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Towards an Archaeology of Everyday Aesthetics

Skeates, Robin

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Abstract

The concept of aesthetics has long been marginalized in archaeology. It was originally formulated in the eighteenth century as part of an appreciation of Greek art and was fundamentally concerned with appreciating a quasi-universal idea of beauty; and as archaeologists and anthropologists recognized the distortion created by applying it to material from non-Western and pre-modern art, it fell into disfavour. An alternative anthropological approach pioneered by Howard Morphy regards aesthetics as the study of the affects of the physical properties of objects on the senses and the qualitative evaluation of those properties; this converges with the emerging philosophical study of ‘everyday aesthetics’. This article explores how archaeologists could apply these concepts, particularly through a study of Maltese Neolithic everyday aesthetics.

Citation

Skeates, R. (2017). Towards an Archaeology of Everyday Aesthetics. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 27(4), 607-616. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774317000622

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 13, 2017
Online Publication Date Sep 6, 2017
Publication Date Sep 6, 2017
Deposit Date Oct 5, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Cambridge Archaeological Journal
Print ISSN 0959-7743
Electronic ISSN 1474-0540
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 27
Issue 4
Pages 607-616
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774317000622

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Copyright Statement
This article has been published in a revised form in Cambridge archaeological journal https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774317000622. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. ©  McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2017.





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