Flesheaters : an international symposium on Roman sarcophagi : University of California at Berkeley 18-19 September 2009 / Christopher H. Hallett (ed.).

Format:

Book

Conference/Event

Contributor:

Hallett, Christopher H., editor.

Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, sponsoring body.

University of California, Berkeley, sponsoring body.

Conference Name:

Flesheaters (Symposium) (2009 : University of California, Berkeley), author.

Series:

Sarkophag-Studien ; Bd. 11.

Sarkophag-Studien ; 11

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Sarcophagi, Roman--Congresses.

Sarcophagi, Roman.

Sculpture, Roman--Congresses.

Sculpture, Roman.

Relief (Sculpture), Roman--Congresses.

Relief (Sculpture), Roman.

Sepulchral monuments--Rome--Congresses.

Sepulchral monuments.

Rome (Empire).

Genre:

Conference papers and proceedings.

Physical Description:

x, 180 pages : illustrations ; 31 cm.

Place of Publication:

Wiesbaden : Reichert Verlag, [2019]

Language Note:

Text in English; includes abstracts in English and German.

Summary:

In this volume a number of Classicists, Classical Archaeologists, and Ancient Historians--most of them not sarcophagus specialists--all attempt to ask some of the most fundamental questions about Roman mythological sarcophagi. Why was Greek myth such a popular choice for the decoration of these monumental marble coffins? How should we interpret the particular myths that were chosen? How easy--or difficult--was it to identify and interpret the mythical stories represented? What emotions were these often violent and tragic stories meant to evoke in the mourner at the tomb? What does it mean when portrait figures are inserted into scenes of myth? How does it affect our interpretation of the mythical imagery that some sarcophagi were completely buried, and their carved reliefs completely concealed? And what might be the value of all these intricately carved marble sarcophagi for Roman social and cultural history? Unsurprisingly, there is a great deal of disagreement on these important questions among the various authors, and on what a cultural history written from the point of view of Roman funerary commemoration might look like. What all contributors to the volume seem to agree on, however, is that the great corpus of carved sarcophagus-reliefs holds out extraordinary--as yet unrealized--promise for the cultural historian. And this selection of essays, all starting from very different premises and assumptions, allows the reader a series of brilliant glimpses of what that promise might yet deliver: a more nuanced and more inclusive understanding of the strange and distinctive society that flourished under the Roman Empire during the second and third centuries AD.

Contents:

Foreword : living with death / by Timothy J. Clark

Introduction : Roman decorated sarcophagi as a source for the cultural historian / by Christopher H. Hallett

Puttin the deceased in the picture : pictorial devices as visual cues / by Paul Zanger

Why mythology? / by Alan Cameron

The violence of emotions : death, myths, and empathy in Rome (and Etruria) / by Francesco de Angelis

Mythologizing death : sylvae and sarcophagi / by Kathleen M. Coleman

Vivi vecerunt : Roman sarcophagi for and by the living / by Ruth Bielfeldt

Isolating the deceased int he picture : tools and technique on mythological sarcophagi / by Mont Allen

Standardization and transformation : some observations on the sarcophagus trade and sarcophagus production / by Michael Koortbojian

Hidden splendour : the display context of metropoligan sarcophagi / by Barbara E. Borg

Mythology and sarcophagi at Aphrodisias and Rome / by R.R.R. Smith

Roundtable discussion / by Christopher H. hallett.

Notes:

Conference proceedings.

At head of title: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9783954904006

3954904004

OCLC:

1137207309