The Fishtail Knife Amulet UC14892/2 in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London

Abstract

Introduction Interpretations of material culture remains are constantly revised in the social sciences, in line with the changing theories of human behaviour. Archaeologists have a duty to show more consideration to the fact that artefacts are invested of meaning through complex social interactions. Meaning is shaped by social actions; objects change through their existence and ‘...they often have the capability of accumulating histories so that the present significance of an object derives from the persons and events to which it is connected...’ (Godsen and Marshall 1999: 170). Realistically, within the wide unpredictability of human behaviour, there has not been a convincing single theory able to explain the links between a society and its objects. The life-history approach of Tringham (1994) is considered, however, a classical attempt to investigate and explain these processes. Objects of the past have been shown to be neither passive nor made of inert material. It is with social interactions, involving people and objects, that meaning is created. Only with the incorporation of archaeological data with textual and ethnoarchaeological records can we add further observations for satisfactory explanations of artefacts. Amongst the material collected by Sir Flinders Petrie, there is a remarkable collection of amulets, votive objects and personal ornaments of magico-religious significance. A large number of the artefacts of this collection are, not surprisingly, without a satisfactory interpretation of their function. The subject of these notes is a curious example of one of these ritual objects: the mud amulet UC14892/2, an imitation in alluvial mud of a flint, so-called ‘fishtail knife’. The reader is invited to visit the catalogue of the Petrie Museum at http://petriecat.museums.ucl.ac.uk/ for pictures and a summary description of this type of artefact.