Roman Artefacts and Society

Roman Artefacts and Society

EnglishPaperback / softbackPrint on demand
Swift Ellen
Oxford University Press
EAN: 9780198866886
Print on demand
Delivery on Tuesday, 25. of February 2025
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Detailed information

In this book, Ellen Swift uses design theory, previously neglected in Roman archaeology, to investigate Roman artefacts in a new way, making a significant contribution to both Roman social history, and our understanding of the relationships that exist between artefacts and people. Based on extensive data collection and the close study of artefacts from museum collections and archives, the book examines the relationship between artefacts, everyday behaviour, and experience. The concept of 'affordances'—features of an artefact that make possible, and incline users towards, particular uses for functional artefacts—is an important one for the approach taken. This concept is carefully evaluated by considering affordances in relation to other sources of evidence, such as use—wear, archaeological context, the end—products resulting from artefact use, and experimental reconstruction. Artefact types explored in the case studies include locks and keys, pens, shears, glass vessels, dice, boxes, and finger-rings, using material mainly drawn from the north-western Roman provinces, with some material also from Roman Egypt. The book then considers how we can use artefacts to understand particular aspects of Roman behaviour and experience, including discrepant experiences according to factors such as age, social position, and left- or right-handedness, which are fostered through artefact design. The relationship between production and users of artefacts is also explored, investigating what particular production methods make possible in terms of user experience, and also examining production constraints that have unintended consequences for users. The book examines topics such as the perceived agency of objects, differences in social practice across the provinces, cultural change and development in daily practice, and the persistence of tradition and social convention. It shows that design intentions, everyday habits of use, and the constraints of production processes each contribute to the reproduction and transformation of material culture.
EAN 9780198866886
ISBN 0198866887
Binding Paperback / softback
Publisher Oxford University Press
Publication date June 25, 2020
Pages 320
Language English
Dimensions 235 x 158 x 17
Country United Kingdom
Authors Swift Ellen
Illustrations 73 Figures and 13 Tables