Sebastian Becker
Currently working on a study of prehistoric cenotaphs/empty graves.
I am a post-doctoral researcher in the HERA-funded project DEEPDEAD (http://www.orea.oeaw.ac.at/deepdead.html) at the Institute of Oriental and European Archaeolgy, Vienna.
In 2015 I completed my PhD in the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge. Please see the document 'Birds on Bronzes' which contains the summary of my PhD thesis.
As part of the DEEPDEAD project I'm researching the postfunerary modification of human burials in Central Europe, from the Neolithic to the end of the pre-Roman Iron Age . The aim of this research is to investigate how and to what extent later societies engaged with the funerary record of the past. The database generated as part of this project could provide an important comparative record for the study of postfunerary phenomena in modern times.
Another strand of my research explores the role of visual media in later prehistoric Europe, roughly between the 13th and 5th centuries BC. I'm particularly interested in the capacity of images and objects to create social relationships, and recently I've been exploring the concept of branding to make sense of some rather intriguing patterns in the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age record (see PhD abstract).
In the future I would like to focus more on the relationship between Central/Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Near East during the Bronze Age. I'm especially interested in exploring the extent to which visual imagery may have played a role in the development of transregional/-cultural networks. I'd be very happy to collaborate with anyone who shares this interest.
I am a post-doctoral researcher in the HERA-funded project DEEPDEAD (http://www.orea.oeaw.ac.at/deepdead.html) at the Institute of Oriental and European Archaeolgy, Vienna.
In 2015 I completed my PhD in the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge. Please see the document 'Birds on Bronzes' which contains the summary of my PhD thesis.
As part of the DEEPDEAD project I'm researching the postfunerary modification of human burials in Central Europe, from the Neolithic to the end of the pre-Roman Iron Age . The aim of this research is to investigate how and to what extent later societies engaged with the funerary record of the past. The database generated as part of this project could provide an important comparative record for the study of postfunerary phenomena in modern times.
Another strand of my research explores the role of visual media in later prehistoric Europe, roughly between the 13th and 5th centuries BC. I'm particularly interested in the capacity of images and objects to create social relationships, and recently I've been exploring the concept of branding to make sense of some rather intriguing patterns in the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age record (see PhD abstract).
In the future I would like to focus more on the relationship between Central/Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Near East during the Bronze Age. I'm especially interested in exploring the extent to which visual imagery may have played a role in the development of transregional/-cultural networks. I'd be very happy to collaborate with anyone who shares this interest.
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Papers by Sebastian Becker
Talks by Sebastian Becker
Interestingly, a closer look at such figurative imagery shows that it mostly revolved around the same key theme, involving the same protagonists. It shows animals, usually birds, mediating the solar cycle. The visual representation of this core narrative should be seen as a strategic choice. A feature of prestige goods, its relative scarcity provided a means to articulate social differences . At the same time, its concern with notions of cyclicality and regeneration were apt to legitimate that function.
This presentation explores that process through a synthesis of material from Urnfield Europe, and concludes with a brief discussion of the continuity of such imagery during the Early Iron Age. It thus illustrates the significant role of figurative designs during the Bronze Age and the importance of asking ‘why represent what’s real?’
I will discuss both of these contributions in relation to Late Bronze and Early Iron Age bird representations produced in metalwork (c. 1300-500 BC). A diachronic and geographically widespread phenomenon, bird iconography forces us to think about scales; at the same time, grand narratives, often revolving around inter-regional contacts, have either ignored of de-problematised the temporal dimension of bird iconography, by seeing it as a homogenous entity with clearly identifiable culture-historical origins. A focus on the creative choices embedded in the design of bird motifs illustrates the interdigitation of different temporal scales and, as such, provides a more nuanced understanding of long-term iconographic reproduction. It also illustrates the relevance of studying this corpus of material for the analysis of iconography in more recent contexts. A focus on creativity, in providing a reflective 'bird's eye view' on the archaeological record, thus holds the potential to refine our interpretation of Bronze Age material culture, both analytically and interpretively
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My doctoral research investigates the continuity of this particular image theme through a systematic comparison of representations from both periods. This paper addresses the relationship between iconographic conventions, human agency and long-term change/continuity.
Based on material from Central Europe (southern Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary), I will focus on the following results of my ongoing research: first, the conventions governing the combination and association of bird and solar motifs did not undergo significant changes from the Late Bronze to Early Iron Age. In both periods birds seem to have had comparable roles as cosmological agents mediating the solar cycle. Second, the notions of movement implicated in this theme were expressed via conventionalised motif-object relationships. By the middle of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1100-1050 BC) bird representations occurred on wagons and wagon wheels, thus translating a cosmology of movement into a design of movement. The latter was still present throughout the Early Iron Age, primarily in the form of bird motifs on movable vessel handles, wagons and horse tack. Thus, in both periods there was a tendency to visually and physically articulate metaphors of movement vis-à-vis artefactual design.
In conclusion, this paper argues that the longue durée of bird representations in the Central European Late Bronze and Early Iron Age is explicable in terms of a dialectic relationship between human agency and iconographic/stylistic traditions. Human agents combined and designed bird motifs in order to materialise cosmological knowledge. From a long-term perspective, however, the design idioms devised in this process created stylistic/iconographic universes that both framed and facilitated human agency. This dialectic relationship is epitomised by the continuity of a design idiom centred around the visual and physical animation of bird motifs. Thus, metaphors of movement became moving traditions.
Having reviewed these topics, the paper concludes that creativity need not necessarily be associated with innovations. In the case of Bronze and Early Iron Age iconography, it may be better envisioned as the continuous negotiation of cosmological knowledge and human agency within stylistic traditions.
