A miniature bronze wheel-shaped object from the Plakari hill in southern Euboea, Greece Iris de Fuijk, Kleos - the Amsterdam Bulletin of Ancient Studies and Archaeology

https://www.academia.edu/21795966/A_miniature_bronze_wheel_shaped_object_from_the_Plakari_hill_in_southern_Euboea_Greece?email_work_card=title&li=0 This paper explores the meaning of a miniature wheel-shaped object, that was found in the summer of 2011 on the hill top of Plakari, located closely to the town of Karystos in southern Euboea. Recently, material characteristics have gained more interest in studies that concentrate on inferring meaning from objects of the past. In this paper, it will be argued that an object’s meaning derives from both its context and its material characteristics. At the same time, it should be realized that meanings are situated in the present, dependent on the cultural context of the interpreter. In order to find the meaning of the wheel-shaped object from Plakari, both context and material are central. In order to do so, comparanda for the object from elsewhere in Greece, Macedonia and Kosovo will be discussed, as well as its own context, a hestiatorion dated to the first half of the fourth century BC. Subsequently, the object’s material characteristics (material, size and design) will be considered.