Sensory archaeology

Throughout this workshop, you will learn about the smells that defined the mummification chambers and tombs, and the scents that the ancient Egyptians themselves wished to be surrounded by in their life after death. In the first hour, Dora will teach you about the olfactory motivation for mummification and the substances employed during the process. In the second hour, she will give you a detailed insight into the materials. You will be able to smell each ingredient and you will learn about their significance for the Egyptians and the reasons behind their use. In the third and last hour, you will recreate the essence of mummification in a bottle by using the very same ingredients the ancient Egyptians employed for embalming their dead. Don’t worry, you will end up with an exceedingly pleasant smell.

Time and Date: September 28, 2019, 11am-2pm
Price: 90€ | Students / Artists / Stadspas: 63€
Location: Mediamatic, Dijksgracht 6, Amsterdam
Tickets available on https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/374727/recreate-the-essence-of-mummification

The scent kit includes six of my scent reconstructions, which are all based on my PhD research on the sense of smell in ancient Egypt. It also includes a detailed description of the significance of each scent for the ancient Egyptian culture.
(1)  Mendesian
(2)  Mummification
(3)  Kyphi
(4)  Ancient Egyptian garden fragrance
(5)  Flowers at the pond
(6)  Scent of ancient Egyptian festivals
Price: 120€ + shipping

All knowledge of the world is shaped by the way our senses perceive it. In archaeology, and especially in Egyptological studies, a visual approach has predominated the analysis of ancient material remains. When viewed from a sensorybased framework, however, a new, dynamic dimensionality of the material record might be revealed. This approach to the study of the past promises to open both innovative and rewarding avenues for exploration. Such work fosters an environment for interdisciplinary study involving researchers in such diverse fields as  neuroscience, psychology, ethnography, and the digital humanities. This paper aims to explore the applications of sensory analysis to Egyptology by focusing on New Kingdom tomb depictions of banquets and relevant mortuary texts to champion this paradigm as one that has potential to truly humanize the past.

Nihil est in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu – “There is nothing in the intellect that is not first in the senses.” So wrote Thomas Aquinas. The senses are the lens through which we come to understand our world; they are the pillars on which all our knowledge rests.

Although we often treat the senses as though they are immutable – fundamental properties of our physiology that provide each of us with a comparable perspective on our surroundings – the way we parse our sensory experiences is dictated by our cultural context. Societies in different times and places have differed vastly in their beliefs about the nature and number of the senses, about where to draw the boundaries between different sensory categories, and about how best to represent sensory phenomena in literature, art, and architecture.

Distant Impressions is the first volume to explore the social aspects of sensation in the ancient Near East. The book is divided into two parts, the first focusing on the Neo-Assyrian period of Mesopotamian history. With its monumental architecture, bas-reliefs, and abundance of tablets, the Neo-Assyrian period is one of the richest milieus for investigating the senses and their cultural values in the ancient Near East. Contributions examine representations of the senses in the written record and analyze the sensory dimensions of two hubs of Neo-Assyrian cultural activity: the temple and the palace.

The second section picks up on the themes of the first, exploring sensory dimensions of the built environment and textual representations of sensation in other times and places in the ancient Near East, such as Neolithic northern Mesopotamia and Hittite Anatolia.

The book approaches the question of sensory experience in ancient Near Eastern societies from philological, literary, art historical, and archeological perspectives; it addresses the means of sense perception (such as vision, hearing, and smell) and the objects of perception (such as light, noise, and odor); and it examines the senses within religious, political, and social frameworks.

Ultimately, the volume paints a portrait of the social life of the senses in these ancient civilizations. The reader is invited to hear the sound of the drum, feel the light of the sun, and smell the scent of the incense as we examine the sensations and sensory codes that underpinned ancient Near Eastern society.

"How does antique Christianity look if the lens of Cartesian dualism is removed and replaced with an embodied perspective? In responding to this question, this thesis proposes a new way of understanding ‘art’ and religion as integrally linked through ritual in Christian Late Antiquity.

