Authors:Francesca Bigi Pages: 1 - 37 Abstract: Lepcis Magna is a privileged site for investigating re-use in all its forms, and this paper focuses on the materials which are to be found recycled in two late-antique contexts: the late Roman defensive circuit and the so-called Unfinished Baths. In both contexts, the architects made use of a multitude of older elements, mostly architectural and epigraphic, many of which are still unpublished. These are discussed here for the first time in an attempt to investigate their character, their original provenance and in which ways they were employed within these new settings. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10431 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Tommaso Ismaelli, Giuseppe Scardozzi, Sara Bozza, Rosangela Ungaro Pages: 39 - 69 Abstract: The study concerns the city walls of Hierapolis in Phrygia (Denizli, Turkey), which were built in the second half of the 4th century AD or at the beginning of the 5th century AD, by systematically recycling architectural blocks from Imperial-era public monuments and funerary edifices. The preserved remains of the fortifications enclose the city along its northern, eastern and southern sides, leaving out large sectors of the urban area. Within the research activities of the Italian Archaeological Mission, topographical DGPS surveys of the remains were performed, and a geodatabase of the reemployed blocks was implemented with three main aims: i) the reconstruction of the building site of the city walls; ii) the identification of the demolished monuments of the Imperial-era used as “quarries” and the study of the procurement strategies of stone materials in the early-Byzantine Hierapolis; iii) the analysis of the relationship between the large building site of the fortifications and the other coeval construction sites and their impact on the socio-economic life of the city. The research allowed us to trace the development of the building site of the city walls, which, starting from the north, mainly reemployed blocks from the necropolises, North Theatre, North Agora and the shops along the plateia not-included into the early Byzantine Hierapolis. Moreover, numerous materials from the Gymnasium and other monuments located in the central part of the city but not yet identified on the ground were especially reused in the eastern and southern sectors of the walls. Lastly, the location of the recycled blocks made it possible even to reconstruct the various transportation routes linking the demolished monuments to the different sectors of the city walls. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10432 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Julia Lenaghan Pages: 71 - 89 Abstract: The honorific monuments erected in late antiquity in the city of Aphrodisias are striking in their preservation and in their appearance. Two scholars, Charlotte Roueché and R.R.R. Smith, have provided full and ground-breaking publications of these monuments and have extracted important information from careful study of the epigraphic and sculptural elements. Further study conducted under the aegis of Smith and B. Ward-Perkins in the Last Statues of Antiquity Project, has grounded these monuments in the larger, empire-wide context of late antiquity. These fine academic studies have made these late Aphrodisian honours points of reference. Without the work of these distinguished scholars, this paper would not be possible or relevant. This paper seeks merely to focus attention on small details of structure, technique, and iconography in an attempt to sharpen our vision of the very last of these monuments. It endeavours to distinguish tendencies specific to the sixth-century honorific statuary habit at Aphrodisias and to understand the concept of re-use and recycling in that last moment of the statue culture in this conservative city, by looking at three monuments dedicated to the same man in the last moments of the habit. These are three statues monuments to one Rhodopaios of the second quarter of the sixth century, preserved in different states. The paper is divided into three parts; an introduction that considers the main trends of honorific statuary, the presentation of the three monuments of Rhodopaios, and a conclusion. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10433 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Siri Sande Pages: 91 - 117 Abstract: It has long been recognised that the majority of the portraits made in Rome and the western part of the Empire during the fourth through sixth centuries AD are recarved from older portraits. This conclusion derives primarily from studies of male portraits, whose facial features have been altered to a greater or lesser degree by the late-antique sculptors. In contrast, recarved female portraits have so far often gone undetected, because their faces have been altered in a more subtle manner or sometimes not at all. Instead, the sculptors focused their efforts on recarving coiffures, which served as individual markers. For the study of female recarved portraits, therefore, the back and profiles are more important than their faces. This observation makes it imperative to photograph female late-antique portraits (and preferably the male ones as well) from all four sides in order to enable scholars and students to see alterations made to their hair. This will allow for a fuller picture of recarving practices to be established. