Theme:
1. Artefacts, Buildings & Ecofacts
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Carved Features and Carved Landscapes. Investigating the Technical and Topographical Links between Quarries and Rock-Cut Sites
Content:
In the last ten years, an international exchange has been initiated amongst scholars on the methodological and theoretical challenges in the study of quarries and rock-cut sites. A lively community has been discussing the different approaches used for documenting and interpreting features that are generated in the liminal space between human lives and geologies.
The human activity of excavating geological outcrops results in features that are classified according to two main macro categories:
- rock-cut sites which are linked to the life and death of human beings– including dwellings, shelters, burials, and places of worship.
- quarries are mostly defined as production spaces in which technical solutions are aimed at optimizing the extraction of stone from the bedrock.
Despite the difference in the purpose of hewing, conceptual links exist between features carved in the rock. Similarities can be found in the techniques used for hewing as well as the management of waste and by extension, the same networks of knowledge and know-how transmission. Moreover, dwellings or evidence of places of worship have been found in quarries and blocks extracted from rock-cut sites are often used for construction elsewhere.
Quarries and rock-cut sites can often be found associated with the same outcrops, thus outlining a complex taskscape in which the interaction of human communities and bedrock can result in different carved features.
This session will be dedicated to investigating the connections between quarries and rock-cut sites on different scales. We invite contributors, particularly early careers researchers/scholars, working on different case studies, without chronological or geographical boundaries, to discuss:
- methods for mapping carved landscapes, highlighting the human and geological agencies in shaping a taskscape.
- the more detailed study of tool marks and techniques used for extracting stone blocks and carving specific elements, outlining systems of knowledge transfer in communities through time.
Keywords:
Quarries, rock-cut sites, technology, taskscapes
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Claudia Sciuto (Italy) 1
Co-organisers:
Marie-Elise Porqueddu (Spain) 2
Anaïs Lamesa (Turkey) 3
Daniel Morleghem (France) 4
Affiliations:
1. University of Pisa
2. École des hautes études hispaniques et ibériques, Casa de Velázquez, Spain
3. Institut Français d'Études Anatoliennes, Istambul, Turkey
4. UMR 7324 Citeres-LAT, Tours, France
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