Objects and Concepts Conference
Program
Nemzetek Háza (1062, Budapest, Bajza u. 54, mfsz.)
in person or by zoom
19, January, Thursday
10-10,30:
Arrival and Greeting
Benedek Varga, Director of the HNM Semmelweis Museum for Medical History
Hedvig Győry, president of HEFS AEC
10,30-12,00 / EN
Virginia Webb, Reception and alteration: Aegyptiaca in 8th and 7th century East Greece through the lens of sanctuary deposits on Samos and Miletus. Import or local production??
Benedek Varga, Connections in the museum representation of the Seuso treasure / A Seuso kincs múzeumi reprezentációjának összefüggései
Urška Furlan, A case study of society through production, consumption, and circulation of amulets of the Nile Delta in the first millennium BCE
12,30-14,00 / HU
Bohacsek Dóra, „Idézlek téged, démon, bárki vagy is (…)”– Latin nyelvű átoktáblák Észak-Afrikából (“I summon you, demon, whoever you are (…)” – Latin curse tablets from North Africa)
Scheffer Krisztina – Győry Hedvig, Udzsat szemek a SOMban (Wedjat eyes in the collection of the HNM Semmelweis Museum for Medical history)
Vámos Gabriella, „Fújtak rá cukrot, hogy ne fájjon annyira…” A cukor mint a népi gyógyászat egyik alapanyaga (“They sprayed sugar on it so it wouldn’t hurt so much…” Sugar as one of the ingredients of folk medicine)
20, Január, Friday
10-11,30 / EN
Simon Rita, The curious history of Tutankhamun’s scarab
Afaf Wahba, Objects associated with burials, concept, purpose & meaning applied with examples from recent excavations. Egypt.
Esther Pons Mellado, Predynastic vessel with human and animal representations
12,00-13,30 / HU
Fullér Andrea – Feró Eszter, Tutanhamontól a szecesszióig: a Zsolnay gyár egyiptizáló díszműáruja (From Tutankhamun to Art Nouveau: the Zsolnay factory’s Egyptionizing decorative goods) – for copyright reasons only in person lecture
Véninger Péter, Medma és Hipponion, két ókori görög város kerámia emlékei fazekas szemmel (Clay objects of two ancient Greek towns, Medma and Hipponion, with a potter’s eye)
Győry Hedvig, Az év ókori egyiptomi emléke: A Thoerisz/Taweret amulettek kérdéséhez (The ancient Egyptian object of the year: To the question of the Thoeris/Taweret amulets)
13,30-14,00
Closing remarks
on the occasion of the bicentenary of the decipherment of the Rosetta stone
(19-20th January, 2023)
Dear Colleagues,
The HEFS Ancient Egyptian Committee in partnership with the HNM Semmelweis Museum for Medical History is pleased to announce the next Conference „Objects and Concepts” to be held from 19th to 20th January, 2023, in-person in Budapest, Hungary and online. The language of the conference is English and Hungarian.
The Hungarian-Egyptian Friendship Society, Ancient Egyptian Committee (HEFS AEC / MEBT ÓEB) has organised conferences since 2000 in cooperation with various museums, the proceedings of which appear in the series of the Aegyptus et Pannonia. The sixth volume is available as open access on the academy.edu, while the seventh is in the process of editing.
With this conference we want to provide a platform to present ongoing projects, results or discoveries and theoretical-methodological works to a broad audience of researchers and interested public. We intend to bring together scholars of Egyptology, archaeology, ancient history, ethnography, cultural anthropology, oriental or African studies and other related disciplines to widen our vision, share our knowledge and learn from each other.
