Connor Armi, Harvard Extension School, Archaeology and Anthropology M.A. student

Methodologies in Egyptology and Mesopotamian Studies (MEMS)

This presentation looks to reframe archaeological interpretation by shifting the focus from what can be said about artifacts and what cannot be said. I will discuss briefly the underlying issues behind post-processual and processual archaeologies and their goals. Then I will discuss how reframing interpretation beyond semiotics elucidates a focus on “how” artifacts would have functioned in ancient society. I am utilizing anthropological, linguistic, and archaeological theory to reconstruct how kudurrus functioned in Mesopotamian society. I argue that kudurrus functioned as an artifact produced by socially constructed institutions, and because the inscriptions pertain to geographic boundaries, kudurrus express and perform the social construction of societally placed geo-graphical boundaries and thus express and establish the cosmological constructs placed in geographical locations.