Rachael Sparks
I am a Near Eastern archaeologist, specialising in the archaeology of the Bronze and Iron Age Levant. Interests include cultural interaction and identity, and the history of archaeology in British Mandate Palestine.
Address: The Institute of Archaeology
31-34 Gordon Square
University College London
London WC1H 0PY
United Kingdom
Address: The Institute of Archaeology
31-34 Gordon Square
University College London
London WC1H 0PY
United Kingdom
less
InterestsView All (37)
Uploads
Books by Rachael Sparks
Bu kitap, 13 Eylül - 7 Aralık 2014 tarihleri arasında Koç Üniversitesi Anadolu Medeniyetleri Araştırma Merkezinde açılan Unutulmuş Krallık: Antik Alalah'ta Arkeoloji ve Fotoğraf sergisi kapsamında yayımlanmıştır.
Papers by Rachael Sparks
Publicity can be a double-edged sword, raising interest and support, along with the burden of expectation. Since the early work by Sellin and Watzinger, excavations at Jericho have always had a high profile. This paper will investigate how the site has been presented, the role played by archaeologists in creating media impressions, and the type of themes explored and how these have changed over time, as our knowledge of the site and its history has grown. It will also consider how the tools available for visual representation of ancient Jericho have developed, and the impact of these changes on public perception.
Whatever the reality about ancient Jericho, some audiences have become fixated on certain issues, which can override and undermine the stories archaeologists might like to tell about the site. In becoming iconic, Jericho has also become notorious as a site where different agendas clash, and controversy reigns. As such, it can become a useful lens for studying wider issues about the role of archaeology as an academic discipline versus archaeology as public entertainment.
and archives at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London (hereafter
IoA). It aims to give an overview of the material available, explore how it came to be
in London, review its historical relationship with the development of teaching within
the Institute, and consider its value to researchers interested in the archaeology
and photographic history of the region. It will conclude by outlining current policies
and attitudes to this material, and how the IoA plans to manage this resource in the
future.
This paper reviews the evidence for Middle and Late Bronze Age writing from a primarily archaeological perspective, showing how a study of object function, materiality and contexts of use can inform on broader questions of textual availability, awareness and execution. Texts played a variety of roles within the communities they served. Texts could act as educational tools; to exert political authority, impress and intimidate; to enhance objects used in funerary or ritual settings, and to mark personal ownership. Across these roles, we can also evaluate more broadly how writing technique, material and script converge, and what the choices that were being made in this respect can tell us about how writing was being organised and managed.
This leads to the conclusion that, despite strong script diversity in the region, most forms of script appear to have been used in discrete environments with little overlap between them. Many uses were confined to a professional setting, with scribes operating within local and imposed administrative networks as representatives of the status quo. Beyond this, writing was generally restricted to elite consumers and so had limited impact on society as a whole. The exception lay in more visible forms of writing, such as publically erected stelae, and in special classes of object such as amulets and amuletic objects, such as the scarab, which could be privately owned by a wider group of people. Accessibility, however, did not necessarily equate with understanding, and for the majority, the significance of a text may well have lain in its visual qualities and associations rather than in the actual words recorded.
Ultimately it was the more personal and unofficial applications of writing that proved to be the most robust, and it was these that survived to bridge the gap between the end of the Late Bronze Age, and the emergence of a whole new set of polities and writing practices in the Iron II period.
Bu kitap, 13 Eylül - 7 Aralık 2014 tarihleri arasında Koç Üniversitesi Anadolu Medeniyetleri Araştırma Merkezinde açılan Unutulmuş Krallık: Antik Alalah'ta Arkeoloji ve Fotoğraf sergisi kapsamında yayımlanmıştır.
Publicity can be a double-edged sword, raising interest and support, along with the burden of expectation. Since the early work by Sellin and Watzinger, excavations at Jericho have always had a high profile. This paper will investigate how the site has been presented, the role played by archaeologists in creating media impressions, and the type of themes explored and how these have changed over time, as our knowledge of the site and its history has grown. It will also consider how the tools available for visual representation of ancient Jericho have developed, and the impact of these changes on public perception.