The investigation proceeds via ‘common-sensory archaeologies’ of material evidence. This is a methodology designed to enable interpretation of artefacts in ways not necessarily dependent on the imposition of literary interpretative methods, particularly semiotics. It enables new information to be elicited directly from materials.

The argument addresses ‘magical’ practices and objects, and the ideas underpinning Roman religious practices, before analysing rituals specific to late-antique Christianity, including Holy-Land pilgrimage, saint cult, and the Eucharist. It differentiates rituals that were institutionalised, and those which evolved ‘organically’ among adherents, in order to highlight common underlying impulses.

A picture emerges of the complex and subtle overlap between religions in Late Antiquity, which questions stark differentiations between ‘paganism’ and Christianity. This period’s ‘common sense’ (or, encultured mode of embodiment) is suggested to oscillate between two poles of cosmology – ‘cosmic uniformity’ and ‘infinite materiality’. Central to both perspectives was the need for (embodied) humans to engage ritually with the world through their senses in order to interact with the divine.

By paying attention not just to what Christians thought but also to what they did, it is suggested that certain tensions in our understanding of late-antique culture may be resolved by retracting assumptions of stark Cartesian contrasts between belief/ritual, soul/body, text/material, and Christian/’pagan’. Furthermore, an embodied approach is shown to open avenues not just into elite culture, but also into the popular Christian perspective, by expanding our purview to the lived practice of, rather than just the theological debate surrounding, antique religion."

Visual codes, which vary with and within different societies, comprise aspects of the external appearance of people that are communicated non-verbally. This includes clothing (also shoes and headgear) as well as hairstyles and various accessories. Are there rules within a specific society that prescribe or even prohibit certain items of
clothing, colours, raw materials (e.g., fur, silk), costume components, accessories for certain social groups, for men and women or for certain age groups? In this workshop, we will work on theoretical concepts: different perspectives — such as cultural anthropology, material culture studies, social psychology, evolutionary anthropology and modern fashion studies. The discussions include theories on visual
coding, body language, fashion theory, gender & age and social hierarchies. The participants will:
- Receive a reader with 5 selected articles, with which we will discuss the theories
- Present short statements with case studies from their own research
- Set the case studies into a context with the theoretical approaches and form ideason how to include theories in their own work

Please send your files to textiles@uni-graz.at if you are interested in participating.

The Colorado Plateau of the southwest United States is known for dramatic topography and
vibrant indigenous communities. Here, phenomenologists and GIS researchers are investigating
ancient Pueblo senses of place, visibility, and the acoustic properties of monumental spaces.
Southwest archaeologists have amassed large bodies of data on ceremonialism, foodways, and
musical instruments. Although sensory applications seldom have been explicit in this work, the
data have much potential. Because sensory studies are relatively new in archaeology, we need
to develop legislation to help land management agencies avoid potentially damaging effects to
viewsheds and soundscapes from destructive activities such as oil and gas exploration.

An interdisciplinary essay collection from an international group of experts

For several decades sociologists and cultural anthropologists have intensively researched the role of the senses in a variety of cultures, and their studies show how diverse cultures understand and evaluate the five or more senses differently. In this collection of eighteen essays, biblical and ancient Near Eastern scholars, as well as cultural anthropologists, apply the questions and methods from anthropological and sociological studies to Israel, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. Experts offer insights into the meaning of the senses in the ancient world, examining the classical senses (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting) as well as other senses (such as kinesthesis and the sense of balance) and sense-related issues (such as disgust, sensory imagination, and disabilities). This collection provides a stimulus and a basis for students and scholars to explore the senses in the ancient Near East.

Features
Exploration of the relationship between sensory experience and reasoning
Assessments of how theory and practice of the senses relate to each other
Essays examining connections between emotions and senses

Annette Schellenberg is Professor of Old Testament in the Faculty of Protestant Theology at the University of Vienna. She is the author of Der Mensch, das Bild Gottes? Zum Gedanken einer Sonderstellung des Menschen im Alten Testament und in weiteren altorientalischen Quellen (2011).

