Year: 2023
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Tuna KalaycıRoads are peculiar among archaeological objects, in that they dissolve the boundaries between what is knowable and what is not.Few artifacts have the same substance, transcendence, and immanence as roads-words that might help us think about them through a philosophical lens.An object of the past is rarely valued or used for the purpose its bearers originally imagined: today, artifacts are displayed behind glass windows, statues greet visitors in museum corridors, and deserted settlements are turned into archaeo-parks. 1 There are no more scheduled plays in ancient theaters; when there is an event, the spectator is perfectly aware that they are occupying a space from and of the past.The mixing of temporalities is intentional, adding to and altering the meaning of the performance.The modern observer in an ancient theater is constantly reminded of the anachronisms at play.But roads exhibit a different form of spacetime.A road can be both ancient and modern at the same time.Tourists walking the streets of Pompeii are using the same infrastructure that existed in Roman times.Their modern feet are adding to the ancient use wear, even though only a few share with the paving stones the same admiration they have for the standing architecture.The streets of Pompeii become invisible as time and space mix along them.Roads stretch not only in space, but also in time: in Greece, wayfarers still use Ottoman-period kalderimia-cobblestone roads built mainly for the use of hoofed animals that facilitated rural transportation up until the 1970s (Forbes 2007:90); in the United States of America, Hopi still use parts of their ancestral trails on foot and horseback (Snead et al. 2009a:26).We shift our attention to the pilgrims across the globe who most clearly exemplify the mixing of space and time.Pilgrimage spans a range of agencies, from those of individuals to those of complex 1 Ancient settlements with modern occupation might be a prime exception to this argument.Here we can draw a distinction between the archaeologist who visits a place periodically for work and the dweller who continuously inhabits the place.
Author: Kalayci, T.
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology (arts and humanities)
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6998814455