TY - BOOK ID - 19281225 TI - Roman artefacts and society : design, behaviour, and experience PY - 2020 SN - 9780198785262 0198785267 9780191087981 9780198866886 9780191087998 0191087998 0191917095 019108798X 0198866887 PB - Oxford Oxford University Press DB - UniCat KW - Sachkultur. KW - Gesellschaft. KW - Römisches Reich. KW - Arts décoratifs antiques KW - Culture matérielle KW - Aspect social KW - Rome KW - Moeurs et coutumes KW - Social life and customs. KW - Antiquities. KW - Moeurs et coutumes. KW - Material culture KW - Culture KW - Folklore KW - Technology UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:19281225 AB - Design theory is used to investigate Roman artefacts in a new way, making a significant contribution to both Roman social history, and our understanding of the relationships that exist between artefacts and people. Based on extensive data collection and the close study of artefacts from museum collections and archives, the book examines the relationship between artefacts, everyday behaviour, and experience. The concept of 'affordances'-features of an artefact that make possible, and incline users towards, particular uses for functional artefacts-is an important one for the approach taken. This concept is carefully evaluated by considering affordances in relation to other sources of evidence, such as use-wear, archaeological context, the end-products resulting from artefact use, and experimental reconstruction. Artefact types explored in the case studies include locks and keys, pens, shears, glass vessels, dice, boxes, and finger-rings, using material mainly drawn from the north-western Roman provinces, with some material also from Roman Egypt. The book then considers how we can use artefacts to understand particular aspects of Roman behaviour and experience, including discrepant experiences according to factors such as age, social position, and left- or right-handedness, which are fostered through artefact design. The relationship between production and users of artefacts is also explored, investigating what particular production methods make possible in terms of user experience, and also examining production constraints that have unintended consequences for users. The book examines topics such as the perceived agency of objects, differences in social practice across the provinces, cultural change and development in daily practice, and the persistence of tradition and social convention. It shows that design intentions, everyday habits of use, and the constraints of production processes each contribute to the reproduction and transformation of material culture. ER -