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10434 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Eric R. Varner Pages: 119 - 146 Abstract: Research on the re-use of Roman material culture has often focused on repurposed architectural elements or re-carved portraits, and new approaches have increasingly focused on culture, context and memory with praxis, agency meaning, materiality, and reception as key issues. Sculpted portraits have been key players in the scholarly discourse beginning with the portraits of Rome’s ‘bad emperors’ such as Caligula, Nero, and Domitian reconfigured as a result of damnatio memoriae in the first century. The third century, however, proves to be a critical moment that witnesses a shift towards affirmative interventions that seek to refurbish and access the positive and legitimising aspects of the original images. Portraits are now redacted from likenesses of ‘good emperors’ such as Augustus, Hadrian, and Trajan to invoke the venerable authority of the imperial past. Private portraiture in the third century also provides evidence for secondary interventions not motivated by denigration but by the prestige of re-use. In a funerary context, the reconfiguration of portraits could confer ancestral honour and status. Ultimately the reuse of portraits, both imperial and private, can be read as highly creative revitalising acts of positive recycling. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10435 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Pierre-Antoine Lamy Pages: 147 - 164 Abstract: This paper examines case studies from Roman Burgundy involving suspected symbolic recarving during Late Antiquity. Is it possible that religious desecration took place before the Theodosian Codex, and if so, why' Can we differentiate them from cases of wanton violence' The ambiguous cases found at the “Sources de la Seine” sanctuary (Côte-d'Or) and Entrains-sur-Nohain (Nièvre) help demonstrate the methodological difficulties involved in understanding the destruction of ancient sculptures. Through an investigation of selected examples from Sainte-Pallaye, Escolives-Saintes-Camille, and Sens (Yonne), we see that while desecration was a reality, the variety of methods employed were linked to the destination of the mutilated sculpture, as well as local customs and legal contexts. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10436 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Audrey Gouy Pages: 167 - 196 Abstract: The Etruscans produced some of the most refined and elaborate pieces of jewellery in the ancient Mediterranean. While Etruscan jewellery is often interpreted as a sign of luxury, and prestige or as a means of legitimisation, the aim of this article is to show the communicative potential and function of adornment. In particular, what was the aim of such adornment in ritual performances and was there a gendered distinction between the jewellery worn by dancers' Did they have a sensory impact in dance' Based on visual evidence of dance from central Etruria from the sixth and fifth centuries BC, this article will focus on the sound these items could have produced. It appears that belts, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and diadems added to the male and female body highlighted, shaped, and performed gender, identity, and status; however, they could also blur, transform, and reverse them. PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10437 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Ria Berg Pages: 197 - 214 Abstract: From the bars and inns (thermopolia, cauponae, and hospitia) of Roman Pompeii, destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, a variety of different types of jewellery has been found. The bars have been excavated both inside the perimeter of the ancient city and in its harbour suburb. In particular, the complete gold parure found in a river-side caupona at Moregine (building B), featuring body-chains, bracelets, and anklets, gives rise to the hypothesis that this kind of outfit of abundant gold jewellery, plausibly worn on the nude body, may have been less typically owned by elite matrons and more distinctive of sub-elite women working in bars, perhaps even connect-ed with sex work. This hypothesis is tested by questioning the multiple multi-sensorial ways in which jewellery could attract attention to the wearer’s body and signal non-elite status. Among the more ephemeral and rarely considered features are the visibility of the jewellery, based on its dimensions, material, placement on intimate areas of the body, its mobility, and perhaps also the tinkling sounds produced by its movement. As a conclusion, there seems to be a connection between the abundant use of jewellery of high visual impact, acoustic qualities referring to dance and the hospitality business in the inns of Pompeii. