These fragments and artefacts have not been studied before and add to the previously published findings of animal skin artefacts from the Bronze Age salt mines, most recently published in a number of articles by Barth (1993 1992 1989) and will be discussed in comparison to recent analysis of the textile finds (Grömer 2005) from the same site and in relation to the context of animal skins in the Bronze Age. This includes the colour and texture, dimensions and thickness, sewing, seams and edges, use and reuse of these artefacts. The aim of this report is to describe the ten animal skin fragments and artefacts, and to discuss these in relation to the qualities and role of skins as a cloth technology in the Bronze Age. Of these the least commonly preserved in contexts outside the salt mines are animal skins, making finds of this type significant for my research. These mines offer an ideal preservation environment for cloth as the salt inhibits the action of microorganisms that would otherwise lead to the decay of organic materials, such as plant and animal fibres, and animal skins. This short report summarises preliminary research findings stemming from the examination of animal skins from the Bronze Age Hallstatt salt mines. This includes fibre-based cloth such as textiles, netting and twining as well as animal skins (leather and fur). One aspect of this is the interrelationship of the technologies used to create flexible, thin sheets of material that can be wrapped, folded, shaped and tied. My PhD research focused on the social context of cloth from the Neolithic to Bronze Age with case studies from the Alpine area. The social context of cloth from the Neolithic to Bronze Age as seen in the Hallstatt prehistoric animal skin artifacts. The display of human skeletons in cabinets began in the mid-seventeenth century in the context of natural history rather than medicine: human bones appeared side by side with animal bones.Hallstatt salt mine prehistoric staircase Sorting out the differing valuations among anatomical skeletons, relics, and charneled bones was another task of this project. Yet in cemeteries, the bones of the dead were given little respect. Practices and techniques evolved in the seventeenth century as the skeleton became increasingly essential to anatomical instruction, and construction of a skeleton became as much an art as a science, with attention paid to aesthetic values such as whiteness and smoothness as well as to anatomical accuracy. In this period, the physical skeleton became a prized commodity among men of science. The physical skeleton and its display form the other half of this story. These symbolic roles continued to be evident in illustrations of skeletons, whether in anatomical textbooks and atlases or in manuals for artists.Įxamining interactions between artists and anatomists illuminates the processes by which the act of dissection was transmitted to the pen and the page, and the tension between particularity and exemplarity. Between the sixteenth and the mid-eighteenth centuries, a critical juncture in the history of anatomy, the skeleton became a scientific object while retaining long-held connotations as symbols of death and as relics. Skeletons, moreover, were crafted objects prepared from dead human bodies. These perceptions have shifted over time and place, and as anatomical study rose to prominence in early modern Europe, they continued to coexist. The human skeleton has multiple meanings in history: medical, scientific, symbolic, religious.
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