This time, we focus on the research projects that have brought about changes in the perception and interpretation of our material culture, whether it is rethinking the real or perceived content behind the objects, or an understanding of the object’s function, use, and social value. We invite to submit proposals for 20-minute presentations and posters by scholars and graduate students from a variety of disciplines. Papers can cover material culture in a broad sense, in the field of archaeology including fieldwork, in art and craft, everyday life, religion, museum or archive studies, conservation, ethnographical projects, trade or sciences, such as medicine or astronomy, or methodology, centred on the ancient and early medieval world, but also its impact on later cultures or comparative materials from other cultures. The main approach is to show the manifestations of the material and technological changes, the evolution of their perception and interpretation, and the discussion of methodological issues.
The proposed sections are:
– changes in times / approach resulting in changes of interpretation or reinterpretation of objects or new needs (ritual objects, musical instruments, amulets, votive statuettes, changes in modern perception, archaizing, imitation, Egyptianizing works, etc. )
– same purpose realised in different ways at various cultures (making pottery, lighting a fire, casting bronze etc. )
– reuse of older object in the same or different function (recarving, -painting, usurpation, etc. )
– relationship of object and inscription / textual sources
– perception of the same object by different strata of the population (reserve heads, amulets, official, popular or ritual use, etc.)
There is no registration fee, but we accept contributions for the publication of the proceedings.
We would appreciate if you would consider participating at the conference. If you have any question, please contact us by the e-mail below.
We also kindly requests you to forward the circular to colleagues who might be interested in participating.
Basic information: <
Deadline for the abstract submission is the 15th of November 2022.
Notification of acceptance by the 5th of December 2022.
Abstracts should consist of no more than 350 words, and provided with keywords and short professional CV.
Applications are to be e-mailed to mebt@mebt.hu
First call for paper in pdf format for download here.
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This will be the eighth conference, with the intention of presenting current research and developments in the interpretation of archaeological objects. The name and function of a unique object in itself, or even more from a fragment of an object, and also representations of objects, are often only guesswork. However, if it has special artistic features, or parallels of shape and pattern, this can greatly assist in identifying it, or – when those objects have an appropriate context – to even place it into chronological, historical, geographical, ritual or functional context. The conference is organised around these questions.
Some examples
Known archaeological context gives more accuracy in understanding the objects. The reserve heads, primarily originating from the 4th Dynasty cemetery in Giza, can be classified, based on this data, to belong to the funeral equipment of high rank individuals living at that time. Together with the stylistic similarity, this makes likely that all were produced in the same royal workshop, and a more thorough examination of the find-spots narrows the production time to just one pharaoh, Khufu.
Unlike these heads, amulets were produced throughout almost the whole period of ancient Egyptian civilisation, but the function of the various types and the ways of using them changed as well as the iconography of a given amulet type. Probably the longest history is attested by the wedjat eye amulets, which lived on still in the Middle Ages as a Muslim amulet for the number five. They are usually regarded as accessories, which gave various types of protection, but they were also worn as jewellery, which followed the fashion of their time. The find-spot, date, the gender of the bearer, other items used with them, and many other factors might provide important information relating to their contemporaneous interpretation, and secular, religious, or ritual significance. The composition which incorporates some elements but omits others, and the proportion of certain types or materials may also be important, which is well exemplified by the amulets found in Tell el Amarna.
Representations might also contain enigmatic details, such as for instance the head cones. Researchers have debated whether they were ornamental decorations at banquet scenes, or real objects and, if so, what material were they made from and what was their purpose? The Amarna excavations yielded the remnants of two of these items in 2019, and Investigations revealed that they did not contain fat or perfume, but beeswax. However, without the many representations in New Kingdom banqueting scenes, which show cones worn on top of the head, it would have been impossible to identify these shapeless items. They were so even for ancient Egyptians, who painted them on the stela of Djedher in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
Find-spots can say much about the commercial routes. One of the creators of the black figure vase-painting in Lakonia, who also introduced new pottery shapes, the lakaina and the krater lakonicos, took his (modern) name from a Greek town in Egypt: the Naukratis painter. His eponymous vase (BM 1886,0401.1063) came to light there in the Apollo sanctuary, others in Kyrene, but most were found in Sparta and its neighbourhood, thus they provide information about special interest in these far away countries. In addition, terracotta statuettes all over the Hellenistic world may hint at popular or state ritual acts, but also reflect artistic taste.
