to the collaborative project between UWTSD, Faculty of Humanities and Performing Arts and Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Merthyr Tydfil.