9:15 Welcome

9:30 EMMA ASNÆS KATTRUP The Sensory Experience of the akītu Festival

The akītu festival has been an essential part of life in Babylon for a long period of time, as a yearly occurrence to celebrate the new year and to reinforce the social hierarchy and the power of the elite. However, while the ritualistic and political parts of the festival involving the gods and the elite has received plenty of scholarly attention, both in the past and in the present, less attention has been given to the experience of the regular Babylonians during the festival.

This presentation will focus on what the experience of the Neo-Babylonian akītu festival would have been, by using a phenomenological approach on both the textual sources describing the festival and the architecture of Babylon, which acted as a physical framework for the festivities. The focus will be on the visual, auditory and olfactory senses, and how these inputs could have affected the regular, non-elite person attending the festival in Babylon. Furthermore, the presentation will explore how this festival could emotionally affect the people in Babylon and contribute to creating or hindering the creation of a sense of community for the inhabitants in the city.

The events of the akitu festival:

•Day 1-5: exclusive rituals involving the priests and the king
•Day 5: exorcism and the humiliation of the king
•Day 6: arrival of the foreign gods
•Day 8: the gods leave the city
•Day 11: the gods returning to the city
•Day 12: the foreign gods leave the city to go home

10:15 Kimmie Konstantin Ravn The Lived Experience of Death: A Phenomenological Approach to the Shaft Tombs and Charnel Houses at Bāb edh-Dhrā

Burials have long attracted interest within archaeology, as well as considerable attention from the broader public. A shift in mortuary archaeology has moved interpretations away from viewing burials solely as direct reflections of the deceased’s status and towards understanding them as active arenas in which the living negotiate identity and social structural dynamics. In the Early Bronze Age, on the Dead Sea Plain, the settlement of Bāb edh-Dhrā showed an interesting shift in mortuary practices from the EB IA shaft tombs to the EB II-III charnel houses.

This presentation aims to investigate these mortuary structures through a phenomenological approach that will delve into how death was a sensorial experience for the living in these active arenas. Through sensorial aspects of movement, light and darkness, and smell, these mortuary structures will be examined to understand which emotions could have been produced and how they could manipulate engagement with the dead. An emotional approach, in conjunction with landscape phenomenology and the concept of place-making, is employed to examine how death was intended to be experienced and sensed. Furthermore, this framework allows to study the continuous relationship between the living and the dead Bāb edh-Dhrā.

11:00 Coffee break

11:30 Maria Mayland Nielsen The Sensory Impact of Class

Many comforts of everyday life depend on the individual’s background and place in society. Wealth, or lack thereof, has always determined the resources available to an individual. Whether it was limiting the range of foods in their diet or the means they could rely on to ease their lives. With a phenomenological perspective, an interesting question arises about such differences in everyday life: how might sense perceptions experienced in the day-to-day be impacted by one’s social class?

This presentation seeks to identify and describe some of the different moments in everyday life in ancient Egypt that might have caused a noticeable sensory impact, and how two individuals might have experienced them differently depending on their background and social status in Egyptian society. To achieve this, a fictional day depicting two fictional ancient Egyptian women will be described, where specific moments of sensory experience will be noted. This tale is based on physical evidence from noble tombs, textual sources, and contemporary ethnographic comparisons, trying to approach a realistic recreation.

12:15 Katja Endahl Smidt Jensen Senses, Enhanced Experiences & Games in Museums

Museums traditionally exhibit objects and artefacts in display cases, either behind glass or separated from the public with a physical barrier such as rope. Walking through a museum can therefore easily become an experience where the past is depicted as a static arrangement of objects. But museums can also be multisensory and interactive experiences where visitors use their senses and even role-play within past environments. Games enable us to move history from being intangible objects to interactive experiences that use sensory input to strengthen our understanding of historical events and periods, by establishing a personal connection to it.

This presentation explores how games in museums actively engage and manipulate sense perception to create enhanced visitor experiences. It looks at both external and internal senses as deliberate tools used to heighten immersion, while also acknowledging that games are a form of structured and emotional manipulation. Games present us with an incredible opportunity to attract, engage and integrate a larger audience in museums, but also require careful consideration to ensure that it does not compromise historical accuracy or visitor autonomy.