The Symbolism of Prestige: an Archaeological Example from the Royal Cemetery of Ur (Iraq).

Abstract

This work is an archaeologically-based study concerned with the use of material goods as symbolic expressions of prestige in hierarchically organized societies. Mortuary data from the Royal Cemetery of Ur in southern Mesopotamia are used to evaluate propositions about how prestige is expressed in the form of material goods and why and how this expression changes. It is proposed that there are generalized strategies, common to a wide range of societies, that act to endow goods with varying degrees of prestige. It is further suggested that these strategies result in a series of relational characteristics of goods that symbolize differing degrees of prestige and that these characteristics can be used to identify such goods in an archaeological situation. A consideration of change in prestige goods focuses on forms of change that result from continual attempts of people of lower prestige to acquire the symbolic trappings of people of higher prestige. Three processes, termed emulation, largesse and innovation, are recognized as critical components of such change, and some observable correlates of these processes are proposed. Propositions derived from this theoretical framework are evaluated through an analysis of burials from the Royal Cemetery of Ur dating to the mid-third millennium B.C. It is argued that mortuary data are appropriate for this study, because through funerary activities material expressions of prestige become incorporated directly into primary archaeological contexts. The analysis of the cemetery proposes a relative chronology of the burials based in part on a seriation of the pottery. A social categorization of the burials of each period is made on the basis of the co-occurrence of classes of accompanying artifacts. Change through time in the form and use of objects is then considered. In general, the results of the analysis support the propositions about the form of prestige goods and changes in them. However, they also indicate certain areas where further work is necessary in order to account for some of the variability among funerary goods that is not yet adequately explained.