Original copies

This article explores inter-artefactual relations in the Nordic Bronze Age. Notions of copying and imitation have been dominant in the description of a number of bronze and flint artefacts from period I of the Nordic Bronze Age (ca. 1700–1500 BC). It has been argued that local bronze manufacturers...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Tim Flohr Sørensen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Editorial Board of DJA 2012-05-01
Series:Danish Journal of Archaeology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://tidsskrift.dk/dja/article/view/124964
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author Tim Flohr Sørensen
author_facet Tim Flohr Sørensen
author_sort Tim Flohr Sørensen
collection DOAJ
description This article explores inter-artefactual relations in the Nordic Bronze Age. Notions of copying and imitation have been dominant in the description of a number of bronze and flint artefacts from period I of the Nordic Bronze Age (ca. 1700–1500 BC). It has been argued that local bronze manufacturers copied imported foreign artefacts, and that lithic producers tried to imitate bronze artefacts in flint. This article argues that these archaeological attitudes to resemblance in the material repertoire are a product of typological analyses, but that it is possible to reclaim the cultural reality of similarity by looking at artefactual similarity as the results of prototyping and as a production of simulacra. In this light, the concept of copying turns out to be more than simply a matter of trying to imitate an exotic or prestigious original, and it fundamentally raises the question how different a copy can be from its model and still be a copy.
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spelling doaj.art-94a44842ce5744a4aabd3bf8358841492023-11-18T01:03:55ZengEditorial Board of DJADanish Journal of Archaeology2166-22902012-05-01110.1080/21662282.2012.750446Original copiesTim Flohr Sørensen This article explores inter-artefactual relations in the Nordic Bronze Age. Notions of copying and imitation have been dominant in the description of a number of bronze and flint artefacts from period I of the Nordic Bronze Age (ca. 1700–1500 BC). It has been argued that local bronze manufacturers copied imported foreign artefacts, and that lithic producers tried to imitate bronze artefacts in flint. This article argues that these archaeological attitudes to resemblance in the material repertoire are a product of typological analyses, but that it is possible to reclaim the cultural reality of similarity by looking at artefactual similarity as the results of prototyping and as a production of simulacra. In this light, the concept of copying turns out to be more than simply a matter of trying to imitate an exotic or prestigious original, and it fundamentally raises the question how different a copy can be from its model and still be a copy. https://tidsskrift.dk/dja/article/view/124964copyingimitationsimilaritydifferencetypesprototyping
spellingShingle Tim Flohr Sørensen
Original copies
Danish Journal of Archaeology
copying
imitation
similarity
difference
types
prototyping
title Original copies
title_full Original copies
title_fullStr Original copies
title_full_unstemmed Original copies
title_short Original copies
title_sort original copies
topic copying
imitation
similarity
difference
types
prototyping
url https://tidsskrift.dk/dja/article/view/124964
work_keys_str_mv AT timflohrsørensen originalcopies