Week 01: Introduction Flashcards
Political/Cultural Contexts behind The Curse of King Tut
- 1882 British Army occupied Egypt
- Egypt was a protectorate until the declaration of Egyptian independence on 28 Feb 1922
- Within that context, King Tut (disc. Nov 1922) was a symbol of nationalism and the curse was a rejection of colonial dominance
- the very essence of Egyptian identity was fighting back against the British
Is the curse of King Tut true?
No, but this example shows the anthropological approach and the power that mummies have over public discourse, knowing cultural context is everything
Define Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humans, past and present. To understand the full sweep and complexity of cultures across all of human history, anthropology draws and builds upon knowledge from the social and biological sciences as well as the humanities and physical sciences
What are the 4 sub disciplines of Anthropology
Sociocultural, Biological (Physical), Archaeology, Linguistics
Key Perspectives of Anthropology
- The cross cultural perspective, ethnographic perspective, evolutionary perspective
What is the cross-cultural perspective of Anthropology?
- studies, such as the study of mummies, examine phenomenon in a variety of cultures, trying to understand similarities and differences and what leads to those similarities and differences
What is the ethnographic perspective in Anthropology
- a holistic approach to culture, involves first-hand experience, often qualitative research methods, most mummies belong to past cultures (but not all of them)
What is the evolutionary perspective in Antrhopology
- the understanding that we have evolved as a species within the context of the environment, recognizes that the environment has both physical (nature) and cultural (nurture) components
Archaeology definition
archaeology, is the science that studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, bio facts, human remains and landscapes
What is the goal of archaeology
to document and explain the origins and development of human culture, understand culture history, chronicle cultural evolution, and study human behaviour and ecology, for both prehistoric and historic societies
What does BC stand for?
Before Christ
What does BCE stand for?
Before Common Era
What does AD stand for
anno domini
What does years CE stand for
Common Era
What does BP stand for?
Before Present, technically before 1950 (nuclear testing)
dates in years, however, described, are called…
chronometric or absolute dates
law of superposition - statigraphy
things that are lower underground are usually older than things closer to the surface, relative dating
Define biological anthropology
Physical/biological anthropology is the study of the past and present evolution of the human species and is especially concerned with understanding the causes of the human species and is especially concerned with understanding gate causes of present human diversity.
Fields within biological anthropology
human palaeontology, evolutionary biology, human genetics, comparative anatomy and physiology, primate behaviour, human behavioural ecology, and human biology. Human biology broadly covers the areas of modern human biological variation, human ecology, nutrition and demography. What makes physical/biological anthropology unique is that it brings all of these areas to bear on our understanding of the human condition.
What specific area of archaeology is central to the study of mummies?
Bioarchaeology
Define bioarchaeology
the study of human remains from archaeological contexts, field emphasizes integrative, interdisciplinary analysis of the links between biology and culture in past societies, this approach has contributed to an informed understanding of the range of social, behavioural, and economic conditions and circumstances that have shaped the human experience, especially health and well-being, lifestyle, and quality of life
bio archaeology has evolved from
modern use has evolved from paleopathology,
Bioarchaeology scope focuses on…
quality of life: the living and the dead, behaviour and lifestyle, population and society
What does quality of life look into as a bioarchaeology subspecialty
Define Mummy Studies
mummy studies bio archaeology with the added dimensions of preserved soft tissue and associated cultural material related to the means of preservation
limitations of mummy studies
often dealing with small sample sizes, tension between the preservation of valuable specimens and destructive examination, need to adapt methods drawn from other analytical contexts
Mummy studies is inherently…
interdisciplinary
define interdisciplinary
mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of research
What is a Mummy?
any mortal remains that preserve soft tissue can be human or anima, can be anthropogenic or natural
What is an anthropogenic mummy?
man made mummy
What is a natural mummy
a mummy made by nature
Who discovered the Rosetta Stone
Napoleon
How were mummies monetized?
mummia - medicine
paint- mummy brown
fertilizer
mummy paper
active mummy trade to museums and collectors in the 1800s
Peru and Mummies
- spanish conquistadors encountered mummies of the Inca in the mid 1500s
- attempted to stop veneration of the dead
- Europeans recognized the skill of the Inca embalmers
- 1700s-1800s- mummies collected for European museums
-popularity came after Napoleonic Egyptian mummies captured the imagination of the European public
-systemic archaeological excavation and study that started in late 1800s
What is it about mummies that fascinates us?
they’re a little scary, they’re a part of history, remind us of our mortality, from exotic places, above all they’re people, it is easy to identify with them, no better way to understand cultures of the past than to study the people themselves
What is the Anthropological/Scientific Motivation for the Study of Mummies?
they are microcosms of information about ancient biology (health and disease), they are microcosms of information about ancient culture - and how it affected the body during life and after death
Arthur Aufderheide
Professor of pathology, established the World Congress on Mummy Studies, worked principally on mummies from Egypt, Peru and Chile, emphasized importance of assembling large bodies of data
- takes the position that the scientific information gathered from mummy studies is sufficient justification for mummy studies
Lonfat et al. group
- perspective is based on modern clinical research, where the focus is on the effective treatment of, and respect for the patient, their objective is to extend those principles to the “patients” of the past
Egypt has called for the repatriation of
Ramses I
