Matrix, relic, mould

Three states of dust in archaeology

Abstract

There is no discipline in the human sciences that deals with dust more than archaeology, considered as the science of residues, the science of the stratigraphy of the remains of things and their controlled removal. Archaeological excavation is ultimately nothing more than a laboratory in which the dust of things represents both the object of research and the aggregation from which it must be freed. A second aspect of the archaeological experience of dust is linked to its nature as a residue. For example, the residue of a religious factum, or dust as a relic. Just as dust can become the memory or evidence of the degradation of things and their ‘pulverisation’, it can also become a trace of a lost sensory experience, including the olfactory one. A third aspect of dust in archaeology is linked to its positive use as a means of perpetuating visual memory. Thus, dust becomes a tool for the anachronism of images and their reproducibility, through that art form that anticipates the times and allows the transferability of things through the art of spolvero.