SKIN TOUCHING CLAY TOUCHING SKIN: SOME THOUGHTS ON HAPTIC ENGAGEMENT IN AEGEAN BRONZE AGE ADMINISTRATION

Summary Administration is not an area of life usually associated with sensory engagement, either in the present or in the past. As Day (2020) observes, the insights of sensory archaeologies should be applied to the mundane parts of life too, and not just to enhance our understanding of palatial and funerary realms. In this paper, I examine how we might identify and conceptualize haptic perception – the sense of touch – in the daily lives and work of Aegean Bronze Age administrators, drawing on insights from the emerging literature on the senses and sensory archaeology, together with my experimental work with students making and writing documents. The mind/body/material relationship one can build with clay in particular is foregrounded as I consider different kinds of touching and being touched.