11.5: Signs of Production
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As mentioned, it is difficult to locate many aspects of inscribed object production and use in time-space prior to deposition in the cemetery. However, some episodes of activity involved in the transformation of artefact materials and their inscription can be inferred from manufacture marks and other surface modifications. Through first-hand inspection or high resolution photographs or other documentation techniques of artefact surfaces (see Piquette forthcoming), it is possible to infer many behaviours involved in acts of marking. Moreover, when grounded in theories of social practice, the notion of chaîne opératoire research affords a great deal of empirical observation regarding the sequential activities of ancient materials processing. In conceptualising graphical practices it is also important to populate accounts with past people and embodied actions rather than focusing alone on tools and the results of their use (see Dobres 2000: 21–22, fig. 1.2, 166–169).
As I have discussed elsewhere, an artefactual emphasis in the study of early Egyptian graphical evidence reveals the impact of materiality on image expression and appearance, including the restricted choice of certain material resources, methods for conversion and shaping, techniques for rendering imagery (e.g. the subtraction or addition of materials), and changes and continuities in conventions for image organisation (Piquette 2007; 2008). For example, the sequence in which inscription and the cutting and shaping of Late Predynastic bone labels occurred can be inferred from incised images which appear to have been cropped when the plaque was separated from its parent bone plate (Dreyer 1998: 137; Kahl 2001: 111; see also Wengrow 2008: 1027). Images cut through by the perforation, also indicate that incision took place prior to the drilling / carving of the perforation (e.g. Dreyer 1998: [t] 123, [d] 125, no. 90, [p] pl. 31, no. 90). Patterning among some inscribed labels dating to the reign of Qa’a, the last ruler of the 1st Dynasty (Piquette 2008: 103–104), exemplifies the theoretical point concerning the unfolding of inscribed meaning as both process and outcome of that process, and as manifold in its meaningful construction (roughly expressed: material + tool + embodied engagement + technique + compositional choice + time + social space = image) and consumption (image(s) + embodied engagement and perception by knowledgeable agent of constructive act and / or result + time + social space = meaning construction).