Thomas Krüger is Professor of Old Testament at the University of Zurich. He is the author of Qoheleth: A Commentary (2004) and Das menschliche Herz und die Weisung Gottes: Studien zur alttestamentlichen Anthropologie und Ethik (2009).

This research will address how the monumental organization of Kincaid Mounds was put together through time. The measurable variability in the potential performative presentation of the mounds and structures of Kincaid will be treated as an archaeological dataset for the exploration of social change. This dataset will emphasize the topological relationships among earthworks, structures, and the ancient Native Americans living within and actively constructing the site and their society. The dynamics of change in the public presentation of these earthworks will relate to public practice and changing political strategies, a local history indicative of Kincaid’s internal social processes and political trajectory in the broader Ohio Valley and Mississippian culture.

The prominent position of the perfume industry at the Mycenaean palace of Pylos has long been known. Both the archaeological remains and textual evidence indicate that perfume was a prestigious commodity at Pylos that was manufactured under palatial control at the palace itself. The finished product was a restricted commodity that was distributed by the wanax, the highest ranked individual at the palace. The fragrance of the perfumed oil would have been prominent there, creating both a physical and a sensory connection between the palace-its power, its prestige, and its wealth-and the smell. While the smell of the manufacturing of perfume would have been available to all who lived in and around the palace or even visited it, the finished refined perfume was available to only a limited few. This paper thus connects some welland long-known data about perfume production at Pylos and combines them with more recent work in sensory anthropology, neuroscience, and biology.

Tiesler, Vera, Kadwin Pérez y Patricia Quintana
2018 Painting the Dead in the Northern Maya Lowlands En Painting the Skin. Pigments on Bodies and Codices in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, editado por Elodie Dupey y María Vázquez de Agredos, pp. 43-55. Arizona University Press, Tucson.

In this dissertation, I ask the question, what is the best way to understand the
history and archaeology of The Fort and other African American communities
associated with the Defenses of Washington? The Fort is an African American
community that settled on the grounds of Fort Ward in Alexandria, Virginia from the
1860s through the early 1960s. To answer this question, I adopted a civicallyengaged,
sensory approach to archaeology and established three project goals. First, I
use sensory archaeology, historical research, and community memories to explore the
origins of The Fort community, its relationship to Fort Ward, and the land
surrounding it. Second, I incorporate the archaeology, memory, and history of The
Fort community into a broader narrative of the local and national past through shared
sensory experiences. Third, I conclude by describing how a sensory approach could
be used to understand the experiences of African Americans at other Civil War
Defenses of Washington sites. These goals have been developed with the
consideration and input from The Fort Ward/Seminary African American Descendant
Society (Descendant Society) and the National Park Service (NPS).

The concept of privacy looms large in studies of ancient Greek houses. The house is often conceptualized as a self-contained, cloistered unit within the larger city, a microcosm of the city-state unto itself, cut off as much as possible from a competitive and potentially threatening outside world. Indeed, the preoccupation with Greek domestic privacy in modern scholarship has been strongly influenced by ancient texts which describe a separation between the public and private worlds and express outrage at the violation of the domestic sphere by outsiders. Without denying the importance of the internal world of the home, I would like to challenge the idea of total household privacy, and even its desirability, through an examination of some of the activities of daily life in the Classical (480–323 BC) and Hellenistic (323–31 BC) periods. In particular, I will consider how domestic craft production and agricultural processing—activities in which many Greek households engaged—impacted domestic privacy.

The sights, sounds, and smells of domestic production were part of the experience of everyday life in ancient Greek cities. Thus, when examining the practicalities of domestic production, moving beyond sight to a consideration of other senses causes the inner world of the home to appear less private. While householders could easily restrict the visibility of domestic activities to the outside world, other sensory signals were more difficult to control. Though some economic activities in ancient Greek cities took place in an alternate ‘invisible’ economy outside of the control of the state (Cohen 1992), I argue that even if domestic production was taking place unseen within private Greek houses, it was never truly ‘invisible’ in a social sense, because other sensory signals extended the performance of production into the street where it could still be ‘observed’ by neighbours and passers-by. Some crafts were more visually, olfactorily or acoustically intrusive than others, so my focus here is on craft activities that were particularly messy, noisy or smelly.