Whatever the reality about ancient Jericho, some audiences have become fixated on certain issues, which can override and undermine the stories archaeologists might like to tell about the site. In becoming iconic, Jericho has also become notorious as a site where different agendas clash, and controversy reigns. As such, it can become a useful lens for studying wider issues about the role of archaeology as an academic discipline versus archaeology as public entertainment.
and archives at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London (hereafter
IoA). It aims to give an overview of the material available, explore how it came to be
in London, review its historical relationship with the development of teaching within
the Institute, and consider its value to researchers interested in the archaeology
and photographic history of the region. It will conclude by outlining current policies
and attitudes to this material, and how the IoA plans to manage this resource in the
future.
This paper reviews the evidence for Middle and Late Bronze Age writing from a primarily archaeological perspective, showing how a study of object function, materiality and contexts of use can inform on broader questions of textual availability, awareness and execution. Texts played a variety of roles within the communities they served. Texts could act as educational tools; to exert political authority, impress and intimidate; to enhance objects used in funerary or ritual settings, and to mark personal ownership. Across these roles, we can also evaluate more broadly how writing technique, material and script converge, and what the choices that were being made in this respect can tell us about how writing was being organised and managed.
This leads to the conclusion that, despite strong script diversity in the region, most forms of script appear to have been used in discrete environments with little overlap between them. Many uses were confined to a professional setting, with scribes operating within local and imposed administrative networks as representatives of the status quo. Beyond this, writing was generally restricted to elite consumers and so had limited impact on society as a whole. The exception lay in more visible forms of writing, such as publically erected stelae, and in special classes of object such as amulets and amuletic objects, such as the scarab, which could be privately owned by a wider group of people. Accessibility, however, did not necessarily equate with understanding, and for the majority, the significance of a text may well have lain in its visual qualities and associations rather than in the actual words recorded.
Ultimately it was the more personal and unofficial applications of writing that proved to be the most robust, and it was these that survived to bridge the gap between the end of the Late Bronze Age, and the emergence of a whole new set of polities and writing practices in the Iron II period.
This paper will explore the practical costs of excavation and the various methods by which funds were generated to cover these, including use of newspaper and radio coverage, public lectures and exhibitions and appeals to the generosity of individual patrons. It will consider how the purpose of fundraising developed over time, and ways in which we can measure the success of the tactics used.
Through a close study of the design, function and distribution of various classes of stone vessel, it is also possible to go beyond the household to their wider significance as indicators of complex trade relations and cross-cultural influences. Egyptian styles get first imported into the Levant, then imitated as local stone vessel workshops seek to take advantage of changing fashions. This is part of a wider process of assimilation and adaptation of foreign materials and ideas that tells us much about the Canaanite psyche of the time. Some of these products also take on a political edge, as they are exchanged at the highest level between royal families as part of the diplomatic dressing given to foreign communiqués. This lecture will lead you through an appreciation of this fascinating type of material and the light it can cast on Bronze Age history and culture.
This paper will explore how public perceptions of excavations at Jericho have been created and shaped by a range of media outputs, from newspapers and magazines, to television broadcasting and the internet. These kinds of engagements between archaeologists, journalists, and the general public create lasting impressions that characterise how we view Jericho and its history.
Publicity can be a double-edged sword, raising interest and support, along with the burden of expectation. Since the early work by Sellin and Watzinger, excavations at Jericho have always had a high profile. This paper will investigate how the site has been presented, the role played by archaeologists in creating media impressions, and the type of themes explored and how these have changed over time, as our knowledge of the site and its history has grown. It will also consider how the tools available for visual representation of ancient Jericho have developed, and the impact of these changes on public perception.
Whatever the reality about ancient Jericho, some audiences have become fixated on certain issues, which can override and undermine the stories archaeologists might like to tell about the site. In becoming iconic, Jericho has also become notorious as a site where different agendas clash, and controversy reigns. As such, it can become a useful lens for studying wider issues about the role of archaeology as an academic discipline versus archaeology as public entertainment.
One of Petrie's earliest contributions to archaeology was his conviction that all objects had value, not just those with some perceived artistic or linguistic merit. His interest in everyday finds changed the way people dug, and greatly improved the rate of object recovery. By the latter part of his career, when Petrie had moved his base of operations to Southern Palestine, this attitude had become commonplace amongst the fieldworkers of his day.
Yet there sometimes seems to be tension between the theoretical value Petrie placed on objects as chronological and cultural markers that help contextualise the physical remains of a site and the way in which they were actually used. This can be traced back to the way in which he conducted fieldwork, with the choices made having considerable impact on the type, quantity and quality of information that could be recovered. This paper will use both published and archival material to examine this tension, while placing his field methodology within its historical and intellectual context.
