E-Book Overview
In this book, Ellen Swift uses design theory, previously neglected in Roman archaeology, to investigate Roman artifacts 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 behavior, and experience. The concept of "affordances"--features of an artefact that make possible, and incline users towards, particular uses for functional artifacts--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 artifact use, and experimental reconstruction. Artifact 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 behavior and experience, including discrepant experiences according to factors such as age, social position, and left- or right-handedness, which are fostered through artifact design. The relationship between production and users of artifacts 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.
E-Book Content
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 24/12/2016, SPi
ROMAN ARTEFACTS AND SOCIETY
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 24/12/2016, SPi
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 24/12/2016, SPi
Roman Artefacts and Society Design, Behaviour, and Experience
ELLEN SWIFT
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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 24/12/2016, SPi
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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Ellen Swift 2017 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2017 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2016943230 ISBN 978–0–19–878526–2 Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in goo