Using Images in Late Antiquity
Using Images in Late Antiquity

Author: Stine Birk

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2014-04-30

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1782972641

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Fifteen papers focus on the active and dynamic uses of images during the first millennium AD. They bring together an international group of scholars who situate the period’s visual practices within their political, religious, and social contexts. The contributors present a diverse range of evidence, including mosaics, sculpture, and architecture from all parts of the Mediterranean, from Spain in the west to Jordan in the east. Contributions span from the depiction of individuals on funerary monuments through monumental epigraphy, Constantine’s expropriation and symbolic re-use of earlier monuments, late antique collections of Classical statuary, and city personifications in mosaics to the topic of civic prosperity during the Theodosian period and dynastic representation during the Umayyad dynasty. Together they provide new insights into the central role of visual culture in the constitution of late antique societies.

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Author: Moshe Barasch

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 1992-08-01

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0814787266

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Over the centuries, European debate about the nature and status of images of God and sacred figures has often upset the established order and shaken societies to their core. Out of this debate, an identifiable doctrine has emerged of the image in general and of the divine image in particular. This fascinating work concentrates on these historical arguments, from the period of Late Antiquity up to the great and classic defenses of images by St. John of Damascus and Theodore of Studion. Icon extends beyond the immediate concerns of religion, philosophy, aesthetics, history, and art, to engage them all.

Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity
Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity

Author: Richard Miles

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-03-11

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1134649924

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Identity is a 'trendy' and 'hot' topic in classics Eminent contributors, including Pat Easterling, Gillian Clarke Identity examined from different perspectives and as different structures - sexual, ethnic, geographic, status, religions - comprehensive Theoretically and critically up-to-date

Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity
Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity

Author: Sean V. Leatherbury

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-07-26

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 1000023338

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Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity considers the Greek and Latin texts inscribed in churches and chapels in the late antique Mediterranean (c. 300–800 CE), compares them to similar texts from pagan, Jewish, and Muslim spaces of worship, and explores how they functioned both textually and visually. These texts not only recorded the names and prayers of the faithful, but were powerful verbal and visual statements of cultural values and religious beliefs, conveying meaning through their words as well as through their appearances. In fact, the two were intimately connected. All of these texts – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and pagan – acted visually, embracing their own materiality as mosaic, paint, or carved stone. Colourful and artfully arranged, the inscriptions framed human relationships with the divine, encouraged responses from readers, and made prayers material. In the first in-depth examination of the inscriptions as words and as images, the author reimagines the range of aesthetic, cultural, and religious experiences that were possible in spaces of worship. Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity is essential reading for those interested in Roman, late antique, and Byzantine material and visual culture, inscriptions and other texts, and religious life in the ancient Mediterranean.

A Globalised Visual Culture?
A Globalised Visual Culture?

Author: Fabio Guidetti

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2020-07-31

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 1789254493

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Late Antique artefacts, and the images they carry, attest to a highly connected visual culture from ca. 300 to 800 C.E. On the one hand, the same decorative motifs and iconographies are found across various genres of visual and material culture, irrespective of social and economic differences among their users – for instance in mosaics, architectural decoration, and luxury arts (silver plate, textiles, ivories), as well as in everyday objects such as tableware, lamps, and pilgrim vessels. On the other hand, they are also spread in geographically distant regions, mingled with local elements, far beyond the traditional borders of the classical world. At the same time, foreign motifs, especially of Germanic and Sasanian origin, are attested in Roman territories. This volume aims at investigating the reasons behind this seemingly globalised visual culture spread across the Late Antique world, both within the borders of the (former) Roman and (later) Byzantine Empire and beyond, bringing together diverse approaches characteristic of different national and disciplinary traditions. The presentation of a wide range of relevant case studies chosen from different geographical and cultural contexts exemplifies the vast scale of the phenomenon and demonstrates the benefit of addressing such a complex historical question with a combination of different theoretical approaches.

Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity
Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity

Author: Professor Hugh Elton

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2015-01-28

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1472443500

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This volume examines the transformation that took place in a wide range of genres in Late Antiquity. Aspects of sacred and secular literature are discussed, alongside chapters on technical writing, monody, epigraphy, epistolography and visual representation. What emerges is the flexibility of genres in the period: late antique authors were not slavish followers of their classical predecessors, but were capable of engaging with existing models and adapting them to their own purposes.

Late Antiquity in Contemporary Debate
Late Antiquity in Contemporary Debate

Author: Rita Lizzi Testa

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2017-03-07

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1443876569

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Late Antiquity, once known only as the period of protracted decline in the ancient world (Bas-Empire), has now become a major research area. In recent years, a wide-ranging historiographic debate on Late Antiquity has also begun. Replacing Gibbon’s categories of decline and decadence with those of continuity and transformation has not only brought to the fore the concept of the Late Roman period, but has made the alleged hiatus between the Roman, Byzantine and Mediaeval ages less important, while also driving to the margins the question of the end of the Roman Empire. This has broadened the scope of research on Late Antiquity enormously and made the issue of periodization of crucial significance. The resulting debate has escaped the confines of Europe and now embraces almost all historiographic cultures around the world. This book sheds new light on this debate, collecting papers given at the 22nd International Congress of Historical Sciences (CISH/ICHS) in Jinan, China. They recall key moments of the discovery of the world of Late Antiquity, and show how it is possible to reach a definition of an age, analysing different sectors of history, using disparate sources, and with the guidance of very varied interpretative models.

The Bible from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance
The Bible from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance

Author: Ambrogio M. Piazzoni

Publisher: Liturgical Press Academic

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780814644614

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The Bible has inspired scholarly and artistic achievements all over the world since Late Antiquity. The largest and most diverse collection of Bibles, in both their calligraphic and illuminative expression, is archived at the Vatican Library. The scholars who contributed to this volume were given unprecedented access to the Vatican Library archive and, while focusing on the written and illustrative themes of the Bible, have created the most comprehensive chronology to date. This volume is a journey led by major international scholars through the Bible's development from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance era, allowing all readers of the Bible to marvel at the wisdom of the writings and beauty of the illustrations, many available here for the first time.

Late Antique Egyptian Funerary Sculpture
Late Antique Egyptian Funerary Sculpture

Author: Thelma K. Thomas

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780691034683

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Some of these sculptures were made for grand monumental tombs and commissioned by an urban, land-owning class with strong Hellenistic roots; others were made for smaller and less imposing monuments and commissioned by distinctly different clienteles from monasteries and towns, as well as by different socio-economic classes within the cities.".