Images in the Making

This innovative collection examines how an appreciation of the practices involved in making images can alter archaeological accounts of societies. Featuring case studies ranging from prehistoric Britain and Scandinavia to Iberia, the Americas and Dynastic Egypt, it makes a novel contribution to current debates over archaeological art and images.

At the core of the book is a new materialist analysis that focuses on the material character of images and their making and unfolding. This approach interprets images as processes or events - conditions of possibility that draw together different aspects of the world. The book is divided into three sections: 'Emergent images' looks at practices of making; 'Images as process' considers the making and role of images in prehistoric societies; and 'Unfolding images' examines how images change as they are made and circulated. The contributors, including archaeologists, Egyptologists, anthropologists and artists, highlight the multiple roles of images in both prehistoric and historic societies, demonstrating that archaeologists need to recognise the dynamic and changeable character of images.

Images in the making will appeal to students and scholars with an interest in the archaeology of art and images, art history, media studies and the anthropology of art.

1 Introduction - Ing-Marie Back Danielsson and Andrew Meirion Jones
Part I: Emergent images
2 The Nile in the hippopotamus: being and becoming in faience figurines of Middle Kingdom ancient Egypt - Rune Nyord
3 An archaeology of anthropomorphism: upping the ontological ante of Alfred Gell's anthropology of art through a focus on making - Ben Alberti
4 Dirty RTI - Ian Dawson
Commentary - Tim Ingold
Part II: Images as process
5 Rock art as process: Iberian Late Bronze Age 'warrior' stelae in-the-making - Marta Díaz-Guardamino
6 Images and forms before Plato: the carved stone balls of Northeast Scotland - Andrew Meirion Jones
7 Connectivity and the making of Atlantic rock art - Joana Valdez-Tullett
8 Neolithic and Copper Age stamps in the Balkans: a material and processual account of image making- Agni Prijatelj
Commentary - Chantal Conneller
Part III: Unfolding images
9 Pattern as patina: Iron Age 'Kintsugi' from East Yorkshire - Helen Chittock
10 The act of creation: tangible engagements in the making and 're-making' of prehistoric rock art - Lara Bacelar Alves
11 'Guldgubbar's' changing ontology: Scandinavian Late Iron Age gold foil figures through the lense of intra-action - Ing-Marie Back Danielsson
12 The partial and the vague as a visual mode in Bronze Age rock art- Fredrik Fahlander
Parts and holes: a commentary - Louisa Minkin
Index