Body as weapon: the archaeology of a war victim’s narrative

Abstract

ABSTRACT The soldier's body is the most important subject of violence and destruction in war. Humans live primarily through their body in the material world, and when the body is destroyed, their whole existence is affected, both physically and non-physically. Therefore, the first locus on which we can observe the effects of war and violence is the human body, mainly soldiers. In modern wars, the soldier’s body is combined with weapons and machines of war, but is also the first target of killing whether in attack or defence. On the one hand it is targeted and killed, but on the other hand the body itself targets and kills. In warfare, bodies are trained to be the mechanism of killing and they are employed on battlefields according to the political objectives of their sovereign power. Thus, the soldier’s body becomes a weapon separated from the individual human body by the political authority.