Commentary
Archaeological Context and the Correlating Concept of Value
Anika Elema*
Issue:
Volume 13, Issue 4, December 2025
Pages:
156-160
Received:
10 September 2025
Accepted:
28 September 2025
Published:
28 October 2025
DOI:
10.11648/j.ijp.20251304.11
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Views:
Abstract: This paper explores the importance of the role of archaeological context in shaping the concept of value, with a focus on Phoenician trade, technology, and cultural identity. Drawing on the excavation of the Phoenician shipwreck at Bajo de la Campana, it demonstrates how contextual evidence transforms isolated artifacts into a coherent narrative of economic systems, technological innovation, and social practices. The recovery of amphorae, silver ingots, and other traded goods reveals the vast scale of Phoenician maritime networks and their reliance on silver as both a medium of exchange and a foundation of their economy. Central to this prosperity was the trade of Tyrian purple dye, a commodity whose rarity, technological complexity, and cultural exclusivity elevated it beyond material worth to a marker of status and identity. The analysis extends beyond economic value to examine how heritage objects embody identity, spirituality, artistry, and aesthetics, illustrating that material culture is a medium of meaning rather than a static possession. Without context, artifacts risk being stripped of their interpretive depth, reduced to mere commodities with diminished scholarly and cultural worth. By situating objects within their archaeological, historical, and symbolic frameworks, this study argues that context is the birthplace of value, transforming physical remnants into testimonies of human creativity, belief, and interconnectedness.
Abstract: This paper explores the importance of the role of archaeological context in shaping the concept of value, with a focus on Phoenician trade, technology, and cultural identity. Drawing on the excavation of the Phoenician shipwreck at Bajo de la Campana, it demonstrates how contextual evidence transforms isolated artifacts into a coherent narrative of...
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Commentary
Moral Progress and Methodism, Taylor and Schmitt
Issue:
Volume 13, Issue 4, December 2025
Pages:
161-163
Received:
28 September 2025
Accepted:
9 October 2025
Published:
30 October 2025
DOI:
10.11648/j.ijp.20251304.12
Downloads:
Views:
Abstract: My study, intended as a comparative conceptual commentary, contrasts the visions of Charles Taylor and Carl Schmitt regarding the 18th-century, especially moral, revolution. I thus situate John Wesley's preaching and the beginning of the Methodist movement within that very social and cultural climate, albeit interpreted and experienced differently: thanks to the comparison between the two authors, I show how the Methodist movement of the eighteenth century does not represent only a sort of counterpoint to the Enlightenment, but rather is complementary to it. In short, Methodism contributes to defining the idea of progress as conceived in that century, while in the following ones the notion of technological-scientific and economic progress will tend to prevail. Furthermore, I focus on what Taylor, in his jargon, calls "common life" (commitment to work and family), initially valued, in particular, by the Protestant Reformation. I then observe, thanks also to two classic works on Methodism, that the very events arising from the Reformation, along with others, ultimately conferred renewed value on citizens' active political engagement, understood as constitutive of existence, not as something extraordinary or exceptional. The Methodist movement, in fact, already in the 18th and 19th centuries, was very attentive to issues of social justice and the living conditions of the last and the penultimate.
Abstract: My study, intended as a comparative conceptual commentary, contrasts the visions of Charles Taylor and Carl Schmitt regarding the 18th-century, especially moral, revolution. I thus situate John Wesley's preaching and the beginning of the Methodist movement within that very social and cultural climate, albeit interpreted and experienced differently:...
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