Italy: Roman Period to Late Antiquity (Vol 2)

Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Lucie Jirásková

The chapter focuses on the perception of ancient Egypt and its culture through the eyes of Renaissance scholars and humanists. They could have known ancient Egypt from personal experience, including travels to Egypt or visits to Egyptian monuments that had been brought to Italy in the Roman period. The hieroglyphic script engraved into obelisks became a source of inspiration for the emblematics, but in fact never led to any successful attempt to decipher the ancient script. The symbolic approach to hieroglyphs was also supported by the philosophical trend of the time, Hermetism. It was a “construct” of Late Antiquity, resurrected and elaborated by Renaissance humanists, who were able to apply it to various branches of Renaissance science.


2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 157-165
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Jastrzębowska

In the last chapter of What Happened in History, Childe touched on the problematic of Late Antiquity. His pessimistic view of that period was a variation on the theme of decadence. This theme had existed in the Roman Republic and under the Empire, long before there was any Late Antiquity to be decadent. It then persisted throughout the Middle Ages and found monumental expression in Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Childe, however, took it to excessive lengths in his denunciation of the politics, economy, and culture of the Late Roman Empire. Childe based his arguments largely on the work of Rostovtzeff and Heichelheim. Both these eminent historians were exiles: Rostovtzeff from the Russia of the October Revolution and Heichelheim from National Socialist Germany. It is no belittlement to say that their work was influenced by the insights of their political experiences. Childe, however, did not appreciate this and adopted their thinking somewhat uncritically. He further added parallels between the Roman Period and his own time, which resulted in an unduly dark vision of the last phase of the Roman Empire.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 490-508
Author(s):  
Timothy P. Newfield

The history of late-antique animal plagues requires a fresh start. Over the last 30 years, scholars have amassed copious quantities of written and material evidence for major shifts in the natural world experienced, or reported, as disasters in late antiquity. They have read textual passages more critically and interwoven written with physical data more meticulously than researchers before them. As a result, much more is known now about human plagues, climatic downturns and tectonic perturbations in the Late Roman period. Yet knowledge of late-antique livestock disease remains pretty much where animal health specialists left it in the 18th and 19th c. There are, to be sure, histories of late-antique animal plagues, but they are long out of date, unreliable and altogether of poor quality.


2016 ◽  
Vol XXIV (1) ◽  
pp. 453-474
Author(s):  
Tomasz Waliszewski ◽  
Magdalena Antos ◽  
Piotr Jaworski ◽  
Piotr Makowski ◽  
Marcin Romaniuk ◽  
...  

Archeological work in the 2012 and 2013 seasons in Jiyeh (Porphyreon), which lies on the Phoenician coast north of ancient Sidon, was focused on reconstructing the history of settlement on the site. At least three phases were identified and dated to the Iron Age II, the Persian– Hellenistic–Roman period and late antiquity. The early dating of the functioning of the Christian basilica to the 4th–5th century AD was also confirmed in trial pits. The complex and unusual sewage installation discharging rainwater from the roofs and streets of the 5th-century settlement contributed important data for studies of late antique domestic architecture in the region.


2006 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
pp. 427-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brikena Shkodra

What seems to be the case is that Durrës during the late Roman period was incorporated in the network of Byzantine state-controlled supply which operated throughout the east and west Mediterranean, suggesting that the city was more open to the east than to the west in late Antiquity. By contrast, the supply of Tunisian fine ware and amphorae is smaller then the imports from the eastern Mediterranean. However, the persistence presence of Tunisian wares throughout late Vandal and Byzantine period argues for sustained interaction between east and west within the Byzantine world. The presence of local production in the 6th century contexts merits further analysis.


2016 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 239-268
Author(s):  
Dimitris Grigoropoulos

Modern perceptions of the ancient Piraeus have been monopolised by the urban image and function of the port as the naval stronghold of Classical Athens. Existing scholarship so far has tended to consider the post-Classical centuries, especially the era following the sack of the port in 86bcby the Romans, as a period of decline. Such preconceptions, based on largely superficial readings of a few ancient literary texts and a near-total disregard of the material evidence, have created a distorted image of the Piraeus and its significance in the Roman period. Drawing upon textual sources as well as archaeological evidence, this paper explores the changing nature of urban settlement, maritime functions and the economy of the port from the time of its destruction in 86bcto around the sixth centuryad. Particular emphasis is placed on a re-examination of the existing evidence from rescue excavations conducted by the Greek Archaeological Service as they relate to the topography of the Roman port and its long-term evolution. This combined study offers a more complex picture of the infrastructure, urban image and operational capability of the port during the Roman period than was hitherto possible. It also permits a more balanced understanding of the port's function at local, regional and provincial levels, and thus enables comparisons with other Roman ports in the Aegean and the rest of the Mediterranean.


2021 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 129-153
Author(s):  
Dimitris Grigoropoulos

This paper surveys archaeological work on Greek sanctuaries of the Roman period conducted over the past 20 years. Previously largely ignored or simply overlooked, in recent times the Roman phases of sanctuaries have seen a tremendous amount of excavation and research work, mirroring the increased interest in the archaeology of Roman Greece as a whole. In addition to brief presentatons of new and recent archaeological discoveries and material studies, this survey also aims to highlight the importance of current work based on the re-examination of sites excavated long ago and the contribution of various strands of archaeological evidence to an enhanced understanding of the history and function of Greek sanctuaries from the time of the Roman conquest to Late Antiquity.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 524-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin D. Gordon ◽  
Zeev Weiss

The mosaic carpets decorating Palestinian synagogues in late antiquity took various forms but tend to focus on three recurring visual themes: the zodiac, a motif with origins in Greco-Roman religious art; the Jerusalem Temple, long in ruins but still very much alive in the Jewish imagination; and the Biblical story, often classics and easily identifiable to those well-versed in scripture. The latter was the programmatic focus of the frescoes of the Dura Europos synagogue and would maintain hegemony in episodic art on synagogue floors through late antiquity. The paradigm was thought to have shifted in 2013-14 when excavations at Huqoq uncovered a mosaic panel featuring war elephants that was claimed to portray the first extra-Biblical scene ever found in an ancient synagogue. Huqoq was a thriving Jewish village in the Late Roman period. Its basilica-type synagogue was paved twice with mosaic, the earlier of which is better preserved and includes the “elephant panel”. Most of the rest of the floor has not been fully published, although news releases and preliminary reports mention them and assign the floor a date in the 5th c. The floor does include well-known Biblical scenes along with a zodiac panel and two undated dedicatory inscriptions with decorative framing elements that include putti.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 329-358
Author(s):  
Katherine M. D. Dunbabin ◽  
Işık Adak Adıbelli ◽  
Mehmet Çavuş ◽  
Doğukan Alper

In 2012, construction works at the traditional olive market at Tarsus, in Eski Ömerli district, revealed large-scale architectural remains of the Roman period; the construction works were halted and a salvage excavation was initiated by Tarsus Museum. The remains that appeared at the first stage of the excavations were interpreted as those of a reservoir from the Roman Imperial period, stretching along a N–S axis. On the E side, a structure projects from the E wall of the reservoir, containing a pool that collects water flowing from drainage pipes set in the reservoir’s façade. The pool was extended in two stages in late antiquity.1 Two metres north of this pool and 3 m from the E wall of the reservoir, the excavations revealed a mosaic pavement (9.73 x 5.05 m), apparently forming part of the floor of a building running parallel to the reservoir’s wall (fig. 1).


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