Postdoctoral researcher in Classical archaeology at the University of Oslo, the Norwegian Institute in Rome. My primary research interest are Late Roman burial practice and societal change. Address: Viale Trenta Aprile 33 I-00153 Roma Italy
team completed their sixth campaign in Hierapolis, Turkey. After the intensive survey in 2011, fo... more team completed their sixth campaign in Hierapolis, Turkey. After the intensive survey in 2011, focus was returned to excavations, with some additional surveying, and the implementation of new methodology. The article features a brief overview of the 2012 excavation, of advances in photogrammetric documentation, as well as temporary resultes of the various bone analysis.
The 2013 campaign focussed not only on the excavations and survey in the East
Necropolis, but als... more The 2013 campaign focussed not only on the excavations and survey in the East Necropolis, but also on finds and scientific analyses, which this article will reflect. In addition to outlining the progress in the field, some preliminary notes on material studies are included, as the main bulk of excavations have been completed.
Kjetil Bortheim, Erika Cappelletto, David Hill, Henrike Kiesewetter, Helene Russ, Irene Selsvold, Camilla Cecilie Wenn, Megan Wong
Siden 1957 har italienske forskere drevet arkeologiske undersøkelser i den antikke byen Hierapoli... more Siden 1957 har italienske forskere drevet arkeologiske undersøkelser i den antikke byen Hierapolis i Lilleasia (figur 1).1 I 2007 ble norske arkeologer og naturvitere invitert til å undersøke en av byens gravplasser, den såkalte Nordøst-nekropolen. Det norske forskningsprosjektets primære mål var å foreta en full typologisk dokumentasjon av alle synlige graver og sarkofager på denne gravplassen, deres topografiske utbredelse og organisasjon, dernest å foreta utgravninger av utvalgte gravbygninger og gravområder for å avdekke nekropolens bruksperioder.
Valget falt på en gruppe med tre bygninger og tre sarkofager i nekropolens øverste del; i tillegg ble det foretatt noen spredte stikkgravninger rundt i gravplassområdet. Dette arbeidet dannet grunnlaget for videre studier, der vi i en sosial sammenheng ønsket å undersøke en bybefolkning i detalj over en lengre periode gjennom studier av gravarkitektur og landskapsoppfatning, organisasjon, familietilhørighet og entreprenørvirksomhet, rituell handling og praksis, genetiske relasjoner og opphav, paleodemografi, helse og sykdommer, dietter og enkeltpersoners bevegelsesmønstre. For å kunne svare på mange av disse spørsmålene ble det også foretatt bioarkeologiske undersøkelser, som C14-dateringer, osteologi og DNA- og isotopanalyser. Målet med denne artikkelen er å diskutere hva de foreløpige studiene rundt disse spørsmål kan fortelle oss om liv og død i Hierapolis, sett i en videre lokal og regional kulturkontekst. Gravplassens historie strekker seg fra 1./2. årh. e.Kr. til ca. år 1300, og fanger opp religionsskiftet i senantikken. Der er derfor naturlig, etter en historisk innledning, å se på hvorledes døden (gjennom gravenes lokalisering, form og innhold) ble behandlet før og etter religionsskiftet, deretter hva skjelettene kan fortelle om livskvalitet og endringer i den
Senantiken innebar kristendomens konsolideringsfas i det romerska riket. Den kännetecknades även... more Senantiken innebar kristendomens konsolideringsfas i det romerska riket. Den kännetecknades även av konflikter mellan kristna och hedningar. Både hedniska och kristna iscensatte förföljelser av varandra. Inte bara människor föll offer för konflikterna, de fick också ödesdigra konsekvenser för den materiella kulturen. Denna artikel diskuterar forödelsen av hedniska kultbilder i mötet med kristna under den religiösa transformationsfasen. I fokus står den romerska Mithraskulten.
(Life and Death at Hierapolis. Norwegian excavations in a Hellenistic–Roman–Byzantine town in Asi... more (Life and Death at Hierapolis. Norwegian excavations in a Hellenistic–Roman–Byzantine town in Asia Minor) From 2007 to 2015 the University of Oslo, invited by The Italian Archaeological Mission at Hierapolis in Phrygia, conducted archaeological research in the North-East Necropolis at Hierapolis. The aim of the project was to document all visible tombs and sarcophagi of the necropolis and excavate selected tomb areas and tombs. The research, including osteological, DNA- and isotope-analyses, investigated the life of the inhabitants over a long period of time (ca. 100–1300 A.C.) with reference to tomb architecture, landscape perception, organization, entrepreneurship, ritual practices, genetic relations and origins, demography, health, sickness, diets, and individual movement patterns. Many of the aims are answered in the article, here shall only be mentioned two important discoveries: cremation has been documented as late as the 5th/6th centuries A.C., in periods of crisis perhaps used to signal pagan opposition to imposed Christian practices; the life conditions in the Roman/ Early Byzantine period were much better than in that of the Middle Byzantine period.
