Mont Allen
  • Home
  • C.V.
    • C.V.
    • Conference Sessions Organized
    • Conference Papers
    • Education
    • Fellowships
    • Invited Lectures
    • Publications
  • Teaching
  • Sarcophagus Memes
    • Sarcophagus Memes (highlights)
    • Sarcophagus Memes (all)
  • Roman Sarcophagus News (blog)
  • Classics & Art History at SIU
    • Classics at SIU
    • Art History at SIU

book by Theodosia Stefanidou-Tiveriou:  local sarcophagi from Thessaloniki

2/13/2016

Comments

 
This recent monograph by Theodosia Stefanidou-Tiveriou is a welcome addition to the DAI's Sarkophag-Studien series.  By focusing solely on sarcophagi produced for one small local market, she is able to analyze the close relationship between quarriers, carvers, and clients that yielded these pieces — a relationship far closer than the one underlying sarcophagi carved in Rome's teeming capital, or those sculpted in eastern centers (such as Docimium/Dokimeion) for the anonymous export market.

Given the prominent role played by inscriptions on these Thessalonian products, the book is to be commended for its close attention to epigraphic matters as well as its thorough catalog of objects, as might be expected from a German publication.

The full reference:
Theodosia Stefanidou-Tiveriou, Die lokalen Sarkophage aus Thessaloniki, Sarkophag-Studien, no. 8 (Ruhpolding: Rutzen Verlag, 2014).

For a detailed review, see the recent BMCR by Christian Russenberger.
Picture
Comments

book by Janet Huskinson:  Roman Strigillated Sarcophagi

12/6/2015

Comments

 
Strigillated sarcophagi were the single most popular type produced in the city of Rome:  no other genre of Metropolitan sarcophagi were carved in such numbers.  Yet precisely because of this — their daunting numbers, along with their relatively limited figuration — they have long languished in the shadow of the lavish mythological frieze sarcophagi that so dominate the scholarship.

Janet Huskinson's new monograph, published by OUP, seeks to redress things.  The first volume in any language (including German) to devote itself entirely to strigillated specimens, it treats everything from the particulars of their manufacture and their varied contemporary social resonance, both pagan and Christian, to their later reuse and long afterlife in European hands.

The full reference:
Janet Huskinson, Roman Strigillated Sarcophagi: Art and Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

​The author of this blog will soon review Huskinson's volume for The Classical Review.
Picture
Comments

book by Christian Russenberger:  Amazons on Roman Sarcophagi

7/19/2015

Comments

 


A major new work by Christian Russenberger — the first monograph ever devoted to the Amazon sarcophagi, with extensive historical contextualization and a complete catalog of pieces — has just been published by de Gruyter.

The full reference:
Christian Russenberger, Der Tod und die Mädchen: Amazonen auf römischen Sarkophagen, 
Image and Context, no. 13 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015).
Christian Russenberger, Der Tod und die Mädchen: Amazonen auf römischen Sarkophagen, Image and Context, no. 13 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015).
Comments

dissertation by Esen Öğüş:  Columnar Sarcophagi from Aphrodisias

11/23/2014

Comments

 
To my knowledge, the last 23 years have seen only four (!) American dissertations devoted to Roman sarcophagi.  The good news is that all four were filed within the last five years, reflecting surging interest among English-speaking scholars in a field traditionally dominated by German scholarship.

Of these four dissertations, three focus on Asian sarcophagi,  taking advantage of the wealth of material unearthed at Roman Aphrodisias.  The first, by Esen Öğüş, explores the socio-cultural significance of columnar sarcophagi within both their local Aphrodisian context and broader patterns of burial in Asia Minor.

The full reference:
Esen Öğüş, Columnar Sarcophagi from Aphrodisias: Construction of Elite Identity in the Greek East, Harvard University, 2010.



Abstract (courtesy of the author):
          This thesis explores the social and cultural meaning of a specific group of marble sarcophagi from Aphrodisias in Caria. The columnar sarcophagi, a corpus of 212 fully preserved or fragmentary pieces, are decorated on chests with projecting columns forming aediculae for the display of standing human figures in relief. Funerary inscriptions inform us that the majority of the Aphrodisian sarcophagi date to the third century A.D. and did not belong to the traditional city elite known from honorary inscriptions in the first two centuries A.D., but to a class of artisans and tradesmen who were newly granted citizenship by Caracalla’s Edict in A.D. 212.

          Part I of the thesis, drawing evidence from epigraphic analysis, situates the columnar sarcophagi within their archaeological context, and clarifies aspects of sarcophagus use in the city of Aphrodisias. Part II classifies and presents the extant corpus in three groups by highlighting the significance of each. Part III interprets the material within both the local cultural context and the widespread burial culture of Asia Minor.

