Hingley, R. (2009). Esoteric Knowledge? Ancient Bronze Artefacts from Iron Age Contexts. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 75. Vol 75, pp. 143-165.
Title The title of the publication or report |
Esoteric Knowledge? Ancient Bronze Artefacts from Iron Age Contexts | ||||||||
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Issue The name of the volume or issue |
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 75 | ||||||||
Series The series the publication or report is included in |
The Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society | ||||||||
Volume Volume number and part |
75 | ||||||||
Page Start/End The start and end page numbers. |
143 - 165 | ||||||||
Biblio Note This is a Bibliographic record only. |
Please note that this is a bibliographic record only, as originally entered into the BIAB database. The ADS have no files for download, and unfortunately cannot advise further on where to access hard copy or digital versions. | ||||||||
Publication Type The type of publication - report, monograph, journal article or chapter from a book |
Journal | ||||||||
Abstract The abstract describing the content of the publication or report |
'Esoteric knowledge is knowledge of the unusual, the exceptional, the extraordinary; knowledge of things that in some way lie beyond the familiar everyday world' (Helms 1988, 13). This paper explores the ways in which Bronze Age bronze artefacts may, on occasions, have been used in the commemoration of place during the southern British Iron Age. The chronologically-based typological systems adopted by archaeologists indicate that these artefacts occur out of their time as they were already several centuries old when they were buried, but it should not be supposed that Iron Age societies necessarily viewed these items entirely in terms of a linear sequence of time. While broadly similar in form and material to items in the cultural repertoire of contemporary society, the bronzes were also quite distinct in the particular forms that they adopted. That these items often appear to have been deposited at sites with a pre-existing monumentality may suggest that objects and places were felt to share 'otherworldliness'. These items and places may have been used to construct esoteric knowledge through reference to spirits but it is also likely that particular acts of curation and deposition created genealogical associations, incorporating ideas of the mythical past into the context of the present. Drawing on the evidence for the form and contexts of depositions of these objects, this paper addresses the connected topics of what Iron Age society did to objects and sites derived from its own past and what we, in turn, do to (and can do with) the information derived from the Iron Age. | ||||||||
Year of Publication The year the book, article or report was published |
2009 | ||||||||
Locations Any locations covered by the publication or report. This is not the place the book or report was published. |
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Source Where the record has come from or which dataset it was orginally included in. |
BIAB
(biab_online)
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Created Date The date the record of the pubication was first entered |
11 Feb 2015 |