Digital reconstruction and visualization of archaeological sites are beneficial not only for public edification and admiration, but they can also significantly contribute to the site interpretation process. By going beyond basic modeling scenarios, one can apply 3D analyses for accurately testing visibility and lighting parameters, among other aspects. Based on the results of these tests, further insights can be extrapolated about the lived experience of culturally specific ancient peoples. The case of a Roman "villa" at Apollonia-Arsuf in Israel presents the opportunity to apply these informal techniques to a household shrine, or niche-style lararium, found within the building in order to ascertain sightline visibility based on the architectural plan and visual impact as a result of artificial illumination from ceramic lamps. This paper also considers how photorealistic visualizations aid in phenomenological areas of research through sensory archaeology and sense of place, which in turn encourages reflection on the political, social, and religious meanings of the built environment. When we combine the power and diverse applications of 3D visualization technology with decades of research about Roman architecture, culture, religion, and social norms, the result is a step closer to recreating archaeological remnants and, in turn, understanding the ancient experience.

Textiles are sensuous; we respond to them through touch, vision and smell, movement, sound and temperature. Through sensations, textiles embody emotions of identity, and define hierarchies of power and value. Yet through the taphonomy of decay, ancient textiles are frequently devoid of their original sensory properties, they come to us as faded, fragile, dirty rags. A sensory archaeology of textiles, therefore, requires a suite of methods to reveal these sensations and a contextual analysis to interpret them within their chronological and regional archaeologies. In raising to this challenge, this chapter proposes for the first time a sensory archaeology of textiles. Through innovative case studies, the author invites the reader to recognise the implications of a sensory archaeology of textiles, and to consider the consequences for their own research fields.

26th EAA Virtual Annual Meeting, 24-30 August 2020

Although caves are dynamic landforms that have changed over time, both physically and culturally, their characteristically sheltered interiors can be assumed to have retained aspects of their past sensoriums across prehistory and history. With the aim of achieving a better understanding of human uses and experiences of caves, we therefore consider the sensorium as an essential component. We also believe that to record and analyse their sensory dimensions in a scientific manner will complement established forms of cave archaeology data, at the same time as contributing to the broader goal of developing a methodologically more rigorous sensory archaeology.

In this framework, we are gathering and comparing sensory archaeological data for a sample of caves from diverse prehistoric cultures, periods and regions across the Northern Mediterranean. The three currently selected caves are: Mala (Nova) Pećina in Croatia, with Early Neolithic and Early Bronze Age occupation deposits; Grotta Pila in west-central Italy, with Epigravettian occupation evidence as well as Early Bronze Age mortuary deposits; and Cueva Merinel in Spain, which developed as a key itinerary for ritual pilgrims drawn from diverse settlements during Iron Age.

In this presentation, we detail how we are recording and analysing the environments of these caves focusing on the ways that people interacted with them in prehistory. In particular, we have begun to record their sensorially stimulating micro-climatic features, such as temperature, humidity, luminance, airflows, kinaesthetic and sounds, as well as mapping their archaeology remains. Based on previous work by Trimmis, we are employing a ‘Paperless Mapping Methodology’ for the cave survey and sensorial data georeferencing. Ultimately, we will correlate, in a computational environment, the archaeological data with the sensorial data, in order to define and compare the sensorial impact of embodied visits, occupations and performances in these spaces in different cultural, temporal and landscape contexts.

The ethnohistoric literature suggests that musical instruments figured in diverse ways in early Inuit-European contacts, but to date there has been little archaeological attention to Inuit music. The present paper reviews indigenous musical practices in the North American Arctic, and the changes that contact precipitated, with particular attention to Labrador, where the promotion of European performance genres was a key component of Moravian missionaries' conversion efforts. The unusual case of the jaw harp or trump, which is rarely mentioned in the documentary record but appears widely on historic Inuit sites in Labrador, is then explored. Jaw harp performance parallels traditional throat singing (katajjaq) in interesting ways, and hints at the alternative musical practices that were enjoyed in the intimate recesses of Inuit house life.

