Águas de melgaço: a água importada na Manaus da Belle Époque

Abstract

This monograph presents the considerations and inferences of a research focused on post-processual bias in Archeology. Linked to the Historical Archaeology search line, analyzes in exploratory and inerpretative way the consumption context that touches an archaeological artifact existing in the city of Manaus. Saved in the laboratory, an exemplar of the “Águas de Melgaço” brand bottle, mineral-medicinal portuguese water, allows to glimpse through itis context social practices in the Manaus of the Belle Époque, that permeate the aspects involved in the incipient socioeconomic growth by wich passed. Multifaceted research, using the usual multidisciplinarity of its bias, analyzes both technically the object itself, such as search also see “through” the object, that is, to present, through iconographic and documentary sources, the marked presence of the consumption of bottled water, in particular that of the portuguese brand. Discusses the possibility of interpreting society through the material culture; of the urgency to consider as valid the field of social in Archaeology. It shows the important relationship between “Águas de Melgaço” and the life of the consumers of Manaus during the rubber period. The society that emerged, influenced by the desire to profite, enjoyed imported goods as bottled water, a symbol of idealistic consuption. Its high commercial and symbolic value made consumers want it not only for the properties it was said to possess but also for the social prestige that the imported bottle granted.