An Anatolian-Persian tomb relief from Gökçeler in Lydia

2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 119-130
Author(s):  
Figen Çevirici-Coşkun

AbstractThe relief block at the centre of this study was found in 2004 in a ploughed field in the northern region of Lydia near the village of Gökçeler in the district of Akhisar, in what is today the Manisa province. A standing male figure is depicted on the block, which probably belonged to a chamber tomb. Holding a cock and a bud in his hands, stylistically the figure points to a date between the late sixth century BC and the early fifth century BC. He has short, spiral curls and wears a long-sleeved, tight-fitting garment that appears to be influenced by the Persian style. Within the scope of Anatolian-Persian funerary reliefs, this example is particularly significant due to its typological and iconographical elements. Specifically, following comparisons with other works of the Persian period, it is possible to suggest that the figure on the Gökçeler relief is an African who is offering a gift to the tomb owner; the latter may have been Persian or have served a Persian. Thus, this relief has particular significance since it is the only known work of Anatolian-Persian sculpture which indicates that individuals of African origin lived in the Anatolian region under Persian rule.

1976 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Lindsay Faull

SummaryExamination of the Rolleston papers and local field-work have permitted identification of the site of the Sancton II cemetery and ascription of objects in the Ashmolean Museum to individual burials described by Rolleston. It can now be seen that, during the sixth century A.D., a small, predominantly inhumation cemetery close to the village was in use concurrently with the large cremation cemetery, which had begun on the top of the wold in the early fifth century and which was possibly used by surrounding communities, and that the Christian church was eventually built on the same site as the inhumation cemetery.


Author(s):  
Jason Scully

The first chapter demonstrates that even though Isaac quotes Evagrius throughout much of his writing, Isaac does not adopt Evagrius’s eschatological framework. In order to reach this conclusion, this chapter conducts a detailed comparison of two Syriac translations of the Gnostic Chapters, which is the Evagrian text that Isaac quotes most often. While the sixth-century Syriac version of the Gnostic Chapters includes a detailed eschatological consideration of the human soul in the future world, the fifth-century Syriac version is void of any distinctive eschatological framework. Since Isaac only used the fifth-century Syriac version of the Gnostic Chapters, he cannot have derived his eschatological framework from Evagrius. Rather, following Babai the Great, who established a framework for interpreting the fifth-century Syriac version of the Gnostic Chapters, Isaac interprets Evagrius’s Gnostic Chapters as a work describing the journey of asceticism.


Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov

This chapter examines the use of monograms as graphic signs of imperial authority in the late Roman and early Byzantine empire, from its appropriation on imperial coinage in the mid-fifth century to its employment in other material media in the following centuries. It also overviews the use of monograms by imperial officials and aristocrats as visible signs of social power and noble identity on mass-produced objects, dress accessories, and luxury items. The concluding section discusses a new social function for late antique monograms as visible tokens of a new Christian paideia and of elevated social status, related to ennobling calligraphic skills. This transformation of monograms into an attribute of visual Christian culture became especially apparent in sixth-century Byzantium, with the cruciform monograms appearing in the second quarter of the sixth century and becoming a default monogrammatic form from the seventh century onwards.


Author(s):  
David Wright

This chapter surveys capital letterforms, which have been in use from the second century BC until the present day. It defines two types of capitals in use since the Augustan Era: formal Square Capitals and informal Rustic Capitals, and traces the development of Rustic Capitals as a text hand in manuscripts of classical authors until the sixth century AD as well as the use of Square Capitals until the late fifth century AD. It closes with a look at the use of Rustic Capitals in rubrics of eighth-century manuscripts from England, and Rustic and Square Capitals found in Carolingian contexts.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
Stephen Joyce

In his De excidio Britanniae, Gildas systematically set out to admonish the morally corrupt secular and church leaders of partitioned fifth- or sixth-century Britain, calling for repentance, unity, and obedience to God's law in order to restore his beloved patria. Examining Gildas' use of rhetorical and biblical legitimations, this paper will argue that his warning of divine judgement for sin was inspired by a scriptural revelation that directly equated partitioned Britain with a divided biblical Israel just prior to the fall of Judah and Jerusalem to the Babylonians. In doing so, Gildas, drawing on both Jeremiah, prophet to the nations, and Paul, apostle to the nations, strikingly claimed prophecy. It will be argued that Gildas' unique prophecy for Britain, built on respect for romanitas, fear of de praesenti iudicio, and a singular providential claim to the inheritance of Israel, defined the political power of his natio not by gens but by obedience to God's law. In doing so, Gildas appears to draw on cultural, literary, and religious themes more appropriate to the late-fifth century than the mid-sixth century.


