ABSTRACT
Material culture is an emerging transdisciplinary fi eld integrating aspects of the disciplines of history and theory of visual and performing art and culture, archaeology, religious studies, history, anthropology, folklore, history of technology, cultural geography, psychology, sociology, materials science, conservation science and archaeometry, among others, dedicated to scholarly interpretation of material culture (Lubar and Kingery 1993: ix-xi). One advantage of material culture studies is that it gives us access to all strata of a
culture. At most times and places, only certain elites-usually men-produced texts, while women, the poor and even slaves created material culture.