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10441 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Meredith P. Nelson Pages: 215 - 231 Abstract: This article considers the Roman body chain (catena), which comprises two long lengths of woven gold chain worn crisscrossing the torso. Roman illustrations of women wearing catenae demonstrate that the form carried strongly erotic connotations relating to the goddess Venus and female sensuality. A small corpus of preserved body chains from the Vesuvian region testifies to their actual use by women in the first centuries BC and AD. This study examines the status of the women who wore such jewellery, which combined clear economic expense with erotic messaging. In opposition to claims that the sexual nature of body chains signals their association with prostitutes, it is argued here that visual and textual sources contemporaneous with the Vesuvian chains point to women of “respectable” social categories having both the freedom and incentive to express a confident sexual identity. Important archaeological evidence offers further indications for the ownership and use of catenae by Roman women of varying status. The potential meanings and motivations underlying the shared use of this symbolic form of adornment are also addressed. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10442 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Merav Schnitzer Pages: 233 - 243 Abstract: The meaning of the word katela was in question by Rabbis in the Middle Ages. The search for its meaning revealed an unknown breast cover, used by women to emphasize their breasts. This has led to a fascinating new perspective on Jewish women's life in the Middle Ages. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10443 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Patricia Antaki-Masson Pages: 245 - 263 Abstract: This paper investigates the personal adornment that was found in the medieval cave of ‘Āsi al-Hadath in Lebanon, which yielded a magnificent treasure from the second half of the thirteenth century. Indeed, several bodies lay there along with their belongings, all remarkably preserved. Historical sources reveal that this group belonged to the Maronite community. This paper attempts to address the identity of these individuals by studying the associated jewellery finds, thus adding new insights to this well-studied material. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10444 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Giulia Bison Pages: 265 - 276 Abstract: Two Roman brooches from the north-eastern slopes of the Palatine Hill in Rome demonstrate the different ways that personal identity was expressed, for example, through the choice of objects from the past or by a marked peculiarity in shape and decoration. One brooch provides an opportunity to reflect on the concept of personal adornment acquiring particular meanings and values over time, potentially as a family heirloom. A second brooch, characterized by unusual shape and decoration, provides an invitation to further explore the relationship between the expression of personal identity and style. This paper, therefore, focuses on the potential of these objects to reveal new information about the relationship between objects of adornment and personal identity. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10445 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Nova Barrero Martin Pages: 277 - 288 Abstract: Between 1934 and 1936, the archaeologist Antonio Floriano directed excavations in the city of Mérida, the ancient colony Augusta Emerita. Some years later, once the Civil War had ended, he published a good deal of the finds. These included the explorations conducted in the Oriental Necropolis of the city, an area whose extent he established and considered as a whole for the first time. Grave-goods from this cemetery were recorded, including the so-called Grave 10 of Pontezuelas. The grave is pinpointed on the published excavation plan and the grave-goods listed, but no mention is made of the context of their find. This highly interesting assemblage is particularly opulent due to the gold jewellery it contains. Especially noteworthy is a bracelet combining pairs of gold hemispheres—in the style of well-known examples from Pompeii but technically very dissimilar—with jet beads, some of which follow the model of the gold pieces. Other pieces consist of a ring with a highly original sandal-shaped bezel whose closest reference is to sandal-shaped fibulae known in the provinces of the limes, from Britannia to Pannonia; several hollow pieces; an earring; and a brooch. Various considerations point to the broad timespan of the types of jewellery in the assemblage and could indicate that they represent family heirlooms, brought together over a lengthy period of time (perhaps spanning over a century), passed on from generation to generation. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10446 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Pam Walker Pages: 289 - 304 Abstract: This article suggests that more detailed analysis must be done when using artistic sources, in particular, funerary monuments, as evidence for medieval dress. Using archaeological, documentary, and literary evidence for jewellery in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it asks why what seems to be a popular accessory was very rarely depicted on sculpted effigies and monumental brasses. Assumptions from just the visual evidence would conclude that brooches in particular were not a common piece of jewellery for noble women, but this does not correspond with the material evidence. The focus of this article, therefore, is on using an interdisciplinary approach to look at monuments as a source in their own right rather than as just a general mirror of contemporary fashion. By looking at three case studies, the article shows that deeper analysis of specific monuments can put them into religious, political, and historical context and provide information about the women depicted on them and the significance of accessories, such as brooches. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10447 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Courtney A. Ward Pages: 305 - 320 Abstract: Roman jewellery is often seen as a clear marker of wealth and luxury. While it is often classified and analysed as a single class and with an emphasis on pieces composed of gold and other precious materials, it is only when we start to look at the differences between individual objects that we can get a more nuanced understanding of this material culture and its role in Roman society and culture. Undoubtedly there was a market for comparable forms of jewellery for women from different socio-economic backgrounds to display similar aspects of their identities but within their own budgets (e.g., young, (presumably) married mothers-to-be). It is only by considering the spectrum of luxury that we can highlight how differences in quality and design reveal important choices behind the use of particular items of jewellery or packages of personal adornment. In other words, we should be cautious of grouping all jewellery together and under the simple label of ‘luxury.’ Not all gold jewellery, for example, was created equal. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10448 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Michael Marshall Pages: 321 - 355 Abstract: This study defines and characterises the ‘Baldock’ group of copper-alloy penannular torcs, which were worn in south-eastern Britain during the 1st century AD. Torcs had an important local pre-Roman pedigree, but this new regional style of dress seems to have emerged around the time of the Claudian invasion and was worn in the heart of the new Roman province of Britannia. The significance of these torcs is explored, focusing on the new social contexts in which they circulated, their connections to new kinds of provincial identities, and the ways in which torcs were reimagined and transformed within Romano-British society. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10449 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Ruth Allen Pages: 357 - 386 Abstract: The replication of conventionalised motifs on engraved gemstones of the Roman imperial period has often prompted their dismissal by scholars who deem them too frivolous, too plentiful, and too small to be taken seriously as image-bearing objects, or else prioritise their workaday capacity as seals. Foregrounding gems’ function as personal adornment, this paper uses examples excavated from Herculaneum to argue that the repetition of certain images was, in fact, central to their agency as markers of identity, signalling the gender, age, and in some cases, social status of their wearer through the propagation of easily recognisable visual paradigms. Where other studies have emphasised the ways in which Roman jewellery communicated identity publicly, this paper also brings the material properties of gemstones into play to consider alternative, more intimate modes of viewing and suggest how engraved gems enabled the private self-bolstering and imaginative negotiation of identity as much as – or perhaps even instead of – its outward expression. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10450 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
Authors:Hadas Hirsch Pages: 387 - 403 Abstract: This article focuses on two variations from the Muslim patriarchal binary system of females and males: mukhannathūn (those who display female behaviour and appearance while having male sex organs) and khuntha (those with a lack of or confused sex organs). These two categories were tolerated and represent an extension of the normative expected sex-gender spectrum of Islam. Personal appearance, in its broad meaning, is used as a tool for analysing the social-religious existence of mukhannathūn and khuntha within the community. The article concludes that jurists imposed a whole set of regulations, mixing male and female appearance, for the purpose of defining and differentiating these groups. These laws also enabled the religious and social existence of mukhannathūn and khuntha within Muslim communities. The patriarchal system preserved its power and protected itself while widening the binary male-female spectrum to include variations such as medial sex. On cover: Late Roman wall, the portion immediately south of the West Gate (Porta Oea) with re-used blocks from first-century mausolea (Drawing by Francesca Bigi) and Tombstone of Regina from South Shields (Arbeia) (Tyne and WearArchives and Museums/ Bridgeman Images). E-ISSN (online version) 2611-3686 ISSN (print version) 0065-0900 PubDate: 2023-08-01 DOI: 10.5617/acta.10451 Issue No:Vol. 33, No. N.S. 19 (2023)
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