A prolegomenon to Jungian archaeology: part three

And each figure had a meaning
M.  L. Kirk, 1910 (from The Story of Hiawatha,
adapted from Longfellow by Winston Stokes)

"...our attention was first arrested by the fact that... art that is apparently purely formal, is given a meaning endowing it with an emotional value that does not belong to the beauty of form alone. it is an expressionistic element that is common to many to many forms of primitive art. It is effective because in the mind of the tribes certain forms are symbols of a limited range of ideas. The firmer the association between a form and a definite idea, the more clearly stands out the expressionistic character of the art. This is true in the graphic and plastic arts as well as in music. In the former a geometrical form, in the latter a sound cluster, a particular type of musical phrasing, if associated with a definite meaning, evokes definite emotions or even concepts. A study of these conditions shows also that a uniform reaction to form is indispensable for the effectiveness of an expressionistic art, a condition which is not fulfilled in our own modern society, so that an expressionistic art can appeal only to a circle of adepts who follow the lines of thought and feeling developed by a master. Symbolic art can still be applied successfully in the case of a few symbols that have fixed associations which are valid for all of us."

Franz Boas, Primitive Art, Dover Publications, New York, 1955, p.350f.

Let us stand back a bit from the above analysis and look at the picture in more general terms. Instead of "art", we can use the Greek τέχνη (techne) in the sense of making or doing. This can bring it, entirely into the realms of archaeology. Not just in the sense that any archaeological site is a combination of what was made and what was done, but archaeology, its analysis and its reports are also made and done.

Accordingly, we have several sets of expressions: the expressions of the people that were at that specific site before it became archaeological; the shared expressions of their neighbours of  the same culture and perhaps just a little distance from them; the people of that same culture further removed; the expressions of the person in charge of the archaeological dig formed through his or her life experiences; the expressions of all the others working at that site; the expressions of all of their institutions where they work or had worked and studied; and even the shared expressions of any sort of  institution that differs from individual expression; and of course the expressions of those philosophers whose theories everyone is or was following.

These are multiple collective consciousnesses. How well can we really differentiate the thoughts that come from each of them with their subsequent τέχνη? Each has its own symbols, but some are shared. How do we differentiate these too? The task is imperative if we want to avoid  projection.

Yet this has never been given any thought in archaeology apart from the observation that a single archaeological site will give only a very limited view unless compared with other such sites in the region, and how the region, itself might differ from those sites (See Haselgrove quote in reference to Celtic coins).

We can start by looking for the use of metaphors in the symbolic expressions of the culture we are studying. These, then, can act like a "Rosetta stone" by allowing us to link symbols that we share with symbols for which the meanings are now lost to us.This was how I was able to link the Celtic coin boar and lyre symbols in their meaning as they were often substituted for each other in the same ways as the boar has a universal "translation" and it would be foolish to suppose that only its Celtic expression would be different. Yet, people ignored the universal mythological expressions of the boar and tried to subsume it through their expressions of the Celts, alone. The meaning of the boar helped to clarify the meaning of the lyre symbol which did not have a universal translation, but existed in numbers of meanings. That one of them "behaved" exactly as the boar, not just in its meaning but in the instances of its use brought about its specific translation.

The next thing we have to do is to eliminate the situation where the majority of perceived symbols are our own. For that, we need to collect a vast number of symbols from the archaeological site, and if it cannot provide these, we have to extend our search to that of its general culture. Again, we look for "Rosetta stones" with which to translate that which is more obscure. If we do that, the evidence overwhelms our own symbols and we can become rather more objective.

While we cannot go back and eliminate everything that has influenced us in the part, we can, if we have the discipline, choose not to include such and look at the evidence with fresh eyes. If that proves impossible then having people with the technical know-how, but who have been steeped in very different cultures: different areas, different times, look at the evidence in a naturally fresh manner. I deliberately avoided immersing myself too much in what had been written before about the coins I studied, but it it took me a little while to realize that I was just "brainwashing" myself by reading all that, so I had to make the conscious choice. By all means read what has been said afterwards, though. You might have missed something pertinent, but also you will then see where others have gone wrong and what took them in those directions. It is all good.

Beyond the problems of multiple consciousnesses lies individual consciousness and how different personality types will influence the way things are seen. That will be tomorrow's topic.


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