 -  visited several important rock art sites within the Republic of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is one of several countries that lie within the geographical region of Central Asia that was once traversed by the Silk Route. The rock art of Kazakhstan is predominately made up of petroglyphs -images engraved into the surfaces of natural stone -which date to various periods over the past four millennia. The petroglyphs are located in a variety of situations ranging from large concentrations covering several hillsides to small, discrete pockets in exposed rock outcroppings.

Los seres humanos perciben olores en todas partes. Al inhalar y exhalar experimentan el mundo a través de las fosas nasales, que contienen receptores que transmiten al cerebro las señales captadas por esa vía. Sin embargo, el olfato es el sentido más difícil de describir. Así, las analogías pueden ayudar cuando sugieren que algo es capaz de incluir entre sus características la de presentar un olor o sabor "ahumado", "afrutado" o "dulce", y una variedad de emociones, que van del disgusto al placer, a la intoxicación, contribuyendo a describir los efectos de los estímulos en la nariz.

Exploring the forgotten scents of ancient Egypt

Perfumes were used for ritual and carried a symbolic purpose, and they helped to establish trading posts in the Nile delta

https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/ancient-egypt-exploring-forgotten-scents

While an enormous variety and quantity of foodstuffs were moved around the Roman Empire, the general population may not always have reflected upon or valued knowledge regarding the origin of their foodstuffs. This article looks at the methodological challenges associated with identifying a consciousness of food origins and connectivity, particularly in the non-elite. Sensory archaeology is used to demonstrate a degree of consciousness based on the physical experience of consumption and the mnemonic links forged between consumption, emotion, and memory. Focusing on the sensory experiences of non-native soldiers, archaeobotanical assemblages from Roman military sites in Germania inferior are used as case studies. The article concludes with a closer look at the frequently mentioned, yet not fully explored notion of a 'taste of home' in the ancient world and at what point a foodstuff no longer evoked a reflection upon its place of origin.

The olfactory world of a city reveals many aspects of a culture: urban planning, social hierarchy, professional and culinary activities, customs and values, sexual behavior, hygiene, treatment of the sick, religious beliefs, differences between mundane and holy days, plant cultivation, and animal husbandry. One way to discover the smellscapes of an ancient Egyptian city is by examining the written sources that elaborate on the smells of various urban areas. Since odors are left mostly undetected in the archaeological record, the texts the ancient Egyptians recorded themselves about the smell of their urban environment are all the more important. Within the human-made, ancient Egyptian urban environment, each area and establishment had its own special smell defined by the time of year and the activities that took place within them. The written sources elaborate on the sweet scent of the streets imbued with incense and myrrh during festivals, the perfume of the queen that fills the halls of the palace, the smell of ritual offerings getting mixed in the cult chamber of the temple, and the aroma of incense burnt in simple houses. Nevertheless, the texts don’t fail to describe the stench of industrial areas, drunkards whirling around in pleasure in the streets and the unpleasant smell of the sick.

Time and Date: September 27, 2019, starting at 8:30pm
Price: 7,50€ | Students / Artists / Stadspas: 5,25€
Location: Mediamatic, Dijksgracht 6, Amsterdam
Tickets available on https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/374649/scentscapes

Studies of late antique holy land pilgrimage focus closely on textual evidence despite rich material remains, and where the latter are studied semiotic and exegetical interpretations are privileged. I propose a sensory methodology for reinstating the value of material evidence as equal to text, which allows for its materiality rather than reducing it to semiotic abstraction. By asking what objects do (what embodied experiences they prompt), rather than what they mean (what abstract ideas they refer to) we can assess more acutely how and why pilgrimage occurred. This article explores this methodology’s implications by applying it to a case study of the well-known Monza-Bobbio ampullae, arguing that they prompted multisensory pilgrimage experience for both pilgrims and non-pilgrims alike, which revealed the divine presence inherent in the loca sancta ‘on the move’. This occurred through a particular form of divine mimesis and a culturally-specific understanding of materiality as infinite.

