Images and Interpretation of Africans in Roman Art and Social Practice

2021 ◽  
pp. 424-463
Author(s):  
Sinclair W. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Racial Differences ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Roman Art ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Physical Traits ◽  
Sub Saharan

The representation of foreign cultures with manifest ethnic or “racial” differences, such as unfamiliar physical traits or exotic dress, has been a long-standing and often visceral site for human artistic expression. The visual and material culture of the Roman Empire provides an abundant record of such encounters which render visible complex formulations of ethnicity, social hierarchies, and power. The present chapter focuses on how artists represented the peoples whom Romans referred to as Aethiopians or Nubians (i.e., sub-Saharan or “Black” Africans) in different visual media, and it explores issues related to the social functions, patronage, and viewership of these works. In particular, the chapter discusses the formalized conventions, object types, and display contexts of their representations; examines the two critical axioms of their study (the philological and social historical); and maps out recent approaches to and future directions in their interpretation.

Gender and Sexuality in Greek Sport

2021 ◽  
pp. 652-675
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Scanlon
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Sexual System ◽  
Female Participation ◽  
Male Activity

Greek sport was in its earliest forms and predominantly thereafter a male activity. Greek masculine virtues were consistently reflected in texts discussing sport from Homer onward. The athletic and the martial spheres were often in tension regarding how greatly success in sport was valued as a measure of male excellence. The Greek gymnasium and athletic nudity were factors that fostered the Greek male sexual system of pederasty. Material culture in the form of sculpture, inscriptions, and vase paintings reflects the androcentrism of Greek sport. Female participation in Greek sport has a historical existence much less consistent and widespread than that of males, seen most prominently during the Roman empire.

scholarly journals Of Loss and Loot: Stalin-Era Culture, Foreign Aid, and Trophy Goods in the Soviet Union during the 1940s

2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (02) ◽  
pp. 219-258
Author(s):  
Nathalie Moine
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Stalin Era ◽  
Foreign Objects ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Red Army

This article focuses on the influx and circulation of foreign objects in the Soviet Union during the 1940s in order to investigate the specific role of these objects during World War II. It reveals how the distribution of humanitarian aid intersected with both the (non)recognition of the genocide of Soviet Jews during the Nazi occupation, and with Stalinist social hierarchies. It explains why erasing the origins and precise circumstances through which these objects entered Soviet homes could in turn be used to hide the abuses that the Red Army perpetrated against their defeated enemies. Finally, it revises the image of a Soviet society that discovered luxury and Western modernity for the first time during the war by reconsidering the place and the trajectories of these objects in Stalinist material culture of the interwar period.

scholarly journals Elitism and Status: Reassessing Settlement Hierarchy in Early Medieval England

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-42
Author(s):  
Hana Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Hierarchical Model ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
The Status ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The complexities of identifying and understanding settlement hierarchy in early medieval England (c. 5th–11th centuries) is the focus of much debate. Within this field of enquiry, settlement arrangements, architecture, landholding patterns and material culture are commonly used in the identification of a range of settlement types. These include royal complexes, monastic institutions, towns and trading/production sites such as emporia. This same evidence is also used to interpret the status and role of these sites in early medieval England. This paper advances the current understanding of settlement hierarchy through an assessment of rural settlements and their material culture. These settlements have received comparatively less scholarly attention than higher profile early medieval sites such as elite, ecclesiastical and urban centres, yet represent a rich source of information. Through analysis of material culture as evidence for the consumption, economic and social functions which characterise rural settlements, a picture of what were inherently complex communities is presented. The findings further support the need to reassess settlement hierarchy in early medieval England and a new hierarchical model is proposed.  

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 126-128
Author(s):  
Ersin Hussein
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Near East ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Roman Provinces ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cultural Networks ◽  
Written Sources

The Conclusion revisits the questions that lie at the heart of studies of the Roman provinces and that have driven this study. What is the best way to tell the story of a landscape, and its peoples, that have been the subject of successive conquests throughout history and when the few written sources have been composed by outsiders? What approach should be taken to draw out information from a landscape’s material culture to bring the voices and experiences of those who inhabited its space to the fore? Is it ever possible to ensure that certain evidence types and perspectives are not privileged over others to draw balanced conclusions? The main findings of this work are that the Cypriots were not passive participants in the Roman Empire. They were in fact active and dynamic in negotiating their individual and collective identities. The legacies of deep-rooted connections between mainland Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Near East were maintained into the Roman period and acknowledged by both locals and outsiders. More importantly, the identity of the island was fluid and situational, its people able to distinguish themselves but also demonstrate that the island was part of multiple cultural networks. Cyprus was not a mere imitator of the influences that passed through it, but distinct. The existence of plural and flexible identities is reflective of its status as an island poised between multiple landscapes

The Archaeology of Islamisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Comparative Study

Islamisation ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 244-274
Author(s):  
Timothy Insoll
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Funerary Practices ◽  
New Markets ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Ways Of Life

The archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa is remarkably diverse in relation to its material components, its geographical and chronological frameworks, and the life ways that were influenced by Islam, from settled and nomadic populations, peasants and kings, to merchants, farmers, warriors and townspeople. Islamisation processes were equally varied involving, for example, trade, proselytisation, jihad and prestige. Economically, new markets might be reached. Politically, the adoption of Arabic, of new forms of administration and of literacy could have a significant impact. Socially, material culture and ways of life could alter as manifest via diet and funerary practices, house types and settlement patterns. It is not possible to adequately summarise this diversity here.1 Instead emphasis will be placed upon selectively considering the evidence in order to indicate what archaeology can tell us about Islamisation processes in Africa, and to demonstrate the value and utility of archaeology for examining this Islamisation

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Swift
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Design Theory ◽  
Social Experience ◽  
Social Convention ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Colonial Theory

The physical features of objects have a very direct relationship to social practices. Many of the everyday activities of human living require the use of tools and equipment, and this material culture has developed in close relationship with the human behaviour it makes possible. At the simplest level, artefact features can provide information about what objects were used for and what activities were carried out in the past. Yet they can also tell us much more: about the perceived agency of objects, about past users and their social experience, about cultural change and development in social practice, and about the persistence of tradition and social convention. In this book, I draw on a range of perspectives from design and craft theory. These perspectives were mostly developed in the context of studies of modern objects or those of the more recent historical past. They relate to the practical uses of artefacts, for instance as tools and equipment. These approaches encourage us to re-examine a functional approach to archaeological artefacts. They can be useful in prompting us to ask new questions, and to engage with previously neglected categories of material. I will explore design theory in relation to Roman material culture, in particular, investigating the following areas: (1) The relationship between the form of objects and their actual use/s. (2) How the material properties of objects relate to social experience, behaviour, and cultural traditions. (3) Assumptions about intended users evident through object design. (4) How aspects of production affect human relationships with objects. I hope to both reveal important new aspects of Roman social practice, and help us to better understand the relationships between people, objects, and behaviour that existed in, and shaped, Roman and provincial Roman society. The social function of artefacts as possessions and commodities has been extensively studied in both archaeology and anthropology, drawing on artefact appearance and decorative style and its significance. A definitive volume on material culture summarizes theoretical approaches to artefacts, including object biography, post-colonial theory, globalization, and consumption theory. Such approaches have been influential in Roman archaeology.

Mobility in Prehistory and Early Historic Times

2019 ◽  
pp. 103-121
Author(s):  
D. W. Harding
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Culture Contact ◽  
Migration And Invasion ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Dna Analyses ◽  
Documentary History ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
North Western

For most of the twentieth century migration and invasion were the default explanation of material culture change in archaeology. This model was largely derived from the record of documentary history, which not only recorded the Gaulish diaspora of later prehistory but the migrations that resulted in the breakup of the Roman Empire. The equation of archaeological distributions—the formula ‘pots = people’—was a model adopted and promoted by Gordon Childe, and remained fundamental to archaeological interpretation into the 1960s. Thereafter diffusionism was discredited among British prehistorians, though less so among European archaeologists and classical or historical archaeologists. Even the Beaker phenomenon became a ‘cult package’ rather than the product of settlers, and it is only as a result of more recent isotopic and DNA analyses that the scale of settlement from the continent introducing Beakers has begun to be demonstrated. Other factors in culture contact including long-distance trade have long been evident, for example, from the distribution of finds of Baltic amber from Northern and North-Western Europe to the Mediterranean, or the distribution of continental pottery and glass via the western seaways in the post-Roman period.

Amulets and the Ritual Efficacy of Christian Symbols

2019 ◽  
pp. 349-366
Author(s):  
Rangar H. Cline
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
Insight Into

Although “magical” amulets are often overlooked in studies of early Christian material culture, they provide unique insight into the lives of early Christians. The high number of amulets that survive from antiquity, their presence in domestic and mortuary archaeological contexts, and frequent discussions of amulets in Late Antique literary sources indicate that they constituted an integral part of the fabric of religious life for early Christians. The appearance of Christian symbols on amulets, beginning in the second century and occurring with increasing frequency in the fourth century and afterward, reveals the increasing perception of Christian symbols as ritually potent among Christians and others in the Roman Empire. The forms, texts, and images on amulets reveal the fears and hopes that occupied the daily lives of early Christians, when amulets designed for ritual efficacy if not orthodoxy were believed to provide a defense against forces that would harm body and soul.

scholarly journals A view from the margin? Roman commonwares and patterns of distribution and consumption at Interamna Lirenas (Lazio)

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 323-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Launaro ◽  
Ninetta Leone
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Widespread Distribution ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Trade And Exchange

There can hardly be any doubt that goods moved in large quantities and over great distances under the Roman empire. This awareness is borne out of a long tradition of archaeological research attesting to the widespread distribution of specific categories of material culture across the full expanse of the Mediterranean and beyond. This phenomenon has been interpreted as a more or less direct result of Rome's military expansion and the fundamental political unification which came with it, bringing about unprecedented conditions which favoured trade and exchange. Scholarship has often stressed the rôle played in this by ‘institutions’: the spread and adoption of a common set of laws, currency and units of measure, fostered by a relatively long period of internal peace and political stability, would have boosted the economic performance of the empire to levels that had not been witnessed before and would not be seen again for many centuries. Indeed, the notion of ‘efflorescence’ has sometimes been employed to describe and explain the kind of economic growth to which this process might have contributed.

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