Another example of such a trade relationship can be discovered in the early Iron Age Celtic princely sites (7th-5th centuries BC) in southern Germany, Switzerland and eastern France. Examination of the remains of ceramic vessels originating from the Mediterranean imports not only confirms that there was a lively connection between the Mediterranean and these regions, but also the fact that the adopted customs and objects came into common usage for the wider population, not only among the contemporary elite.
Inscriptions offer another way in understanding objects. Concerning the ancient world, the decipherment of the hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion exactly 200 years ago, changed completely our understanding of ancient Egyptian civilisation. Even earlier, it became possible to read cuneiform text, in the simplest Old Persian version, thanks to Georg Friedrich Grotefend: he read the Xerxes inscription from Persepolis in 1902. His translation was, however, only accepted, when Champollion read the Egyptian text of the quadrilingual hieroglyph-cuneiform inscription on the Caylus vase in 1823. The decipherment of the old Persian language was, however, only accomplished in 1835 by Henry Creswicke Rawlinson with the help of the Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian trilingual rock inscription in Mount Behistun.
Written sources can assist a better understanding of objects, when they are referred to in a text, or when the object itself carries an inscription. It is fortunate that sometimes not only the object itself, or its representation in art, is known, but also the owners of the item, and the exact dates of its production or use, which all assist in identifying its purpose.
In special cases as with the Zagreb mummy, the Etruscan Liber Linteus points – even if only partly understood – to Egyptian-Etruscan connection between the Lake Trasimeno district and Ptolemaic Egypt in the 3rd century BC.
Some artists are known from quotations by classical authors, others by their own identifying marks on their works; examples include an Attic red-figure style painter, Aristophanes, who signed two bowls together with his potter (Berlin, Boston), revealing their joint work; and the Athenian black figure vase painter Exekias made both pottery and painting works himself.
The ‘Vettweiss-Froitzheim Dice Tower” in Bonn looks like a fortress model but a Latin inscription on it, which ends with Ludite Romani! / „Play Romans!” reveals that it was a gaming piece.
Iinscriptions carved on the surface scarabs or some amulets reveal the purpose for which they were made. Also separate inscriptions can provide details of their use, as in the case of the dwarf amulets, where several papyri, stela and statue(tte)s describe how they hastened delivery or helped those who were bitten by snakes or scorpions.
Ethnography, ethnoarchaeology and experimental archaeology again contribute so much to our understanding of objects. Recently, several attempts were made to reconstruct the beer and bread consumed in different periods of Egyptian and Mesopotamian history, based on analysis of the constituents of surviving materials. Also, there is keen interest in the recipe for the tiger-nut cakes produced in the confectionery of the Amon-Ra temple in Karnak under the direction of Rekhmire, based on the wall paintings of his tomb and on observation of current methods which are still in use.
Comparative studies about pottery manufacture have continued for a long time, and have included a successful project to discover how pottery is made in Sai Island, among others. Similar experiment has been pursued in metallurgy.
Ethnographical observations help us to understand how certain tools were used or to investigate methods of farming in ancient times. Ethnography can provide new insight into aspects of social and cultural order. Based on new experiments and concepts, fresh ideas and revised interpretations evolve in many areas, including the production of animal mummies.
Archaeometric studies using modern methods also play an important role, and reconstructions and conservation are inconceivable without them.
Therefore, this conference covers many topics. Religious, mundane or even philosophical concepts shape our life and are reflected by the objects we use. Understanding these objects is thus crucial for interpreting ancient times. Getting to know the objects, their background, and the spiritual orientation manifested in them, and the methods by which they were produced, are all equally important in this conference.