Emma Elizabeth Porter Stone
Research title: The Use and Transportation of Amber in the Egyptian New Kingdom: Connecting International Late Bronze Age Trade and Cultural Identities
Research Summary
The Late Bronze Age saw interactions between Mediterranean cultures through royal trade, diplomatic voyages, and military campaigns – each offering a chance for materials to be shared on different social levels. Resinous materials, while critically understudied, were a significant part of that trade. Another vital yet scarcely explored material used is amber. Amber formed part of a complex economic trading system in resinous materials, but also part of a dynamic value system, taking on alternative social roles and meanings as it moved and was embedded in different practices and performances.
My research is focused on investigating the archaeological and textual contexts amber occurs in and what these contexts say about amber procurement and use in Egypt. It will also look into how these contexts differ from or align with patterns identified across the wider Mediterranean region and what these similarities/differences say about the Egyptian perception of not just amber, but its cultural relationship with its neighbours.
Conference
Oral Presentation
"Where it is called 'sacal'": The Use and Transportation of Amber in Egypt's New Kingdom - 11th Birmingham Egyptology Symposium, 2024
Attendance
Buying Power Conference: Archaeology and the Antiquities Trade, Edinburgh, 2024
