Engraved biographies : rock art and life-histories of Bronze Age objects

• This article deals with engravings depicting sometimes life-sized Bronze Age metal objects from “closed” burial contexts and “open-air” sites in northern Europe. These rock art images have mainly been used for comparative dating with the purpose of establishing rock art chronologies, or interpreted as a poor man’s” substitute for real objects that were sacrificed to immaterial gods and goddesses. In this article, these rock art images are pictured from a perspective that highlights the mutual cultural biography of humans and objects. It is argued that the rare engravings of bronze objects at scale 1:1 are best explained as famous animated objects that could act as secondary agents, which sometimes allowed them to be depicted and remembered. Moreover, two different social settings are distinguished for such memory practice: maritime nodes or third spaces where Bronze Age Argonauts met before, during or after their journeys, e.g. places where novel technological and/or famous objects entered and re-entered the social realms, and burial contexts where animated objects sometimes was buried at the end of their life-course. 

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Arkeologi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- Archaeology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Rock art

Animated objects

Cultural biographies of objects

Bronze Age

Burial practice

Northern Europe

Archaeology

Arkeologi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)