María Bernarda Marconetto

This project aims to explore the specific material transformations that occur throughout the history of objects and places, especially as they evolve into cultural heritage. We will trace the cultural biography, as defined by Kopytoff in 1991, of a tomb in the Necropolis of Thebes, located on the West Bank of Luxor in the current Arab Republic of Egypt. Understanding the biographical journey of this tomb, achieved through the investigation of material traces at each stage, from its initial construction to the marks associated with the heritage-making processes, will provide a unique perspective: the material side of heritage construction. We will employ archaeological and archaeometric methods to trace the material imprints of heritage-making practices, comparing this stage in the building’s history with previous ones, potentially revealing differences in uses, epistemologies, and ontologies related to this site. The vestiges of heritage-making will be addressed as part of the biography of the Theban Tomb (TT 30) in a symmetrical way as other material traces of memories and oblivion imprinted there over the millennia. In this approach, then, the material construction of heritage is no more than the last material transformation among others.