We were talking about how they are sometimes scored on the back, and were wondering what they might have been attached to. We are currently trying to set up a Scanning Electron Microscope analysis of the dorsal side of these artifacts to see whether any organic fibers or other residue indicating how or what these things might have been attached to. We are trying to get a student in the BYU microscopy lab on-board to help with the analysis and technical stuff.
Any thoughts?
Archaeometry Rules!
5 comments:
I guess residue might be dependent on how hard the figurines were scrubbed when washed. What do the the score marks look like?
Not been washed. The scoring is checkerboard style incising.
I would be interested in any ideas you guys come up with. I found these little guys odd when we dug them up. Does anyone know of any examples of figurines being attached to ceramics? I have never seen any, but I don't know what else they would be attached to. Or, maybe the scoring doesn't have anything to do with attachment, but is just some symbolic stuff or art motif. Interesting stuff.
If we really wanted to go to town on this project, we'd take a big sample of figurines and image the front and back of each for what would essentially be a use-wear analysis. Are there differences between the front and back of these things?
However, we have no $$ and no time, we we're just gonna try and do these ones...
Just a thought, but we have figurines with definite basketry imprint on the back--presumably just a product of the construction using a basket as a work-board of some sort. If they were lacking basketry when making these figurines, maybe they marked in a pattern that would be very roughly similar? What's the ratio, anyone know, of basketry impressed to incised to plain figurine backs?
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