The Spatial Turn in Roman Studies Conference, University of Durham, December 2-3 , 2020
How was urban space Christianised in Roman Late Antiquity? Archaeological research on the Christi... more How was urban space Christianised in Roman Late Antiquity? Archaeological research on the Christianisation and material culture has in the past been focused on destruction of temples and statues, often disregarding their wider urban contexts. In this paper, I stress the importance of stepping out of the temples and into the urban space in such analyses in order to gain fuller understanding of how the Christianisation process occurred in Roman cities. I draw on the archaeologist Geoff Bailey’s concept ‘palimpsests of meaning’ (Bailey 2007) and assemblage theory (e.g. Deleuze and Guattari 1980, DeLanda 2006) in order to examine how pagan material culture changes meaning during the Christianisation process as objects and monuments are fragmented and recontextualised, as they detach from and enter assemblages and gain successions of meanings.
The paper focuses on spolia as spatial palimpsests in the public spaces of Ephesus and Aphrodisias in Asia Minor. Through a series of examples from the two cities I demonstrate how pagan monuments are broken down, moved, and form new assemblages that affect and are affected by people as they inhabit public space. Particular attention is brought to the effects of interaction during daily and ritual movement through streetscapes.
Ultimately, the paper argues that recontextualization and visibility was as important a Christianisation strategy as destruction of pagan material culture.
The term “posthumanism” is used to refer to a multitude of theoretical positions, with the common... more The term “posthumanism” is used to refer to a multitude of theoretical positions, with the common denominator of being critical of traditional conceptions of the privileges and limitations of “the human.” Scholars within diverse fields have recently embraced posthumanist theories to challenge the standard dichotomies of Renaissance humanism in their research, stressing instead the mutual relationship between matter and discourse, and considering the agency of animals, artefacts, landscapes, and ideas alongside humans. The session demonstrates posthuman theory’s great potential to develop classical scholarship in general, and specifically classical archaeology, in relation to how we approach both ancient cultures and our own positions as researchers. Posthuman perspectives are particularly relevant for the topics of Roman mythology and religion, with their emphasis on metamorphoses, hybrid creatures, and encounters between actors that are human, divine, monstrous, or all of it. Roman religion is rife with animated landscapes and sacred groves, the oracular capacity of “inanimate” objects and liquid boundaries between images of gods and the gods themselves. In such instances, the assumptions of traditional scholarship have sometimes resulted in the construction of philosophical conundrums that may have been alien to Roman culture. We explore how posthuman perspectives instead are capable of acknowledging the various ways in which Roman approaches to elements of myth, art and material culture, built and natural space and the sacred, displace and complicate modern notions of human exceptionalism and individualist subjectivity. The session aims to critically engage with the human/individual- focused research practices that have dominated archaeology, to explore the possibilities posthuman perspectives can provide for the development of Roman archaeology.
Our session raises the question “What can Posthumanism do for Classical Studies?”. My paper aims ... more Our session raises the question “What can Posthumanism do for Classical Studies?”. My paper aims not at answering this question, but explore some of the possibilities posthumanist theory provide for our field. As the session title hints at, posthumanist theory is still a very new theoretical direction within the humanities in general, and certainly within Classics. Thus, this paper aims at shedding light on posthumanism as a theoretical direction and research tool, its impact on, and reception in, humanities thus far, and at exploring the potential of posthumanism in our future research. Firstly, I will give an overview of the central aims and themes of the posthumanist debate. The main focus of posthumanist theory is to go beyond the Cartesian notion of “Man”, something that can be explored through considering non-human and trans-human agency in our research (Barad 2003;Braidotti 2013). Central themes in the debate have been, amongst others, the agency and power of artefacts (e.g Gell 1998, Olsen 2010), the agency of nature and the relationship between human/ culture and nature, including human/animal relations (Conneller 2004; Harraway 2008) and humans as geological force – the so called “Anthropocene problem” (Solli 2011). Lastly, I will raise the question that the title of the session asks. What can Posthumanism do for us? How can Posthumanist theory contribute to Classics, to Roman archaeology, to us as researchers?
In : Schmitt A. & E. Anstett (ed) - Des cadavres dans nos poubelles. Restes humains et espaces dé... more In : Schmitt A. & E. Anstett (ed) - Des cadavres dans nos poubelles. Restes humains et espaces détritiques de la Préhistoire à nos jours
--- Full PDF available upon request ---
Religion has always impacted how we structure the phy... more --- Full PDF available upon request ---
Religion has always impacted how we structure the physical world around us, and the Roman world was no exception. Roman cities were constructed and shaped around religious life and religious practices. Religious art was omnipresent, and religious architecture monumental. When Christianity displaced all traditional cults and became the primary state religion in the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity, religious life and religious practices changed significantly. This study investigates how changed religious life and religious practices in Late Antiquity reshaped Roman cities in Western Asia Minor, concentrating on the three cities Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis.