Flinders Petrie devoted the latter part of his career to excavations focusing on a small area of the southern Levant, chosen because of its position on the frontiers of Egypt and its potential for exploring biblical history. The material excavated at Tell Jemmeh, Tell Fara and Tell el-‘Ajjul proved influential in building a material cultural history of this region, while featuring in numerous chronological disputes, and continues to be used by scholars to the present day. But methods in the 1920s and 1930s were not what they are today, and current researchers often struggle to make use of the published data. So why should we bother? This paper uses evidence drawn from Petrie’s writings, field records, contemporary documentation and the objects themselves to demonstrate how a deeper understanding of Petrie’s policies and field practice can enable us to use this valuable resource to better effect. In particular, it will focus on identifying variable levels of context recording and the causes behind them, before providing a guide to isolating and excluding problematic data from future research and exploring tools for reconstructing stratified assemblages.
This paper has not been published
Tell el-‘Ajjul was an important Canaanite city, located near the mouth of the Wadi Ghazzeh in the southern coastal Levant. It was fortified, cosmopolitan, and comparatively wealthy, with its artefactual assemblages attesting to particularly close links with Cyprus and Egypt. The site was excavated by Flinders Petrie in the 1930s, exposing considerable areas of domestic housing on the tell, along with over 1500 burials. The latter were arranged in formal cemeteries on the flat ground outside the city walls, and in various spaces within the existing city, and provide a rich dataset with which to explore the nature of funerary practice at the site.
This paper will focus on material from Area G, one of the intramural burial grounds used at varying times in the history of occupation at the site. Using data from both the published record and unpublished archival resources, I will attempt to define the specific characteristics of these burials, including their stratigraphic relationship to the architecture and landscape around them, and to assess the funerary assemblages within them. As the majority of burials feature single interments in simple pit graves, this dataset is highly suited to explore another question that has been raised in relation to Bronze Age Canaanite practice; whether there is such a thing as a standardised ‘funeral kit’. I will therefore be looking for patterns of association within this material, to test the frequency with which certain objects and object sets appear together, and to explore what role these items may have played in a specifically funerary setting. Finally, I will contextualise the Area G burials in relation to wider MB burial practice at the site, to see if there may be demographic or other differences evident, as well as to customs in a wider regional landscape. Do the Area G burials reflect purely local practices and beliefs, or are they part of a wider Canaanite system?
This paper is currently being worked on for publication.
The material culture of the MB Levant undergoes a number of transformations, not the least of which involves the introduction of new forms of cultural expression. Many of these had their origin in Egyptian culture, encouraged by contacts made through trade and other means, including Canaanite settlement in the eastern Delta. This paper will explore the influence Egyptian culture had on that of the southern Levant, and how these influences were selectively adopted and adapted by consumers. It will focus particularly on whether the ways in which certain object types common to both cultures are interpreted and utilised in a culturally specific fashion, including scarabs and cosmetic vessels, and how this process changes over the course of the Bronze Age. This will lead to a better understanding of how object choice may be used to construct and mediate group identity.
This paper has not yet been published.
During the Second Millennium BC the Levant became the meeting point for a number of different writing traditions, including Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieratic, proto-Canaanite, Akkadian cuneiform, Ugaritic, Hittite hieroglyphs and Cypro-Minoan. This mixture of interregional influences and diverse practices provides a backdrop that may help explain the sort of experimentation that could lead to the development of alphabetic scripts, despite the presence of dominant syllabic writing systems in surrounding regions.
This paper seeks to explore the social and cultural setting in which writing was encountered, used, and in some cases adapted, by the peoples of the Levant during this formative period of its history. In particular, it will look at the types of objects on which writing appears, as well as their physical findspots, and what these can tell us about both the intended and actual audience for this kind of material. How and why, for example, did Canaanite workshops incorporate Egyptian hieroglyphic signs into their own repertoires? Was writing just a tool used by governments or did it have a more personal dimension? And what significance might this technology have for different audiences, including the non-literate?
Direct encounters with archaeological materials are an effective way to teach the practical side of the discipline while developing transferable skills such as observation, deductive reasoning, critical analysis and group working. This paper draws on the authors own experiences to develop guidelines for object handling in the university classroom. Good preparation, informed implementation, consolidation of gains and integration of such sessions into the wider curriculum are key elements of an effective strategy.
The paper has not yet been published.
It has not yet been published.