Icons in Context: Rethinking Symbols of Power at the Time of Stonehenge

This project's starting point is a series of objects that are traditionally assumed to be the 'finest' and 'most important' artefacts from the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age in Britain (c.3000-800 BC). They include the intricately embossed gold cape from Mold, the mixture of local and exotic finery from barrows around Stonehenge, and the enigmatic chalk 'drums' buried with a child at Folkton in North Yorkshire.

The ways in which objects such as these have taken on iconic status within archaeological accounts is important for understanding the role of museum collections in the narratives told about prehistoric Britain.

Objects like these are traditionally presented as proxies for, or 'exemplars' of, society, culture and religion during the period: representative of people, cultures, connectivity and changes over - often very long - time periods. They have generally been characterised as 'symbols of power', buried with (or by) important or wealthy people who notionally 'controlled' trade and exchange and thus gained status and wealth.

This concept leant its name to the 1985 National Museum of Scotland exhibition 'Symbols of Power at the Time of Stonehenge', and has become a successful (if tired) trope of prehistoric galleries and exhibitions ever since. Interestingly, and significantly, in academic accounts of the period, these supposedly iconic objects often serve a passive role on book covers and as token illustrations, rather than being active objects incorporated into narratives of the period in their own right.

The appeal to power politics has also removed these objects from more engaging, egalitarian and emotional accounts of the past.

This project will make the most of the opportunities afforded by a major exhibition entitled 'World of Stonehenge' (WoS), to be staged at the British Museum from June-October 2021, in order to rethink and represent the period. The project will ensure that the research potential generated by staging the exhibition can be fully exploited. Too often this valuable resource and opportunity is lost.

We will challenge, evaluate and research the concept that effective museum objects have to be singular, iconic 'masterpieces'. The processes by which objects become empowered and 'iconic' are essential for museums and galleries in light of their need to communicate and engage their visitors within restricted timeframes, budgets and space. This project does not seek to replace iconic objects in general.

Rather, we will critique the essentialism that informs current attitudes to 'icons' and introduce new approaches to exhibiting and thinking through important objects (in the form of textual content/context, display techniques and design principles). In this way we will develop new 'iconic objects' that are more reflective of what we know of the period today. Some will be single artefacts but other icons will be assemblages from sites and landscapes.

We will address the lack of connection between exemplar objects - shown as 'precious jewels' in our museums - and the relatively unloved contents of archaeological storehouses. We will develop new ways of linking the quantitative significance of storehouse assemblages and the qualitative significance of exhibition exemplars. This approach will re-route the traditional top-down approach of cherry-picking 'special' finds for publication and display by showing the potential of more modest but emotive finds to communicate more personal and representative aspects of prehistoric life.

It will bring to fruition the notion of museum exhibitions as research processes, through which ideas, concepts and engagements with material culture can be evaluated, critiqued and re-thought. The project will result in three major peer-reviewed articles that will build on a major British Museum exhibition. We seek to establish a new agenda for displaying prehistoric objects in north European museums, and to rethink the status of iconic objects more generally.