The Many Lives of Chikaba’s jar

Tucked away in a small cabinet in a convent in Salamanca (Spain) is a

finely crafted little jar. Originally a filtered terra lemnia jar of Ottoman

origin, it has since had a wide and diverse range of lives, from utilitarian

object to Christian relic. In its life trajectory, it has woven together

people, things, and historical processes across cultures, borders, and religions,

from its origins in the island of Lemnos to its most famous owner,

the 18th-century Afro-Hispanic nun and writer Teresa Chikaba. The

jar’s long and complex life trajectory illustrates and embodies a web of

entangled lives, material processes, and global encounters. Through a

combination of archival research and the reconstruction of the jar’s origins,

we have started to untangle these complex webs and traced some of

the diverse past lives of this curious object and the stories it tells about

the slave trade, relics, Islam, Christianity, court intrigues, politics, and

racism in 18th-century Spain and beyond.