Written sources from Late Antiquity – laws and saints’ lives – can create the impressions that pagan material culture was violently destroyed, and that pagan statues and temple buildings were the main foci of Christian destruction. The fate of pagan material culture during the Christianisation has traditionally mainly been investigated using textual rather than archaeological sources. This has led to a persistent view of the religious transformation as characterized by polarisation, violence, and intolerance. Further, investigations have focused mainly on the types of material culture most frequently described in these texts: pagan temples and statues. The present study falls in line with several recent critical studies arguing that the Christianisation process was more complex and dynamic, and that the rapidly growing archaeological record should be used to reassess and nuance persisting narratives of destruction and decline.
The study analyses how material culture can be used as agents of societal change, and what part pagan material culture played in the religious transformation in Late Antiquity (c. 350–620 CE). The analytical concept memory manipulation is employed in order to 1), reassess Christian responses to pagan material culture that are established in scholarly debate, such as conversion and destruction, and 2), reassess the categories of pagan material traditionally associated with the Christianisation, such as temple buildings and imagery. Rather than destroying pagan material culture, memory manipulation entails altering how material things are perceived and how material things interact with their surroundings through small and large alterations. Ultimately, memory manipulation alter how material culture is remembered by a society. By employing the concept of ‘memory manipulation’, the Christianisation process can be understood as constructive and future-oriented rather than expressions of intolerance and anger.
Beyond temple buildings and statues, the study encompasses a wider range of material manifestations of cult than the traditional foci, and included monuments, sacred spaces, imagery, and inscribed materials in the public areas of the cities in the analysis. The study considers removal, mutilation, spoliation, disposal, appropriation, and reconfiguration as memory manipulation strategies in addition to destruction and conversion.
The study demonstrates that Roman cities in late antique Asia Minor actively used pagan material culture to shape Christian presents and futures. Memory manipulation strategies were not restricted to temple buildings and sanctuaries, but were performed in the entirety of public space. Material culture from sanctuaries were moved into the cityscapes, and into Christian buildings. As a result, memory manipulation reached a larger audience than if manipulation had been restricted to the confines of the sanctuary temenos. Imagery, smaller monuments, and gates in public spaces were subject to Christian manipulation alongside the material culture in the sanctuaries. Streetscapes, thoroughfares, and necropoleis were likewise important arenas for memory manipulation.
The aim of the religious transformation in Late Antiquity was to establish Christianity as the only religion, through making paganism and pagan cult practice a thing of the past. In social memory, the purpose of the past is to identify a group, define their past, and their aspirations for the future. An important issue during Christianisation was therefore to establish how paganism and pagan cult practice should be remembered, and how it could be used to define and realise a Christian future. Individual images, monuments, and environments played different roles in the social memory of the three cities Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis, and the same was true for the pagan cults and pagan practices they were associated with. Therefore, the social memory of each of the three cities differed from the others.
The present study provides a foundation for the continued analysis of how material culture affected and shaped societal change in Late Antiquity. The concept ‘memory manipulation’ is a fruitful and stimulating concept that highlights the complex and changeable relationship between humans and material culture in the past. The study has shown that the entirety of our material surroundings is imbued with meaning, and that they are vital to our understanding of late antique attitudes towards the past.
Supervisors:
Ida Östenberg (University of Gothenburg)
Troels Myrup Kristensen (Århus University)
External examiner:
Ine Jacobs (University of Oxford)
team completed their sixth campaign in Hierapolis, Turkey. After the intensive survey in 2011, fo... more team completed their sixth campaign in Hierapolis, Turkey. After the intensive survey in 2011, focus was returned to excavations, with some additional surveying, and the implementation of new methodology. The article features a brief overview of the 2012 excavation, of advances in photogrammetric documentation, as well as temporary resultes of the various bone analysis.
The 2013 campaign focussed not only on the excavations and survey in the East
Necropolis, but als... more The 2013 campaign focussed not only on the excavations and survey in the East Necropolis, but also on finds and scientific analyses, which this article will reflect. In addition to outlining the progress in the field, some preliminary notes on material studies are included, as the main bulk of excavations have been completed.
