1,720,996 research outputs found
The Archaeology of late antique statue monuments
No full textHonorific statues did not only exist at the time of their dedication, as conceived by sculptors and letter-cutters. Rather, they were also moved, repaired, modified, neglected, and destroyed. This happened during what might be called their ‘statue life’, in which they went from being objects of memorial to artefacts of oblivion, in the same way as mausolea. The processes involved can be reconstructed from the archaeological study of statue monuments, especially the investigation of their context. This can also reveal a great deal more on the intentions of those who dedicated a statue, beyond what art history and epigraphy can demonstrate. In this paper, I set out the potential of a fully archaeological approach to these monuments, building on the strengths of the Oxford Last Statues of Antiquity project. In so doing, I give an additional perspective on the archaeology of memory in Late Antiquity, to that provided by the study of funerary monuments and their spoliation. I suggest that effort should be invested not just in studying the erection and removal of extant monuments but also those which we can surmise once existed. Thus, I seek to shift the study of public statuary away from describing the relics which survive, towards a historical consideration of how all such monuments were displayed and treated in Late Antiquity
Local Economies? Production and Exchange of Inland Regions in Late Antiquity
No full textThe Roman economy was operated significantly above subsistence level, with production being stimulated by both taxation and trade. Some regions became wealthy on the basis of exporting low-value agricultural products across the Mediterranean. In contrast, it has usually been assumed that the high costs of land transport kept inland regions relatively poor. This volume challenges these assumptions by presenting new research on production and exchange within inland regions. The papers, supported by detailed bibliographic essays, range from Britain to Jordan. They reveal robust agricultural economies in many interior regions. Here, some wealth did come from high value products, which could defy transport costs. However, ceramics also indicate local exchange systems, capable of generating wealth without being integrated into inter-regional trading networks. The role of the State in generating production and exchange is visible, but often co-existed with local market systems
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