In ancient Mexico, sensory engagement in the form of oratory, music, and performance were major components of state-sponsored festivals and noble feasts. We think far less, however, about the soundscapes associated with rituals and everyday life in household contexts. Drawing on contextual, iconographic, and acoustic analyses of flutes, whistles, bells, costume ornaments, and ceramic vessels with rattle supports from the site of Río Viejo in coastal Oaxaca, Mexico, we argue that sound-production created a shared spatial landscape that linked community members to one another. Even in the absence of visibility or participation, soundscapes were prominent, celebrated elements of everyday life that purposely blurred the boundaries between the natural, cultural, and spirit worlds ________________________________________________________________ Résumé: Dans l'ancien Mexique, l'engagement sensoriel sous la forme de l'art oratoire, de la musique, et des spectacles a été l'un des éléments majeurs des festivals et des fêtes nobles parrainés par l'État. Nous pensons beaucoup moins, cependant, aux milieux sonores liés aux rituels et à la vie quotidienne dans les contextes domestiques. S'appuyant sur les analyses contextuelles, iconographiques, et acoustiques des flû tes, des sifflets, des cloches, des ornements des costumes, et des récipients en céramique avec des supports pour crécelle du site de Río Viejo sur la cô te de l'Oaxaca, au Mexique, nous montrons que la production sonore a créé un paysage RESEARCH Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (spatial partagé qui rassemblait les membres de la collectivité. Même en l'absence de visibilité ou de participation, les milieux sonores ont été des éléments célèbres importants de la vie quotidienne, qui ont volontairement brouillé les frontières entre le monde naturel, culturel et spirituel.

Tasting fresh fruits, smelling delightful flowers, feeling the touch of another body, or longing to hear the voice of the desired one. The Song of Songs is saturated with sensual metaphors emerging from landscape, nature, architecture and human bodies. Biblical scholars from a wide range of approaches have studied the Song’s love metaphors in particular. Among these, Song 8:6–7 has commonly been interpreted as the climax of the Song of Songs.
Compared to the oppositions of love and death, the seal metaphor  has received limited attention. This paper focusses on the latter and attempts a reconstruction of the sensory system of ancient readers related to seals. The function of the seal in 8:6 has been considered to be apotropaic and life-sustaining. Furthermore, it has been understood to manifest the permanency and intimacy of the lover's embrace.
The impact of material culture in research on Song 8:6 has been liminal and centered in most regards on iconography. The relevance of sensory archaeology for understanding embodiment and the experiences of ancient people has heightened the need for a reassessment of the relation between this metaphor and material culture. Consequently, this paper reconstructs aspects of the sensory system of ancient readers related to seals and sealing. The primary focus are two questions: First, which sensory domains are related to seal wear and use? And secondly, (how) are these sensory domains integrated in the seal metaphor in Song 8:6?

In this article the problem of perception is highlighted from a philosophical, physiological and psychological point of view. The essay (second update) is followed by a list of publications, journals and websites about perception. The author would be delighted to receive comments. He can be contacted at j[underscore]kuijper[at]online[dot]nl.

This session focuses on the topical theme of sensory archaeology, exploring the ways in which senses impact our understanding of materiality and our interaction with past societies. Archaeology is essentially a visual discipline, but material culture was often created for a multiscalar sensory experience that included all the senses, rather than just visual stimulation. We aim at expanding this understanding and exploring alternative ways to interpret past materiality that incorporate multiple senses to achieve a holistic analysis of past material culture. Additionally, anthropological and archaeological studies have highlighted those multisensory experiences of both architecture and everyday objects acquire different meanings in diverse geographical and historical contexts, stressing that even sensory perception can be influenced by societal cultural paradigms. In this session, we welcome papers presenting innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of artefacts and architecture through sensory archaeology, focusing on the aspects of connectivity and materiality that combine archaeological analysis with other fields deeply involved in sensory studies. We are also particularly keen on contributions that assess sensory archaeology from a quantitative perspective and explore how to verify these often rather subjective observations. In this sense, we welcome a broad range of papers from scientific archaeology to cultural approaches.

