Культурна біографія артефакту: скіфський казан
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Date
2017
Authors
Бєлопольська, О.
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Abstract
У статті розглянуто поняття культурної біографії на прикладі скіфського казана та його
концепту, окреслено основні події життєвого циклу артефакту, проаналізовано передумови появи
казана скіфської культури в Північному Причорномор’ї.
Description
Over a century and a half, Scythian bronze cauldrons have been a subject of interest from the
technological, spatial and typological perspective. The author of the article addresses the relations between
the society and an artifact, namely a Scythian bronze cauldron, regarding it as an active participant of the
communication process between society and its material culture.
This cross-disciplinary developing approach – cultural biography of an artifact – is widely used in
sociology, anthropology, ethnology, and archaeology (A. MacKenzie, R. Appadurai, J. Hoskins, L. Meskell,
D. Fontijn).
A Scythian cauldron as an artifact is supposed to have a life cycle; its life and deposition are presupposed
by social and cultural conditions (necessity in an object, possessing raw materials and skill to work with it;
common and ritual usage and repair; smelting and deposition).
Cultural biography of the concept of the artifact deals with the whole class of objects and reveals its
general life cycle aspects. The origin of Scythian bronze cauldrons in the Black Sea steppes is likely
connected with technological or morphological borrowings. Thus, bronze melting production was widely
presented by Chinese ritual ding vessels and bronze cauldrons of the Western Mediterranean. The
morphological analogues encompass Late Bronze Age riveted cauldrons (Dykyi Sad, Lapas, Yahorlyk),
Greek craters of Geometric period, a cauldron from Gordion tomb in Turkey, ding vessels. All the prototypes
had some common and diverse features (material, minor details in form, decoration, and territory), while
the functionality – boiling meat or ritual feasting – remained the same. The tradition of production and
usage of Scythian bronze cauldrons as a concept ended due to social and cultural circumstances.
Thus, the cultural biography of an artifact and its concept suggests new perspectives of revealing the
aspects of their origin, usage, and deposition that can hardly be traced only by archaeology.
Keywords
значення артефакту, скіфський казан, культурна біографія, meaning of an artifact, Scythian cauldron, cultural biography
Citation
Бєлопольська О. А. Культурна біографія артефакту: скіфський казан/ Бєлопольська О. А. // Магістеріум. - 2017. - Вип. 67 : Археологічні студії. - С. 65-70.