“From clay figurines to craft figures: tracing producers’ technical and social background through multidisciplinary approaches ” is a seminar to be run by the research project PROCESS “Pharaonic Rescission: Objects as Crucibles of ancient Egyptian Societies”, led by Prof. Gianluca Miniaci (University of Pisa). The seminar is dedicated to the social and technical background of craft figures, explored through a specific class of materials: clay figurines.
Clay figurines and craft figures usually analyzed through a stylistic and iconographic approach represents a valuable and sometimes underestimated mean for inferring the social and the technical background of their producers.
Indeed, as a material product, figurines reflect a series of aspects, such as raw material exploitation and processing, shaping techniques, embodied knowledge, and skill, which are key evidence for reconstructing the identity of their ancient producers.
In this framework, the seminar will bring together scholars addressing clay figurines from different chronological and cultural contexts however novel and multidisciplinary approaches (archaeometric investigations, technological traces analysis, and 3D modeling), with the aim to promote the debate on this topic and identify effective research strategies suitable for the reconstruction of the social and technical background of the craft figures.
The seminar will be held on 9 June 2021 on Microsoft Teams at this link:
Program & Abstracts here
<https://egittologia.cfs.unipi
For a prominent exhibition dedicated to Greek figurines, held in Thessaloniki back in 2017, see here.