Controlling Colours

Function and meaning of Colour in the British Iron Age

By (author) Marlies Hoecherl

Book cover: Controlling Colours

Extent: 158 pages

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing

Subjects: European Prehistory

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(January 2016)

ISBN: 9781784912253

8.07 x 11.42 inches

Price: $68.00

In stock

Colour defines our material world, operates as a communication tool and creates meaning. This book revisits well known and well documented sites or artefacts and explores their colours and colour connotations by looking at various contexts such as processes, landscape, iconography, body decoration or the colour connotations of death.


Colour defines our material world, operates as a communication tool and creates meaning. But despite the wealth of colour present in British Iron Age archaeology, interpretative studies have concentrated mostly on the shape of material objects and their decoration, with at best fleeting references to colour. This book revisits well known and well documented sites or artefacts and explores their colours and colour connotations – whether hue or luminosity, whether natural or man-made, whether innate or deliberately applied – by looking at various contexts such as processes, landscape, iconography, body decoration or the colour connotations of death. The importance of changes in colour caused by passing of time, processing, handling or exposure, as well as the deliberate concealment or defacing of colour is looked at . Finally and most importantly, using methodologies ranging from examination of written sources, comparisons from the fields of anthropology and ethnology to experimental archaeology the author attempts to shed light on the symbolic meaning behind such colours or colour contexts and contribute to our understanding of Iron Age cosmologies.

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Chapter 3: Theoretical Aspects of Colour
Chapter 4: Colour and Creation - Colour Implications in Metalworking
Chapter 5: A Whiter Shade of Pale - Chalk in the British Iron Age
Chapter 6: Weaving with Light - Luminosity and Brilliance in the British Iron Age
Chapter 7: The Power of Blood - Decorated Metal Ware
Chapter 8: Yellow Stars and Red Journeys - Colour, Iconography and Cosmologies
Chapter 9: Black White and Red - Colours of Death
Chapter 10: Transforming Skin - Body Decoration in the British Iron Age
Chapter 11: Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix 1: Sites
Appendix 2: Artefacts
Appendix 3: Human Remains
Appendix 4: Classical Sources for Body Decoration

  • By (author) Marlies Hoecherl