Theme:
1. Artefacts, Buildings & Ecofacts
Session format:
Discussion session (with formal abstracts)
Title:
Assembling Hoards: Object Biographies, Past Lives and the Process of Collecting and Accumulating Objects into Hoards
Content:
Hoarding – the deliberate collection of objects – is typically studied by archaeologists through deposition. This final act, on this final day, tells us very little about all the other actions that the objects were involved in or about all the other days and lives these objects encountered.
Hoards recovered through controlled excavation offer more possibilities for interpretation. Evidence for grouping or parcels are most obvious when objects are contained in vessels, but where organic evidence is preserved, more subtle groups such as bags or bundles can be recognised. These active distinctions between objects (even where there are material relationships across the whole assemblage) can provide residual information about the process of accumulation. Objects biographies can be reconstructed from wear, repair or fragmentation and increasingly potent scientific analyses allow us to investigate a range of questions about how, and why, people created these collections of objects before burial:
What were objects used for before they were hoarded and why were they buried together?
Who might have owned these objects and why were they valued?
What distances, either in time or space, did objects travel before being hoarded?
In the case of heirloom or curated objects, why were they no longer retained?
How were processes of assembling ritualised or otherwise made meaningful?
By focusing on the actions behind hoarding, this session intends to ask how, and why, people amassed and valued curated objects in the first place. We are curious about comparisons with other complex assemblages (burial, sanctuary deposits), forensic approaches to modern discoveries, or fresh thinking on older collections. We are seeking to make thematic connections between participants in this session and the UKRI-funded ‘Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard’ project in order to encourage the cross-fertilization of ideas and approaches, especially between historic and prehistoric research into hoarding and deposition.
Keywords:
assemblage theory, object biography, hoards, hoarding, collecting, artefact analysis
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:
Martin Goldberg (United Kingdom) 1
Co-organisers:
Katharina Becker (Ireland) 2
Azzurra Scarci (Germany) 3
Affiliations:
1. National Museums Scotland
2. University College Cork
3. Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum – Mainz
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