The inhabited environment is crucial to global challenges. Although the humanities enrich our understanding of how human beings adapt their environment, they are underrepresented in global development debates. As the availability of digital data and technology rapidly grows, the opportunities to directly relate humanities research to the social and environmental sciences improves. Notably, in tropical archaeology, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is causing a 'revolution' by revealing huge swaths of urban landscapes. This new data source and the perspectives it affords, are changing the role and relevance of (historical) humanities knowledge in relation to global development. The Digital Humanities (DH) and Geohumanities are emergent fields with increasing resources. They invite exploration of how to harness and nurture interdisciplinary and comparative contributions. By embracing new digital data sources, acquisition, and manipulation techniques, Digital Humanities have the potential to contextualise and inform how current developmental practice is shaping socio-cultural inhabitation of the landscape.

Cattle are a key focus of traditional pastoralist societies in eastern Africa and also figure prominently in the rock art of the region. In both contexts, their cultural and social significance is underscored by colour and decoration. The contemporary Mursi of southwest Ethiopia transform favourite oxen in various ways, including horn alteration, ear cutting and decorative pattern branding. These practices may provide direct insight into cattle portrayal in Ethiopian rock art, where abstract or non-realistic symbols depicted on cattle coats could indicate the modification, alteration or beautification of cattle in prehistoric societies.

There is no question that architecture evokes, creates, and demands emotional responses. Sensual qualities and emotional responses proliferate in the architectural discourse, taking seriously elements of temperature, light, materials, textures, and sounds. The aim of this talk is to explore the sensory experience of architecture from indirect somatic influence of building materials and to question the inherent sensory properties of building materials. This study theoretically combines approaches from anthropology, architecture and archaeology to investigate a means of reconstructing the architectural experience in the past. How would the sensory experience of dwelling in a stone house differ from a house made from mud or wood? Answers to these questions may be difficult to recreate in the archaeological past so I conducted an ethnographic study of Australian owner-built natural homes, with a focus on houses constructed with straw bale, mud, and recycled materials, such as tyres, and beverage containers (Earthships). It is demonstrated how varying types of building materials contribute directly to this sensory experience and these case studies illustrate how variations in the sensory experience are elicited by different types of building materials. These results can then be used to inform the sensory experience of archaeological architecture, lending insights to the shifting character implicit in transitions from houses constructed of stone, wood, or mud.

The water displays in Roman Greece in the villa of Herodes Atticus at Eva-Loukou and in the forecourt of the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis demonstrate diverse uses and contexts of flowing water. By focusing on the sensorial experience an ancient individual had with these structures, especially through the framework of a sensorial assemblage, we can highlight how sensory elements had the power to create immersive encounters. This permits further understanding of how an ancient Roman experienced a monument and created memories in the surrounding built environment and natural landscape. The two water displays at Eva-Loukou and Eleusis in Greece, one in a domestic context and one in a religious context, can then be placed in relation to the empire-wide phenomenon of constructing fountains for their sensorial effects. Examinations of the two sites suggest the motivations that moved patrons to install innovative water displays and help elucidate a common Roman sense of identity connected to the display of water.

Across the world mountains provoke religious placemaking on the landscape as a result of their visual effects; worshipers are inspired by mountain viewsheds and their physical prominence. Archaeologists debate how to best model this process: through geospatial or phenomenological approaches, or an integration of the two. Detailed methodologies engaging with multiple approaches and large datasets are rare. This paper provides a detailed framework for integrating precise geospatial analyses with phenomenological data collection, in order to ascertain what topographic and visual characteristics shaped religious landscapes. It presents a case study on the Peloponnesian regions of the Argolid and Messenia, and explores cultic (i.e. religious) places utilized by the Greeks between 2800 – 146 BCE. The fully-described methodology combines several experiences – looking out, looking towards, and climbing up – and compares changing preferences over time. The result is a dynamic model of Greek religious landscape, which articulates how Greeks differently moved, saw, and integrated the built and natural world over time. Applied elsewhere, and even on non-religious locales, this is a replicable mode for treating the natural landscape as an artifact of human decision: as a space impacting the siting of meaningful locales through history.  

