Text in English / Ancient Egyptian distinctive headdresses made from precious or semi-precious materials date to prehistoric times, indicating a growing sense of individuality and hierarchy. Women’s headdresses were indicators of rulership, divinity, social status, cultic affiliation and wealth. Visual evidence indicates that female identity was emphasised by external and outward appearance and headdresses in the form of diadems followed recognised stylistic dictates throughout the Dynastic Period. The floral and faunal motifs used in the embellishment were believed to have protective amuletic and magical powers. Although a considerable amount of investigation has been undertaken into the use of materials and techniques used in the manufacture of diadems, the incorporation of symbolism and iconography of these gendered artefacts as a means of interpreting visual messages and self-expression has largely been unexplored. The study has been limited to well-provenanced, extant Old, Middle and New Kingdom diadems housed in various museums worldwide. / Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies / M.A. (Ancient Near Eastern Studies)

Afrikaans text / Hierdie studie spreek die beperkte en eensydige beriggewing oor vroue en vroulike skoonheid in die Hebreeuse Bybel en ander antieke geskrifte aan, asook die ondergeskikte posisie wat vroue in die patriargale Ou Testamentiese samelewing beklee het. ‘n Argeologiese benadering word gevolg en beskikbare literêre bronne word gebruik. Daar word gelet op die redes waarom ‘n mooi voorkoms vir vroue so belangrik was. Hul posisie ten opsigte van staatkundige, wetlike, godsdienstige, ekonomiese en huishoudelike aangeleenthede en hul lewensverloop word bespreek. Die studie fokus hoofsaaklik op vroue van ou Israel en Egipte – vir ‘n goeie vergelyking. Inligting oor vroue van die ou Nabye Ooste en Mediterreense wêreld word waar van toepassing ook in aanmerking geneem. Vroue se skoonheidsmiddels, parfuums, juweliersware en kleredrag word bespreek – asook die invloed van vroue se skoonheidspraktyke op die ekonomie en handel van antieke tye. Die slot- hoofstuk maak sekere afleidings en dui enkele onderwerpe vir verdere navorsing aan. / This study addresses the limited and one-sided reporting about women and female beauty in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient literary sources, as well as the subservient position the women experience in the patriarchal Old Testament society. An archaeological approach is followed, although literary sources are also used. Attention is given to women’s position with reference to governmental, legal, religious and domestic issues, their course of life and the reasons why a beautiful and attractive appearance was important. The research focuses mainly on the women of ancient Israel and Egypt – for the purpose of comparison. Information on women of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world is also taken into account. Women’s cosmetics, perfumes, jewelry and clothing are discussed – as well as the influence of women’s beauty practices on the economy and trade of ancient times. The final chapter makes certain deductions and some aspects are recommended for further study. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / M. A. (Biblical Archaeology)

At the end of the 17th century, a small enameled cross was discovered in one of the royal graves in Saint Bendt's church in Danish Ringsted. According to the record of the administrator of the Danish Royal Treasury, the cross was found in the grave of the Danish Queen Dagmar - the daughter of the King of Bohemia, Ottokar I (+1230). Dagmar was married in 1205 to Valdemar II the Victorious, the King of Denmark. The cross - today exhibited at the National Museum in Copenhagen - is undoubtedly a Byzantine work. Most probably, it was made in the first half of the 12th century. It is so- called enkolpion, i.e. the hanging cross (gr. Έγϰόλπιου, on the chest). Both its sides are decorated with figurative scenes. The crucifixion of the Christ is depicted on one side. The Great Deēsis with St. Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom is shown on the other side. There is a hollow in the body of the cross, in which a relic was deposited - most likely a particle of the wood of the True Cross. Although the Queen Dagmar's Cross is considered a national treasure in Denmark, only a little attention has been paid to it so far. It is almost unknown to the Czech researchers (it is briefly mentioned by J. E. Wocel, A. B. Černý, J. Květ, K. Chytil and most recently P. Balcárek). Regrettably, the most of researchers only...

