Architectures of Fire: : Processes, Space and Agency in Pyrotechnologies

Architectures of Fire attempts to present the entanglement between the physical phenomenon of fire, the pyro-technological instrument that it is, its material supports, and the human being. In this perspective, the physical process of combustion, material culture, as well as the development of human action in space, are addressed together. Fire is located at the centre of all pre-modern architecture. It creates the living or technological space. Fire creates architectures since it imposes geometry, from the simple circles of stone or clay, which control its spread (and which are the geometrical figures of its optimal efficiency), to cone trunks, cylinders, half-spheres, half-cylinders or parallelepipeds, circular geometric figures that efficiently control the air-draught process required for combustion. All these forms involving the circle are determined by the control and conservation of thermal energy. We should not imagine that the term ‘architecture’ evokes only constructed objects that delimit human action. Architecture means not only the built space, but also the experienced space, in the present case around the pyro-instruments. Pyro-instruments involve an ergonomic, kinesthetic and visual relationship, as well as the rhythmic actions of feeding or maintaining fire at a certain technological tempo. The technological agency is structured both by the physics of the combustion phenomenon, and by the type of operation to be performed. About the Author Dragoş Gheorghiu is an historical anthropologist/archaeologist and experimentalist whose studies focus on the process of cognition, material culture and ancient technologies. He has edited books on fire in archaeology, fire as material culture, fire as an instrument, also on ceramics, figurines and stamps. He has contributed articles on ceramic technology, kilns and burned houses in the Chalcolithic, and during the last two decades has carried out experiments with the building and burning of wattle and daub houses, with kilns and with other structures involved with combustion. Professor Gheorghiu is the Secretary of the UISPP Commission ‘Neolithic Civilizations of the Mediterranean and Europe’, and is a member of the European Association of Archaeologists. He is a Paul Mellon Fellow at the Centre of Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Cover 1 Title Page 2 Copyright Information 4 Contributors 7 Introduction 9 Dragoş Gheorghiu 9 A Song of Space and Fire: Is There a Pyrotechnical Architecture of the African Middle Stone Age? 13 Silje Evjenth Bentsen and Sarah Wurz 13 Firing the Earth. The Early Neolithic Ovens of Portonovo (Marche, Italy) 28 Cecilia Conati Barbaro, Chiara La Marca, Vanessa Forte, Giacomo Eramo, Italo M. Muntoni and Alberto Rossi 28 Architectures of Fire: The Pyro-proximities of the Chalcolithic Dwelling 42 Dragoş Gheorghiu 42 Italian Pottery Kilns and Production Areas from the Bronze Age to the Archaic Period (2200-500 BC). A Typological Approach 60 Agostino Sotgia 60 Shifting Focus: Expanding the Potential of Experimental Metallurgical Reconstructions 80 Jessica L. Slater 80 Ergonomics as a Tool for Fire Structures Reconstruction. Case Study of a Kiln Located in the Garncarskie Rock Shelter in Polish Jura Chain 93 Michał Wojenka and Małgorzata Kot 93 Papers presented here originate from a session held during the 2015 Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (Glasgow). The contributors attempt to present the entanglement between the physical phenomenon of fire, the pyro-technological instrument that it is, its material supports, and the human being.