As a case study, this paper draws on the results of ongoing research on Late Bronze and Early Iron Age bird iconography (ca. 1300-750 BC) from Central Europe. A hallmark of this period, two and three-dimensional bird representations occur on a wide range of artefacts; so far, however, the relationship between motifs and artefacts has received little attention. A review of the material suggests that bird symbols informed the sensory perception of objects by becoming part of their functional design: to use the artefact was to engage with the bird. Thus, archaeologically, the flourishing of bird iconography in later European prehistory may be partly explained by the creation of homologous links between an artefact's anticipated function and symbolic connotations, affording particular types of sensory engagement with cosmological knowledge.
Conference by Sebastian Becker
Hence, the aim of this one-day workshop is to shift the spotlight to the materiality of religious discourse. We will examine how material culture both informs and structures religious ontologies in different historical and socio-cultural contexts. This demands that we investigate the mediative role of material culture on multiple levels, including its design, sensory/cognitive effects and involvement in ritual practice.
The workshop welcomes submissions to the following topics:
• the relationship between religious material culture, emotion and cognition
• the materiality and role of religious art, iconography and aesthetics • the role of material culture in ritual practice
• religious material culture and the body
• object biographies and temporalities
Research Documents by Sebastian Becker
Interestingly, a closer look at such figurative imagery shows that it mostly revolved around the same key theme, involving the same protagonists. It shows animals, usually birds, mediating the solar cycle. The visual representation of this core narrative should be seen as a strategic choice. A feature of prestige goods, its relative scarcity provided a means to articulate social differences . At the same time, its concern with notions of cyclicality and regeneration were apt to legitimate that function.
This presentation explores that process through a synthesis of material from Urnfield Europe, and concludes with a brief discussion of the continuity of such imagery during the Early Iron Age. It thus illustrates the significant role of figurative designs during the Bronze Age and the importance of asking ‘why represent what’s real?’
I will discuss both of these contributions in relation to Late Bronze and Early Iron Age bird representations produced in metalwork (c. 1300-500 BC). A diachronic and geographically widespread phenomenon, bird iconography forces us to think about scales; at the same time, grand narratives, often revolving around inter-regional contacts, have either ignored of de-problematised the temporal dimension of bird iconography, by seeing it as a homogenous entity with clearly identifiable culture-historical origins. A focus on the creative choices embedded in the design of bird motifs illustrates the interdigitation of different temporal scales and, as such, provides a more nuanced understanding of long-term iconographic reproduction. It also illustrates the relevance of studying this corpus of material for the analysis of iconography in more recent contexts. A focus on creativity, in providing a reflective 'bird's eye view' on the archaeological record, thus holds the potential to refine our interpretation of Bronze Age material culture, both analytically and interpretively
"
My doctoral research investigates the continuity of this particular image theme through a systematic comparison of representations from both periods. This paper addresses the relationship between iconographic conventions, human agency and long-term change/continuity.
Based on material from Central Europe (southern Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary), I will focus on the following results of my ongoing research: first, the conventions governing the combination and association of bird and solar motifs did not undergo significant changes from the Late Bronze to Early Iron Age. In both periods birds seem to have had comparable roles as cosmological agents mediating the solar cycle. Second, the notions of movement implicated in this theme were expressed via conventionalised motif-object relationships. By the middle of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1100-1050 BC) bird representations occurred on wagons and wagon wheels, thus translating a cosmology of movement into a design of movement. The latter was still present throughout the Early Iron Age, primarily in the form of bird motifs on movable vessel handles, wagons and horse tack. Thus, in both periods there was a tendency to visually and physically articulate metaphors of movement vis-à-vis artefactual design.
In conclusion, this paper argues that the longue durée of bird representations in the Central European Late Bronze and Early Iron Age is explicable in terms of a dialectic relationship between human agency and iconographic/stylistic traditions. Human agents combined and designed bird motifs in order to materialise cosmological knowledge. From a long-term perspective, however, the design idioms devised in this process created stylistic/iconographic universes that both framed and facilitated human agency. This dialectic relationship is epitomised by the continuity of a design idiom centred around the visual and physical animation of bird motifs. Thus, metaphors of movement became moving traditions.
Having reviewed these topics, the paper concludes that creativity need not necessarily be associated with innovations. In the case of Bronze and Early Iron Age iconography, it may be better envisioned as the continuous negotiation of cosmological knowledge and human agency within stylistic traditions.
As a case study, this paper draws on the results of ongoing research on Late Bronze and Early Iron Age bird iconography (ca. 1300-750 BC) from Central Europe. A hallmark of this period, two and three-dimensional bird representations occur on a wide range of artefacts; so far, however, the relationship between motifs and artefacts has received little attention. A review of the material suggests that bird symbols informed the sensory perception of objects by becoming part of their functional design: to use the artefact was to engage with the bird. Thus, archaeologically, the flourishing of bird iconography in later European prehistory may be partly explained by the creation of homologous links between an artefact's anticipated function and symbolic connotations, affording particular types of sensory engagement with cosmological knowledge.
Hence, the aim of this one-day workshop is to shift the spotlight to the materiality of religious discourse. We will examine how material culture both informs and structures religious ontologies in different historical and socio-cultural contexts. This demands that we investigate the mediative role of material culture on multiple levels, including its design, sensory/cognitive effects and involvement in ritual practice.
The workshop welcomes submissions to the following topics:
• the relationship between religious material culture, emotion and cognition
• the materiality and role of religious art, iconography and aesthetics • the role of material culture in ritual practice
• religious material culture and the body
• object biographies and temporalities