Roman Sarcophagus News (blog)

AIA conference paper on Roman sarcophagi with catacomb contexts (Boston, Jan. 5, 2017)

11/22/2017

Sarah Madole, of CUNY, will be giving a paper at the upcoming 2018 Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America.

The title: "Roman Sarcophagi with Catacomb Contexts: A Case Study".

The paper will be delivered in Session 1J — New Approaches to the Catacombs of Rome — of which she is also the organizer and Chair.

Scheduled for Friday, January 5, 8:00 - 10:30 am, the session also features papers by Nicola Denzey Lewis, Jenny Kreiger, Daniel Ullucci, and Jessica dello Russo, with concluding response/discussion by the formidable John Bodel. Not to be missed.

Comments

review of Janet Huskinson's Roman Strigillated Sarcophagi

11/21/2017

Comments

Janet Huskinson's important new monograph on Roman Strigillated Sarcophagi: Art and Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) has been reviewed (by the author of this blog) in the most recent volume of Classical Review.

The full reference:
Allen, Mont. "A Comprehensive Survey of Strigillated Sarcophagi." Review of Roman Strigillated Sarcophagi: Art and Social History, by Janet Huskinson. Classical Review 67, no. 2 (October 2017): 526-528.

Comments

AIA conference session on Roman sarcophagi (Toronto, Jan. 7, 2017)

12/11/2016

Comments

A wee plug here. The upcoming 2017 Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America — convening this January 5-8 in Toronto — features an organized session devoted entirely to Roman sarcophagi. With six papers and two respondents (among them Ortwin Dally, Director of the DAI-Rome), it offers a full lineup of sarcophagine (sarcophagal? sarcophagoidal?) delight.

Session 6I: New Research on Roman Sarcophagi: Eastern, Western, Christian
Saturday, Jan. 7, 1:45 - 4:45 pm
Chairs: Sarah Madole (CUNY—BMCC) and Mont Allen (Southern Illinois University)

(1) "Sarcophagus Studies: The State of the Field (as I see it)"
Bjoern C. Ewald (Universit of Toronto)

(2) "Roman Sarcophagi from Dokimeion in Asia Minor: Conceptual Differences between Rome and Athens"
Esen Öğüş (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich)

(3) "A New Mythological Sarcophagus at Aphrodisias"
Heather N. Turnbow (The Catholic University of America)

(4) "Beyond Grief: A Mother's Tears and Representations of Semele and Niobe on Roman Sarcophagi"
Sarah Madole (CUNY—BMCC)

(5) "Strutting Your Stuff: Finger Struts on Roman Sarcophagi"
Mont Allen (Southern Illinois University)

(6) "Love and Death: Jonah as Endymion in Early Christian Art"
Robert Couzin (independent scholar)

(7) Response
Christopher H. Hallett (U.C. Berkeley)

(8) Response
Ortwin Dally (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut)

Comments

Berlin's Bode Museum online: 360º panoramic tour of the museum's sarcophagi

2/15/2016

Comments

Berlin's gorgeous Bode Museum has launched itself online. Virtual visitors can now navigate at will through a full 360º panoramic tour of the entire museum, complete with clickable objects.

This panoramic tour includes room 115, the sarcophagus room, offering a nice assemblage of late 3rd- and early 4th-century metropolitan specimens. Some, but not all, of these feature early Christian imagery — the reason, one suspects, that they were purchased for the museum's 'Byzantine' collection in the first place.

Standouts include:

a curious bucolic piece with scenes of grape- and olive-harvesting interrupted by an unexpected equestrian,
a Jonah sarcophagus,
another important early Christian piece with the (very rare) figures of Cain and Abel,
and a strigillated piece whose portraits are unfinished: not only have their facial features been left uncarved (which is very common), but also — and this is very unusual — their hands too. (For another unusual example of hands left uncarved, see my blog post on a similar piece in the Capitoline.)

Below is a still screenshot taken from the virtual tour. Click on it to explore the room and objects yourself.

Comments

book by Elsner and Huskinson (eds.): Life, Death, and Representation

11/20/2014

Comments

A relatively recent collection of essays on Roman sarcophagi, edited by Jaś Elsner and Janet Huskinson, is — as far as I'm aware — the first edited volume of its kind in English. It contains some gems.

The full reference:
Jaś Elsner and Janet Huskinson (eds.), Life, Death, and Representation: Some New Work on Roman Sarcophagi, Millennium Studies, no. 29 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011).

The essays therein:

Jaś Elsner and Janet Huskinson (eds.), Life Death, and Representation: Some New Work on Roman Sarcophagi (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011).

- Jaś Elsner, "Introduction".

Glenys Davis, "Before Sarcophagi".
Janet Huskinson, "Habent sua fata: Writing Life Histories of Roman Sarcophagi".
Francisco Prado-Vilar, "Tragedy's Forgotten Beauty: The Medieval Return of Orestes".
Ben Russell, "The Roman Sarcophagus 'Industry': A Reconsideration".
van Keuren, Attanasio, Herrmann, Herz, and Gromet, "Multimethod Analyses of Roman Sarcophagi at the Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome".
Zahra Newby, "In the Guise of Gods and Heroes: Portrait Heads on Roman Mythological Sarcophagi".
Stine Birk, "Man or Woman? Cross-Gendering and Individuality on Third Century Roman Sarcophagi".
Björn Ewald, "Myth and Visual Narrative in the Second Sophistic — a Comparative Approach: Notes on an Attic Hippolytos Sarcophagus in Agrigento".
Katharina Lorenz, "Image in Distress? The Death of Meleager on Roman Sarcophagi".
Dennis Trout, "Borrowed Verse and Broken Narrative: Agency, Identity, and the (Bethesda) Sarcophagus of Bassa".
Jaś Elsner, "Image and Rhetoric in Early Christian Sarcophagi: Reflections on Jesus' Trial".
Edmund Thomas, "'Houses of the Dead'? Columnar Sarcophagi as 'Micro-Architecture'".

Comments