1st Edition

Wrapping and Unwrapping Material Culture Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives

Edited By Susanna Harris, Laurence Douny Copyright 2014

    This innovative volume challenges contemporary views on material culture by exploring the relationship between wrapping materials and practices and the objects, bodies, and places that define them. Using examples as diverse as baby swaddling, Egyptian mummies, Celtic tombs, lace underwear, textile clothing, and contemporary African silk, the dozen archaeologist and anthropologist contributors show how acts of wrapping and unwrapping are embedded in beliefs and thoughts of a particular time and place. Employing methods of artifact analysis, microscopy, and participant observation, the contributors provide a new lens on material culture and its relationship to cultural meaning.

    Preface; Part I Introduction; Chapter 1 Wrapping and Unwrapping, Concepts and Approaches, Laurence Douny, Susanna Harris; Part II Wrapping and Unwrapping the Living; Chapter 2 Aspects of Baby Wrappings: Swaddling, Carrying, and Wearing, Nancy Ukai Russell; Chapter 3 Wrapping and Tying Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom Dresses, Janet M. Johnstone; Chapter 4 Reconceptualising Shapes and Bodies: Conservation of an English Eighteenth-Century Court Mantua for the Victoria and Albert Museum Galleries, Malkogeorgou Titika; Chapter 5 Wrapping and Unwrapping the Body: Lace, Magic, and Modernity, Nicolette Makovicky; Part III Wrapping and Unwrapping the Dead; Chapter 6 Wrapping the Dead: The Bronze Age Mound Burials of Southern Scandinavia through a Wrapping Analysis, Susanna Harris; Chapter 7 Wrapped Up for Safe Keeping: ‘Wrapping’ Customs in Early Iron Age Europe, Margarita Gleba; Chapter 8 Wrapping as an Element of Early Celtic Burial Customs: The Princely Grave from Hochdorf and Its Cultural Context, Johanna Banck-Burgess; Chapter 9 Wrapping the Wrapped: The Development of Minimal Conservation of Ancient Human Wrapped Mummies from the Region of the Nile, Barbara Wills; Part IV The Materiality of Wrapping: Materials, Places, and Objects; Chapter 10 Wild Silk Textiles of the Dogon People of Mali: Wrapping and Unwrapping Material Identities, Laurence Douny; Chapter 11 Unveiling Clay and Metal: The Context and Use of Mesopotamian Textile Wrappings, Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Mireia López-Bertran; Chapter 12 Wrapped in Images: Body Metaphors, Petroglyphs, and Landscape in the Island World of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Karina Croucher, Colin Richards;

    Biography

    Susanna Harris, Laurence Douny