Materiality of Odors: Experiencing Church Burials and the Urban Environment in an Early Modern Northern Swedish Town

Author(s): Titta Kallio-Seppä; Annemari Tranberg

Year: 2018

Summary

In this paper, we focus on early modern scents in the town of Oulu (Ostrobothnia, Finland) and the social and cultural significance of odors in societies. Written documentation reveals two basic sources of foul odors: urban ponds of waste and the smell of death produced by church burials. The world of smells had a more central and far more complex meaning in the past than today. In the process of urbanization during the 18th century, a more systematic and clean environment began to be more desirable, and there were many methods, such as legislation and propaganda, to achieve it. Because the value-system was based on an "olfactory theology" of Christianity, modernization of the smellscape was a long-lasting process, stimulated by the Age of Enlightenment.

Cite this Record

Materiality of Odors: Experiencing Church Burials and the Urban Environment in an Early Modern Northern Swedish Town. Titta Kallio-Seppä, Annemari Tranberg. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2018 ( tDAR id: 441810)

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Keywords

Temporal Keywords
18th Century

Spatial Coverage

min long: 19.648; min lat: 59.807 ; max long: 31.582; max lat: 70.089 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 465