Artifact Role in Shaping Identity and Empowering Spiritual Practice

Abstract

Artifacts play an essential role in the contours of a cultural tradition, constituting the constant landmarks of a perennial. Within a given cultural horizon, those artifacts that express their ethos most effectively are the most important. Artifacts embody symbolic codes and forms belonging to the original, coagulating times of that cultural horizon. Not many artifacts are essential to a cultural pattern, even if they are found on various material supports and configurations. It is practical wisdom built up over generations, expressed through the genius of the person who decides how to print it on one material support or another.