Author(s):  
Ralph W. Mathisen

By the late fifth century, there were two primary barbarian powers in Gaul, the Visigoths and the Franks. Both were enlarging their territories in the wake of the final precipitous decline of Roman authority during the 470s. The expansion achieved by the Frankish king Clovis I inevitably brought him into conflict with the Visigothic king Alaric II. During the 490s, the Franks made several unsuccessful forays into Brittany and south of the Loire. Subsequently, both sides did their best to consolidate their resources. Attempts by the Ostrogothic king Theoderic to avoid direct conflict failed, and war began in earnest in 507, when Clovis made a massive attack on the Visigothic kingdom. The decisive Frankish victory at Vouillé determined the map of sixth-century western Europe: the Franks gained control of most of Gaul, and the Visigoths consolidated their holdings in Spain.


Author(s):  
VIVIEN G. SWAN

In the Dichin (north central Bulgaria) store-buildings destroyed in about the 480s, the large quantities of imported Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea amphorae typify late Roman military supply (annona) to the forts of the lower Danube limes. A dearth of amphorae at Dichin for most of the sixth century is linked ultimately to alterations in trading patterns in the Mediterranean as a whole. A slight increase in amphorae shortly before the final destruction of c.580 reflects a significant recasting of supply sources. The few imported red-slipped wares are mostly late fifth century and of Pontic origin. During the sixth century, modifications in the local coarse pottery reflect cultural changes in the region — the decline of Romanized eating practices and the impact of the barbarian social traditions. The wider significance of ‘foederati ware’ for the Germanic settlement of the region and its influence on the technology of indigenous ceramics production are also explored.


Author(s):  
Andrew Chittick

Chapter 10, “The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 1: The Era of Pluralist Patronage,” is the first half of the third study of various repertoires of political legitimation. This chapter focuses on the development of Buddhist institutions and historiography in the fifth century, a period of pluralist patronage under the banner of Sinitic universalism. The Buddhist repertoire in maritime diplomatic relations with South Seas regimes proved an important staging ground for the ruler’s performance as a cakravartin, or Buddhist universal ruler, as well as a conduit for Buddhist expertise. By the end of the fifth century, Jiankang elites had developed Buddhist legends and practices that asserted that the Jiankang regime’s legitimacy derived, not from the Han Empire, but from its direct inheritance of legitimacy from the cakravartin Asoka, who had ruled in northern India in the third century BCE. This set the stage for the striking developments of the sixth century.


1970 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Cunliffe

SummaryExcavations at Portchester Castle have produced evidence of occupation throughout the Saxon period. After the cessation of standard Roman wares and local hand-made types early in the fifth century two Grubenhäuser were built. The contemporary assemblage, assignable to the mid fifth century, included (?) imported carinated bowls and local hand-made grass-tempered wares made in the Roman tradition. Late in the fifth or early in the sixth century stamped Saxon urns appear and probably continue, alongside the grass-tempered tradition, into the seventh century. An association of a grass-tempered pot with an imported glass vessel of eighth-century date shows that the local tradition persisted, but by the middle of the eighth century hand-made jars in gritty fabrics, like those from Hamwih, appear in a substantial rubbish deposit which belongs to the initial occupation of the hall complex. By the tenth century a new style of wheel-thrown pottery, called here Portchester ware, is dominant. It is mass produced and distributed largely from the Isle of Wight to central Hampshire and from the Sussex border to the River Mean. Contemporary forms include imported wares, green-glazed pitchers, pots from the Chichester region, and an assemblage made in a wheel-made continuation of the local gritty-fabric tradition. Portchester ware had gone out of use by 1100 at the latest.


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