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Material Culture

Material culture can defined as the embodiment in various media of the impulse and ability of living creatures for survival, communication, and creativity in the world. For humans, it encompasses both mundane and artistic creation and use, and reciprocal relationships between objects and individuals, and it often reflects and influences societal values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions.

Religion and Material Culture

Religious material culture includes artifacts texts, interior and exterior environments or landscapes, and architecture that expresses communal and individual belief, affiliation, or faith. Material culture in the historical and contemporary perspective of global religious traditions can be further delineated using sacred, decorative (or aesthetic), and more utilitarian categories. As with material culture, generally, artifacts that are specifically religious can be observed in paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, photography, ...

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