          The iconography of the columnar sarcophagi, featuring human figures that exhibit paideia, reflects two sets of influences on the local culture: the ideals of the Second Sophistic; and the honorific habit that commemorated the good deeds of wealthy elite citizens. The overall appearance of a sarcophagus chest resembles a public building with a columnar façade and honorific statues embedded in it. Therefore, by commissioning columnar sarcophagi, the sub-elite patrons owned a personal model of a public building with their small-scale portrait statues on its façade. Since the ownership of a public statue was a privilege that the people of this status never had the chance to enjoy in life, they adapted conventions of private funerary art to avail themselves of a similar privilege in death. Exploring the social meaning of other local groups of sarcophagi in Asia Minor reveals that new citizens elsewhere developed their own local iconography in the third century that centered on their self-presentation and aspirations to elite status.
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".
  1. Glenys Davis, "Before Sarcophagi".
  2. Janet Huskinson, "Habent sua fata: Writing Life Histories of Roman Sarcophagi".
  3. Francisco Prado-Vilar, "Tragedy's Forgotten Beauty: The Medieval Return of Orestes".
  4. Ben Russell, "The Roman Sarcophagus 'Industry': A Reconsideration".
  5. van Keuren, Attanasio, Herrmann, Herz, and Gromet, "Multimethod Analyses of Roman Sarcophagi at the Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome".
  6. Zahra Newby, "In the Guise of Gods and Heroes: Portrait Heads on Roman Mythological Sarcophagi".
  7. Stine Birk, "Man or Woman? Cross-Gendering and Individuality on Third Century Roman Sarcophagi".
  8. Björn Ewald, "Myth and Visual Narrative in the Second Sophistic — a Comparative Approach: Notes on an Attic Hippolytos Sarcophagus in Agrigento".
  9. Katharina Lorenz, "Image in Distress? The Death of Meleager on Roman Sarcophagi".
  10. Dennis Trout, "Borrowed Verse and Broken Narrative: Agency, Identity, and the (Bethesda) Sarcophagus of Bassa".
  11. Jaś Elsner, "Image and Rhetoric in Early Christian Sarcophagi: Reflections on Jesus' Trial".
  12. Edmund Thomas, "'Houses of the Dead'? Columnar Sarcophagi as 'Micro-Architecture'".
Comments

book by Stine Birk:  Depicting the Dead

10/11/2014

Comments

 
Released only last year, this new book by Stine Birk is one of the few monographs on Roman sarcophagi to be written in English.  Analyzing strategies of portraiture, with a particularly keen eye for complexities of gender, it deserves to make a splash.

The full reference:
Stine Birk, Depicting the Dead: Self-Representation and Commemoration on Roman Sarcophagi with Portraits, Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity, no. 11 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2013).


Addendum:  Birk's book is reviewed here by Diana Kleiner for the AJA Online.
Stine Birk, Depicting the Dead: Self-Representation and Commemoration on Roman Sarcophagi with Portraits, Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity, no. 11 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2013).
Comments

book by Katharina Meinecke:  sarcophagi in their context

7/31/2014

Comments

 
Just out:  a new monograph by Katharina Meinecke.  Its project: to situate metropolitan Roman sarcophagi as far as possible in their original viewing context.

The full reference:
Katharina Meinecke, Sarcophagum posuit: Römische Steinsarkophage im Kontext, Sarkophag-Studien, no. 7 (Ruhpolding: Rutzen Verlag, 2014).

Any new volume in the DAI's Sarkophag-Studien series is a cause for celebration.


(Many thanks to Rebecca Hümmer-Kozik, of the University of Würzburg, for bringing this release to my attention.)
Katharina Meinecke, Sarcophagum posuit: Römische Steinsarkophage im Kontext, Sarkophag-Studien, no. 7 (Ruhpolding: Rutzen, 2014).
Comments

    Roman
    Sarcophagus
    News

    A venue for announcing all that's new and noteworthy in the burgeoning field of sarcophagus studies.

    I hope you, gentle readers, will help make this a collective endeavor.  Should you come across anything new pertaining to Roman sarcophagi — whether a recent article or book addressing them, an exhibition or website featuring them, or an excavation uncovering them — please let me know so I can share it here.


    Categories

    All
    Amazons
    Aphrodisian
    Bucolic
    Carving Technique
    Christian
    Dionysiac
    Discovered / Recovered
    Display Context
    Docimean
    Etruscan
    Gender
    Hercules
    Inscription
    Life And Death
    Lions
    Marine
    Musings On Select Pieces
    Mythology
    New - Article / Chapter
    New - Book / Diss.
    New - Exhibition
    New - Lecture / Paper
    Portraits
    Reuse
    Strigillated

    Archives

    November 2017
    July 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    July 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013

    Subscribe

    Picture
    via RSS Feed

    Picture
    via Email

home
curriculum vitae

          conference sessions organized
          conference papers
          education
          fellowships
          invited lectures
          publications

teaching
roman sarcophagus news (blog)
Mont Allen
Associate Professor of Classics & Art History
School of Languages & Linguistics
1000 Faner Drive, MC 4521

Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL  62901
+1 (618) 303-6553

email
background:  sarcophagus showing Selene approaching the sleeping Endymion (New York, Metropolitan Museum, inv. 47.100.4a,b)