Based on what body adornment has been throughout history, this project investigates what it might be in the future. The possibilities, forms and methods of body adornment has changed and will continue to change over time, along with our societal and environmental shifts as well as with developments in science and technology. Our bodies are increasingly perceived as malleable objects that we can modify, enhance and improve. I use speculation as a method to explore how the human body may develop and be modified in the future. I envision a world where we have become increasingly intertwined with technologies, where environmental changes and our lifestyle have affected our biology, and where our bodies have continued to be altered based on social norms. Through this project I have become some kind of contemporary Frankenstein scientist, although I am not in a laboratory but in a jewellery workshop. My objects, which I call potential jewellery, or maybe-jewellery, are presented in an installation in the form of a clinical setting. It is a representation of where body adornment meets medical technology, where jewellery meets prostheses and implants. This project does not have any answers or a clear message about what is right or wrong – it is based on a curiosity without having a conclusion in mind. The installation is meant to be a reminder that our bodies are always adorned, modified and in transformation – that we are in an ongoing metamorphosis from one state to another.

The exploratory study investigated jewellery store robbery from a victim risk and intervention perspective. An explanation of the phenomenon was offered based on the information obtained from a review of the existing literature, case studies, personal observations at jewellery stores, discussions with jewellers, a scientific questionnaire submitted to jewellers, and semi-structured and structured interviews conducted with a group of knowledgeable respondents and victimised jewellers respectively. A predominantly quantitative research method was applied. The research findings obtained during the study enabled a proposal for a jewellery store robbery intervention model based on the situational crime prevention perspective, which is inclusive of decisional, environmental, situational, procedural, personnel and business-oriented strategies. / Criminology / M.A. (Criminology)

The exploratory study investigated jewellery store robbery from a victim risk and intervention perspective. An explanation of the phenomenon was offered based on the information obtained from a review of the existing literature, case studies, personal observations at jewellery stores, discussions with jewellers, a scientific questionnaire submitted to jewellers, and semi-structured and structured interviews conducted with a group of knowledgeable respondents and victimised jewellers respectively. A predominantly quantitative research method was applied. The research findings obtained during the study enabled a proposal for a jewellery store robbery intervention model based on the situational crime prevention perspective, which is inclusive of decisional, environmental, situational, procedural, personnel and business-oriented strategies. / Criminology and Security Science / M.A. (Criminology)

Using dirt and cleaning as a point of departure, I have examined how categorization and intentionality affects our perception of value. The work is partly performative in its nature where this performativity sets the limelight on the transition between categories: From dirt to craft, from irrational behaviour to art. In the artistic process, I have used coffee rings on table cloths, shoeprints on wallpapers and  the act of mopping as a means of questioning. Through this, I also reveal and question hierarchies in society. The essay discusses and theoretically relates to the artistic work. / Med utgångspunkt i smuts har jag underökt hur kategorisering och intentionalitet påverkar vår uppfattning av värde. Arbetet är delvis performativt till sin natur, där denna performativitet sätter fokus på övergången från en kategori till en annan: Från smuts till konsthantverk, från irrationellt beteende till konst. I den konstnärliga processen har jag använt mig av kafferingar på dukar, skoavtryck på tapeter och moppande av golv som medel för ifrågasättande. PÅ detta vis blottlägger och ifrågasätter jag hierarkier i samhället. I uppsatsen diskuterar jag och relaterar teoretiskt till det konstnärliga arbetet.

In the early-15th-century book Il libro dell’arte by Cennino Cennini, the author uses the word diadema about a dozen times. The most recent Swedish edition from 2011 interprets this not as an object but as a halo, a divine light. The earlier edition from 1947/2000 keeps the closest meaning, a diadem, and by that the physical item. Both a material diadem and an immaterial halo would be represented in gold in the paintings described, consequently the symbolism of this material is closely linked to the interpretation of the motives Cennini could be describing.        The time around 1400, in Florence, is an important period of transition, where a fashion that differs for men and women has just been born, the boundaries of the sumptuary laws concerning headdress and jewellery are constantly challenged by women, and the rise of a more secular world where an individual dignity developed may instead be an argument that the word diadema is an essential sign of a more materialistic lifestyle emerging. Several factors come together arguing that the golden headdress of the early renaissance played just as important a role in paintings as the divine light and therefore showing that not every item gilded is a symbol of divinity, it can also be earthly belongings such as insignia, jewellery and dress decoration.

