Robin Skeates

AXE AESTHETICS: STONE AXES AND VISUAL CULTURE IN PREHISTORIC MALTA

in «Oxford Journal of Archaeology» XXI, 1, 2002, pp. 13-22

Summary

Highlighting a theme of visual culture, this paper examines the physical and conceptual transformation of ground-stone axes in the Maltese islands between 5300 and 1500 cal BC: from tools and well-travelled valuables into symbolically-charged objects of social display, spiritual power and ritual sacrifice.

INTRODUCTION

In a previous study of the later life-histories of prehistoric stone axe-blades in the central Mediterranean region, I argued that stone axe-blades were gradually worn down in size during their lives as tools and as well-travelled commodities (Skeates 1995). I also suggested that although the majority of these axe-blades may simply have been lost or discarded at some time, a few of the most visually attractive and socially valued specimens were intentionally selected for a new lease of life. As ‘terminal commodities’ (Kopytoff 1986, 73–4, 89), which were too worn down to be of much further practical use but too highly valued to be simply thrown away or left as they were, these axe-blades could have been physically and conceptually transformed. In particular, they could have become valuable and symbolically-charged objects of social display, spiritual power, and ritual sacrifice — especially when removed from their hafts, polished, and even perforated to form axe-amulets.

In this paper I have two new aims. The first is to refine my original model, by highlighting a theme of visual culture with reference to these axe-blades. The term ‘visual culture’, which has recently gained some interdisciplinary acceptance, usefully complements and broadens the definition of ‘art’, with the belief that art objects comprise not only those made objects intended to be visually expressive and stimulating, but also an integral part of the mental and cultural processes through which people construct themselves. In doing so, ‘visual culture’ highlights not only the manufactured (‘artefactual’) nature of art, but also the centrality

and embeddedness of the material and the visual in the cultural process, within which both can participate actively in the production, reproduction and transformation of social meanings, values and relations (e.g. Walker and Chaplin 1997; Mirzoeff 1999). More specifically, such studies tend to apply a model of production, distribution and consumption to the analysis of visual culture, and try to pin down the unstable meanings of signs with reference to their historical, spatial and social contexts. They also share an interest in phenomenology, and in the structured and structuring role of visual culture in the practical and routine experiences of daily life. All of these approaches seem appropriate to the study of prehistoric ground-stone axes... leggi tutto