An Archaeology of Art and Writing offers an in-depth treatment of the image as material culture. Centring on early Egyptian bone, ivory, and wooden labels—one of the earliest inscribed and decorated object groups from burials in the lower Nile Valley—the research is anchored in the image as the site of material action. A key aim of this book is to outline a contextual and reflexive approach to early art and writing as a complement to the traditional focus on iconographic and linguistic meanings. Archaeological and anthropological approaches are integrated with social theories of practice and agency to develop a more holistic perspective that situates early Egyptian imagery in relation to its manufacture, use and final deposition in the funerary context. The dialectical relationships between past embodied practitioners and materials, production techniques, and compositional principles are examined for the insight they provide into changes and continuities in early Egyptian graphical expression across time and space. The electronic version of this book is accompanied by an online database of the inscribed labels, enabling the reader to explore via hyperlinks the fascinating body of evidence that underpins this innovative study.
Kathryn Piquette lectures on the archaeology of ancient Egypt and the Near East at the University of Reading. She also lectures in digital humanities at University College London, where she serves as a senior research consultant in advanced digital imaging techniques for cultural heritage. Recent publications include the co-edited Writing as Material Practice: Substance, surface and medium.
Please note that this text contains the Egyptian hieroglyphic font Inscribe 2004 (https://archive.org/details/inscribe, usage Public Domain Mark 1.0) and the transliteration font Trlit_CG Times (https://dmd.wepwawet.nl/fonts.htm). We are unable to guarantee the correct rendering of these fonts on all devices. For the intended display of the hieroglyphic and transliteration fonts, see the PDF version of this book: https://doi.org/10.16994/bak
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The Truth about the Desert explores the living conditions under which Tuareg refugees from northern Mali rebuild their lives in the Nigerien diaspora and how these conditions affect their self-understandings and cultural practices, established status hierarchies, and religious identity formation. The book counterbalances an earlier scholarly preoccupation with Tuareg nobility by zoning in on two inferior social status groups, the Bellah-Iklan and free-born vassals, which have been neglected in conventional accounts of Tuareg society. By offering a multi-layered analysis of social status and identity formation in the diaspora, it pleads for a more dynamic understanding of Tuareg socio-political hierarchies. Analyzing in detail how both status groups rely on moralizing labels and racial stereotyping to reformulate their own social and ethnic identity, the study highlights refugees’ aspirations and capacities to remake their imaginary and material worlds in the face of adverse and often deeply humiliating living conditions. The book provides vital insights for refugee studies and for scholarly debates on ethnicity, social identity formation, and memory politics.
English Summary: http://bit.ly/2GreuTe
Souleymane Diallo earned his PhD in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Cologne. His research interests include forceful migrations and memory politics; Islam, spiritual authority, and power in the Sahara; and the theory and practice of anthropological filmmaking.
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