Books in the Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity series in order

The monumentality and the often rich embellishment of late antique buildings and monuments emphasises their importance to the patrons that commissioned them. However, the understanding and interpretation of the message conveyed may often be obtained through the study of the other important agent, namely the viewer.This book contains a collection of papers that focuses on the way patrons, pagan as well as Christian, conveyed messages through material and visual culture and on the reception by the viewers. The contributions investigate how patrons of luxurious buildings, elaborate grave monuments, and churches used architecture, images, and inscriptions to demonstrate political, social, and religious power. The visual arts were a strong factor in communicating identity and attitudes both in the public and private spheres also in Late Antiquity.

The present monograph takes its place in a now well-established tradition of seeing sarcophagi as visual statements of deceased individuals that used allegories to plot lives and personal memories against mythological and other idealised narratives. It focuses on Roman sarcophagi, often referred to as stadtrömisch, which reflects the fact that the field has traditionally been dominated by German scholars. The aim of the book is twofold: Firstly, it is an exploration of how to read Roman sarcophagi, which starts from those with portraits, but which can contribute more broadly to the study of sarcophagi in general. Secondly, this book investigates gender values as represented through images and how to locate the individual in standardised iconography.

Secrecy and the act of concealing and revealing knowledge effectually segregate the initiated and the uninitiated. The act of sharing or hiding knowledge plays a central role in all human relations private or public, political or religious. This volume explores the concept of secrecy and its implications in Antiquity, Late Antiquity and the Renaissance in eleven cross-disciplinary contributions using both textual and archaeological sources. By exploring the revealing and concealing of knowledge across different social contexts, time frames and geographical locations, the book provides insight into the concept of secrecy and its potential for illuminating the agendas behind identity constructions, political propaganda, literary works, religous practices and shared history.

The articles collected in this volume share a very similar goal: to decolonize our understanding of antiquity, thus allowing modernity to converse with antiquity without constraining the latter to be either the direct precedent or the thoroughly other of the former. It is certainly true that the past is a foreign country. However, history has repeatedly demonstrated that colonialism never contributed to mutual understanding and constructive exchange of ideas, and that such is the dialogue we should strive forthwith our contemporaries as well as with our ancestors.

Decolonizing Biblical and GraecoRoman Antiquities.