Various Roman literary sources tell us that domestic spaces should align with the (inter)cardinal directions, depending on when and how rooms were used throughout the year. Vitruvius, for example, recommends specific orientations for cubicula and libraries (toward the east), bathrooms and winter rooms (to the south-west), summer dining rooms (facing north), and kitchens and livestock stalls (toward the east). In this paper, I examine the seasonality of the specialized, purpose-built Pompeian domestic bath. How was the household balneum understood, used, and experienced by residents over seasonal and diurnal timescales? By analysing the archaeological remains and architectural designs of household balnea in relation to ancient texts, solar position, sun path, and solar time, I argue that seasonality not only revealed itself in diurnal or season-specific bathing habits, but also manifested itself in the design, location, and microenvironments of domestic balnea,

Session Number: 184 Thursday, 5 September 8:30-13:00
Session Organizers: Angela Bellia (Italy) and Tommaso Mattioli (Spain) Discussant: Margarita Díaz-Andreu (Spain)

The study of sound in archaeological contexts includes many subject areas that range from music archaeology to physics acoustics. Each of these areas raises a number of challenges concerning the choice of the methodology and the methods to be adopted. A key element in this selection pertains to the physical scale of the analysis of the auditory experience; this can vary from the perception of sounds in a limited area up to interactions within large sonic environments. Although soundscapes have been thoroughly discussed at a theoretical level, this type of analysis has so far been sparsely applied in archaeological research. Therefore, some of the questions that papers for this session could address are: by putting sound back into an archaeological landscape, would we be able to understand how people lived? Through examination of the sounds heard by people wandering the landscape, would we be able to understand their culture and rituals in more depth? By reading (or re-reading) archaeological landscapes, how could we model an ancient soundscape? How did the study of soundscape in the past help us add a new dimension to our archaeological picture of ancient culture? How does technology enable us to understand the way sounds were experienced in their original location? These topics will be addressed through contributions of scholars working in various fields: archaeology, acoustic engineering, archaeomusicology, soundscape studies, anthropology, neuropsychology and heritage.

From flowers and perfumes to urban sanitation and personal hygiene, smell-a sense that is simultaneously sublime and animalistic-has played a pivotal role in western culture and thought. From medicine to religion, from erotic literature to urban planning, Greek and Roman writers and thinkers lost no opportunity to connect the smells that bombarded their senses to the social, political and cultural status of the individuals and environments they encountered: godly incense and burning sacrifices, seductive scents, aromatic cuisines, stinking bodies, pungent farmyards and festering back-streets.

Affective landscape and rational identities: sensory approaches in landscape archaeology.
The goal of this session is to serve as both an introduction to the topic in its current theoretical contours as well as offering a discussion on practical applications in heritage and archaeological investigations. To bring such research forward, this session calls for contributions that present sensory-based research of the historic cultural landscape (both built and natural environments) from any period and geographical area. Research addressing affective approaches to landscape archaeological investigation, valorization, conservation, or interpretation are welcome.

An alliance between emotions and senses immediately and subconsciously appears natural, if not even inevitable. One reason for this perception on a broader level is based upon the routine characterization of emotions as feelings. Feelings in turn are understood as sensory perceptions. Their complex entanglement is reciprocal and often culturally constructed. It is this cultural construction that makes them and their entanglement worth studying in their historical depth and for their potential materiality and their influences on social and political micro- and macro-processes.

Ancient Egyptian art often includes depictions of the act of smelling and of smell-carrying objects. Though the act of smelling and the objects themselves are visibly recognizable, both underline the presence of an invisible force, that of scent. In this analysis, I argue that the visible presentation of scent-rich environments in Theban tomb wall paintings from the Eighteenth Dynasty was meant to mark divine presence, another invisible force. Textual evidence from mortuary literature reveals that the Egyptian gods could be identified by their smell. Thus, if the deceased were to take on this smell (i.e., identity) of the gods, the resulting change in identity would facilitate a successful transition into the afterlife. In addition, smell may also be linked with the "breath of life," which could be invoked to call the deceased back to the living world to receive offerings.