Transformative Jars: Asian Ceramic Vessels as Transcultural Enclosures

Jars are man-made shapes that can enclose something, and they are ubiquitous and multi-functional. This book explores the cultural and historical significance of Asian jars, which are crafted goods with spiritual meanings and ritual significance. It highlights the relationships between the filling, emptying, and re-filling of jars with various contents and meanings over time and across space, and presents jars as agents of change in cultures of craftsmanship and consumption.

Format: Hardback
Length: 296 pages
Publication date: 29 December 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

The term 'jar' encompasses a wide range of man-made shapes designed to contain or hold various substances. Few objects are as versatile and multifunctional as jars, whether they hold food and beverages, matter, voids, life-giving medicine, or the ashes of the deceased. While jars may seem ubiquitous, they hold immense cultural and historical significance, serving as intermediaries between content and environment, exterior worlds, and interior enclosures. They bridge local and global contexts, this-worldly and otherworldly realms.

Contributors to this volume view jars not only as household utensils or evidence of human civilizations but also as artefacts in their own right. Asian jars, in particular, are culturally and aesthetically defined crafted goods that carry spiritual meanings and ritual significance.

Transformative Jars takes a global perspective, exploring the relationships between the filling, emptying, and re-filling of jars with diverse contents and meanings across time and space. By bringing together an interdisciplinary team of scholars with expertise in curating, art history, and anthropology, the book offers insights that go beyond traditional archaeological approaches. Through detailed analyses of a wide range of objects, it presents jars as agents of change in cultures of craftsmanship and consumption.

In conclusion, Transformative Jars is a groundbreaking work that sheds light on the cultural and historical significance of Asian jars. By examining these objects as agents of change, the book provides a fresh perspective on craftsmanship and consumption, highlighting their role in shaping societies and cultures throughout history.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350277434