Bøger i Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity serien i rækkefølge

The monumentality and the often rich embellishment of late antique buildings and monuments emphasises their importance to the patrons that commissioned them. However, the understanding and interpretation of the message conveyed may often be obtained through the study of the other important agent, namely the viewer.This book contains a collection of papers that focuses on the way patrons, pagan as well as Christian, conveyed messages through material and visual culture and on the reception by the viewers. The contributions investigate how patrons of luxurious buildings, elaborate grave monuments, and churches used architecture, images, and inscriptions to demonstrate political, social, and religious power. The visual arts were a strong factor in communicating identity and attitudes both in the public and private spheres also in Late Antiquity.

The present monograph takes its place in a now well-established tradition of seeing sarcophagi as visual statements of deceased individuals that used allegories to plot lives and personal memories against mythological and other idealised narratives. It focuses on Roman sarcophagi, often referred to as stadtrömisch, which reflects the fact that the field has traditionally been dominated by German scholars. The aim of the book is twofold: Firstly, it is an exploration of how to read Roman sarcophagi, which starts from those with portraits, but which can contribute more broadly to the study of sarcophagi in general. Secondly, this book investigates gender values as represented through images and how to locate the individual in standardised iconography.

Secrecy and the act of concealing and revealing knowledge effectually segregate the initiated and the uninitiated. The act of sharing or hiding knowledge plays a central role in all human relations private or public, political or religious. This volume explores the concept of secrecy and its implications in Antiquity, Late Antiquity and the Renaissance in eleven cross-disciplinary contributions using both textual and archaeological sources. By exploring the revealing and concealing of knowledge across different social contexts, time frames and geographical locations, the book provides insight into the concept of secrecy and its potential for illuminating the agendas behind identity constructions, political propaganda, literary works, religous practices and shared history.

The articles collected in this volume share a very similar goal: to decolonize our understanding of antiquity, thus allowing modernity to converse with antiquity without constraining the latter to be either the direct precedent or the thoroughly other of the former. It is certainly true that the past is a foreign country. However, history has repeatedly demonstrated that colonialism never contributed to mutual understanding and constructive exchange of ideas, and that such is the dialogue we should strive forthwith our contemporaries as well as with our ancestors.

"Pilgrims in Place, Pilgrims in Motion: Sacred Travel in the Ancient Mediterranean" brings together interdisciplinary scholarship on the connected poles of pilgrimage: the sanctuaries being visited, and the journeys to get there. Contributions investigate different concepts of place, community, social tensions and expectations of pilgrim behaviour; long-term meanings of place as embodied in memory and topography; mobility, migration and placemaking; connectivity and its relationship to pilgrimage. Individual chapters discuss shrines, sanctuaries and sacred places as well as journeys and mobility across Greek, Roman and late antique contexts, framed as part of a keydebate within the study of pilgrimage, the central tension between place and motion.

Decolonizing Biblical and GraecoRoman Antiquities.

I romersk kejsertid var det ikke ualmin­deligt, at en indflydelsesrig privatmand eller en hel by rejste en statue af kejseren på byens torv. Bronze var det foretrukne materiale til kejserstatuer, men, da metal er så let et materiale at genbruge, er langt hovedparten af disse statuer forsvundet. En statuebase derimod var stort set altid af sten, også selvom selve statuen var af metal. Ved at undersøge det langt større antal bevarede statuebaser sætter Jakob Munk Højte selve statuen ind i en større sammenhæng, idet der på basen som regel er oplysninger om kejserens navn og den, der har rejst statuen til hans ære. Forfatteren har her samlet et katalog med 2300 kendte statuebaser fra næsten 800 lokaliteter over hele Romerriget. Da kataloget strækker sig over 250 år kan man for første gang aflæse fx geografiske og kronologiske mønstre. Højte kon­klu­derer, at portrætstatuer af romerske kej­sere var et storbyfænomen; at de blev rejst med stort set samme frekvens gen­nem hver enkelt kejsers regerings­periode, dog med en højere kon­cen­tra­tion et par år efter tiltrædelsen; og at et primært for­mål var at fremhæve giverens meritter.