Adorned Afterlife Network by Stephen Edward Bottomley

The Adorned Afterlife network was established by Bottomley in 2015 with a University of Edinburgh’s Challenge Investment Award. Bottomley brought together a network of international researchers from Design, Archaeology, Forensic Anthropology, History and Museology to examine hidden objects of adornment and share discourse and analysis through high-quality speculative multidisciplinary research. Museums contain many intangible artefacts from our past that relate to the body as adornment. These objects may be represented in paintings and carvings, or literally buried in sarcophaguses or beneath layers of funereal wrappings. The interdisciplinary nature of the network enabled the examination of these items through each others specialist expert lens, leading to the insight that although we saw the same item, we used different terms and language to describe it’s attributed use and meaning. Collectively we speculated on their purpose (why were they made), significance (both then and now) and how they were made (and by whom). The methodology followed practice-based research, comparing craft makers primary knowledge with curators secondary and tertiary sources via filmed interviews and presentations through each other’s lens of enquiry, to “learn by active experience and reflection on that experience” ( Gray & Malins, 2004). The network’s 2016 symposium co-ordinated by the researcher explored existing precedents and new technologies for the non-invasive examining of artefacts and paintings in museums by computerised tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning. A focus was the funereal adornments, carefully sited personal objects, placed beneath the wrapped and sealed bandages of Rhind Mummy at the Granton archives, the National Museum of Scotland. The findings of the research were further presented in the paper ‘The Quick and the Dead: the Changing Meaning and Significance of Jewellery Beyond the Grave’ (Bottomley) at the Canadian Craft Biennale (2017) and published as a ‘Visual-Textual Paper’in the Journal for Jewellery Research (2018).

http://canadiancraftbiennial.ca/symposium/about/

Click image above to access paper

The quick and the dead.

The changing meaning and significance of jewellery beyond the grave

Abstract:

Q. When is a piece of jewellery not a piece of jewellery?

A. When it is considered an amulet, charm or spell

The National Museums Scotland holds in its archive the 10BC Egyptian ‘Rhind mummy’, excavated in 1857 which was re-examined in 2012 by MRI scans made by the museums curators (J. Tate and S. Kirk) and University of Edinburgh anthropology departments (E. Kranioti, B. Osipov, J. Ouranos). Alongside objects fixed and attached carefully to considered locations on the outside of the Mummy’s body, there was also piece of metalwork inserted ontop of the skull and beneath the wrappings.

This project sought to reach beyond the 2012 identification and medical examination of the body to ask more questions of these attched and inserted amulets and talismans on the mummy. Would they be classified as jewellery, or as religious, spiritual charms? These and other outcomes were discussed at the network’s first symposium held in Edinburgh, Scotland March 31^st2016.

The Adorned Afterlife network (est. 2015) brought together researchers from across Design, Archaeology, Forensic Anthropology, History, Philosophy and Museum Studies to examine objects of adornment captured with digital technologies.

Museums contain many intangible artefacts from our past that relate to the body as adornment. These objects may be represented in paintings and carvings, or literally buried in sarcophaguses or beneath layers of funereal wrappings. Often placed in the past out of sight and reach, but now made visible or recognisable as symbolic or spiritual objects, often relating to death or the afterlife.

The network aims to explore these objects with new technologies non-invasive techniques, such as computerised tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) scanning, to reach, less tangible objects in museum collections that might be considered ‘Otherwise unobtainable’(Harrod).

Sharing our insights and knowledge we will collectively question:

Their purpose (why were they made)
Their significance (both then and now)
How they were made (and by whom)

Prof Stephen Bottomley

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