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This paper seeks to outline the tension between the idea of home and its material expression. The argument moves from the ways in which archaeologists have moved from narrative descriptions of the home to the household as an economic unit and shows how this has reflected changing interests in the discipline as a whole. The discussion then turns to architecture's view buildings as agents of social transformation and the expression of domestic life, and in particular the way in which the contents of houses act in that process. This brings the argument back to the way in which archaeology can approach objects within houses and how they work with the space in which they are placed to support feelings of home.

This paper seeks to outline the tension between the idea of home and its material expression. The argument moves from the ways in which archaeologists have moved from narrative descriptions of the home to the household as an economic unit and shows how this has reflected changing interests in the discipline as a whole. The discussion then turns to architecture's view buildings as agents of social transformation and the expression of domestic life, and in particular the way in which the contents of houses act in that process. This brings the argument back to the way in which archaeology can approach objects within houses and how they work with the space in which they are placed to support feelings of home.

This thesis contributes to the understanding of ancient Egyptian domestic space and the experience of privacy in the Workmen’s Village of Amarna during the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BCE). It provides a new framework with which to investigate domestic space, one not reduced to house units, but which integrates a large dataset from houses (artefacts, architectural features), facilities located outside the enclosure wall (pigpens, the quarry, chapels), and official buildings spatially distributed around the settlement. In addition, the use of anthropologically-orientated frameworks emphasises the relational aspect of domestic life and the way people relate to the surrounding landscape. This research approached dwellings as material culture, as a product and the medium of social relations, and not only as containers for social life. In so doing, it is possible to understand activity areas as arenas for social relations. Phenomenology is critically used and combined with a georeferencing tool (ArcGIS Pro) to understand artefact distribution within the landscape. A holistic approach to the village material offers a more complex picture of domestic space that is extended to the entire settlement. The village is then framed as a large domestic unit which conveys various experiences of privacy not limited to space, but to temporality and to status.

Ceramic pilgrim flasks were prevalent across the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, and were adopted into Egypt during the reign of Thuthmosis III. Their changing synchronic and diachronic usage across these contexts has however been little explored, and research demonstrates their integral position in commodity exchange. This approach sheds light on how Egyptian colonial practices in New Kingdom and Post New Kingdom Nubia affected material culture. During the course of this study, I applied typological and anthropological methodologies to pilgrim flasks to examine how vessel use changed across this cultural border, and the disparate ways this can be represented in the archaeological record. I collated 1635 pilgrim flasks from across Egypt and Nubia to approach three research questions: 1. How does pilgrim flask morphology change as it moves across the cultural landscape between Egypt and Nubia? 2. How were pilgrim flasks used? Do the deposition patterns of flasks suggest shifting usage between the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BCE) and the Early Napatan (c. 700– 500 BCE) in these regions? 3. What can these vessels ultimately reveal about cultural practices in Nubia, both before and after the withdrawal of the Egyptian colonial control at the end of the New Kingdom? I developed new typologies for Egypt and Nubia to compare the different morphological and distribution patterns visible. This revealed distinct regional practices associated with the form. The application of Practice models to the data scrutinised the divergent meanings associated with the vessel across these traditions, which were associated with both wine and perfumed oils in Egypt, but libation practices in Nubia. Pilgrim flasks were affected by colonial practices in Nubia and were swiftly appropriated into new habitus traditions. Their use in mixed colonial towns contributed to the ethnogenesis of an urban habitus that inspired institutions in the Early Napatan state.

The development of the medieval city of Angkor (802-1431 CE) in the floodplains of the Tonle Sap Lake has lead researchers to believe that Angkor made use of its extensive river network; however, little attention has been given to Angkor's relationship with its watery environment. Previous studies have presented a fragmentary view of the subject by analyzing different components in a compartmentalized way, placing the focus on nautical technology or neglecting discussion on water transport in academic works on land transport. This work aims to provide a more comprehensive study on Angkor's specific cognitive and functional traits that could be construed as a distinctive form of fluvial and cultural landscape. This is done by examining the environment, nautical technology, and the cultural biography of boats within the theoretical framework of the maritime cultural landscape and using a cross-disciplinary approach that integrates data from archaeology, iconography, history, ethnography, and environmental studies. A new topological map of Angkor's landscape of communication and transport is presented, as well as new insights on the use of boats as liminal agents for economic and political activities.