There are many factors that contributed to the proliferation of visual codes, metaphors and references to the gendered gaze in women's fiction of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. This thesis argues that the visual details in women's novels published between 1778 and 1815 are more significant than scholars have previously acknowledged. My analysis of the oeuvres of Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, Maria Edgeworth and Fanny Burney shows that visuality — the nexus between the verbal and visual communication — provided them with a language within language capable of circumventing the cultural strictures on female expression in a way that allowed for concealed resistance. It conveyed the actual ways in which women ‘should' see and appear in a society in which the reputation was image-based. My analysis journeys through physiognomic, psychological, theatrical and codified forms of visuality to highlight the multiplicity of its functions. I engage with scholarly critiques drawn from literature, art, optics, psychology, philosophy and anthropology to assert visuality's multidisciplinary influences and diplomatic potential. I show that in fiction and in actuality, women had to negotiate four scopic forces that determined their ‘looks' and manners of looking: the impartial spectator, the male gaze, the public eye and the disenfranchised female gaze. In a society dominated by ‘frustrated utterance,' penetrating gazes and the perpetual threat of misinterpretation, women novelists used references to the visible and the invisible to comment on emotions, socio-economic conditions and patriarchal abuses. This thesis thus offers new insights into verbal economy by reassessing expression and perception from an unconventional point-of-view.

While scholarship often focuses on how early modern Italians used images in their devotions, particularly in the post-Tridentine era, little attention has been placed upon how laypeople engaged with devotional text during times of prayer and in their everyday lives. Studies of early modern devotional texts have explored their literary content, investigated their censorship by the Church, or concentrated upon an elite readership. This thesis, instead, investigates how ordinary devotees interacted with holy words in their material form, which I have termed ‘material prayers’. Since this thesis developed under the aegis of the interdisciplinary research project, Domestic Devotions: The Place of Piety in the Italian Renaissance Home, 1400-1600, it focuses primarily on engagement with these material prayers in domestic spaces. Using an interdisciplinary approach drawing from material culture studies, literary history, social and cultural history, and art history, it brings together objects, images and archival sources to illuminate how devotees from across the socio-economic and literacy spectrums accessed and employed devotional text in their prayers and daily life. From holy words, Biblical excerpts, and prayers to textual symbols like the Sacred Monogram of the Name of Jesus, this thesis explores how and why these material prayers were employed for spiritual, apotropaic and intercessory purposes. It analyses material prayers not only in traditional textual formats (printed books and manuscripts), but also those that were printed on single-sheets of paper, inscribed on jewellery, or etched into the structure of the home. To convey how devotees engaged with and relied upon these material prayers, it considers a variety of inscribed objects, including those sanctioned by the Church as well as those which might be questioned or deemed ‘superstitious’ by ecclesiastical authorities. Sermons, Inquisition trial records, and other archival documents have been consulted to further illuminate the material evidence. The first part of the thesis, ‘On the Body’, considers the how devotees came into personal contact with texts by wearing prayers on their bodies. It examines a range of objects including prayers with protective properties, known as brevi, that were meant to be sealed in a pouch and worn around the neck, and more luxurious items of physical adornment inscribed with devotional and apotropaic text, such as necklaces and rings. The second part of the thesis enters the home to explore how the spaces people inhabited and the objects that populated their homes were decorated with material prayers. ‘In the Home’ begins with texts inscribed over the entryways of early modern Italian homes, and then considers how devotees decorated their walls with holy words and how the objects of devotion and household life were imbued with religious significance through the addition of pious inscriptions. By analysing these personal objects and the textual domestic sphere, this thesis argues that these material prayers cut across socio-economic classes, genders, and ages to embody quotidian moments of domestic devotion as well as moments of fear, anxiety and change.