Kjetil Bortheim, Erika Cappelletto, David Hill, Henrike Kiesewetter, Helene Russ, Irene Selsvold, Camilla Cecilie Wenn, Megan Wong
Siden 1957 har italienske forskere drevet arkeologiske undersøkelser i den antikke byen Hierapoli... more Siden 1957 har italienske forskere drevet arkeologiske undersøkelser i den antikke byen Hierapolis i Lilleasia (figur 1).1 I 2007 ble norske arkeologer og naturvitere invitert til å undersøke en av byens gravplasser, den såkalte Nordøst-nekropolen. Det norske forskningsprosjektets primære mål var å foreta en full typologisk dokumentasjon av alle synlige graver og sarkofager på denne gravplassen, deres topografiske utbredelse og organisasjon, dernest å foreta utgravninger av utvalgte gravbygninger og gravområder for å avdekke nekropolens bruksperioder.
Valget falt på en gruppe med tre bygninger og tre sarkofager i nekropolens øverste del; i tillegg ble det foretatt noen spredte stikkgravninger rundt i gravplassområdet. Dette arbeidet dannet grunnlaget for videre studier, der vi i en sosial sammenheng ønsket å undersøke en bybefolkning i detalj over en lengre periode gjennom studier av gravarkitektur og landskapsoppfatning, organisasjon, familietilhørighet og entreprenørvirksomhet, rituell handling og praksis, genetiske relasjoner og opphav, paleodemografi, helse og sykdommer, dietter og enkeltpersoners bevegelsesmønstre. For å kunne svare på mange av disse spørsmålene ble det også foretatt bioarkeologiske undersøkelser, som C14-dateringer, osteologi og DNA- og isotopanalyser. Målet med denne artikkelen er å diskutere hva de foreløpige studiene rundt disse spørsmål kan fortelle oss om liv og død i Hierapolis, sett i en videre lokal og regional kulturkontekst. Gravplassens historie strekker seg fra 1./2. årh. e.Kr. til ca. år 1300, og fanger opp religionsskiftet i senantikken. Der er derfor naturlig, etter en historisk innledning, å se på hvorledes døden (gjennom gravenes lokalisering, form og innhold) ble behandlet før og etter religionsskiftet, deretter hva skjelettene kan fortelle om livskvalitet og endringer i den
Senantiken innebar kristendomens konsolideringsfas i det romerska riket. Den kännetecknades även... more Senantiken innebar kristendomens konsolideringsfas i det romerska riket. Den kännetecknades även av konflikter mellan kristna och hedningar. Både hedniska och kristna iscensatte förföljelser av varandra. Inte bara människor föll offer för konflikterna, de fick också ödesdigra konsekvenser för den materiella kulturen. Denna artikel diskuterar forödelsen av hedniska kultbilder i mötet med kristna under den religiösa transformationsfasen. I fokus står den romerska Mithraskulten.
(Life and Death at Hierapolis. Norwegian excavations in a Hellenistic–Roman–Byzantine town in Asi... more (Life and Death at Hierapolis. Norwegian excavations in a Hellenistic–Roman–Byzantine town in Asia Minor) From 2007 to 2015 the University of Oslo, invited by The Italian Archaeological Mission at Hierapolis in Phrygia, conducted archaeological research in the North-East Necropolis at Hierapolis. The aim of the project was to document all visible tombs and sarcophagi of the necropolis and excavate selected tomb areas and tombs. The research, including osteological, DNA- and isotope-analyses, investigated the life of the inhabitants over a long period of time (ca. 100–1300 A.C.) with reference to tomb architecture, landscape perception, organization, entrepreneurship, ritual practices, genetic relations and origins, demography, health, sickness, diets, and individual movement patterns. Many of the aims are answered in the article, here shall only be mentioned two important discoveries: cremation has been documented as late as the 5th/6th centuries A.C., in periods of crisis perhaps used to signal pagan opposition to imposed Christian practices; the life conditions in the Roman/ Early Byzantine period were much better than in that of the Middle Byzantine period.
The Spatial Turn in Roman Studies Conference, University of Durham, December 2-3 , 2020
How was urban space Christianised in Roman Late Antiquity? Archaeological research on the Christi... more How was urban space Christianised in Roman Late Antiquity? Archaeological research on the Christianisation and material culture has in the past been focused on destruction of temples and statues, often disregarding their wider urban contexts. In this paper, I stress the importance of stepping out of the temples and into the urban space in such analyses in order to gain fuller understanding of how the Christianisation process occurred in Roman cities. I draw on the archaeologist Geoff Bailey’s concept ‘palimpsests of meaning’ (Bailey 2007) and assemblage theory (e.g. Deleuze and Guattari 1980, DeLanda 2006) in order to examine how pagan material culture changes meaning during the Christianisation process as objects and monuments are fragmented and recontextualised, as they detach from and enter assemblages and gain successions of meanings.
The paper focuses on spolia as spatial palimpsests in the public spaces of Ephesus and Aphrodisias in Asia Minor. Through a series of examples from the two cities I demonstrate how pagan monuments are broken down, moved, and form new assemblages that affect and are affected by people as they inhabit public space. Particular attention is brought to the effects of interaction during daily and ritual movement through streetscapes.
Ultimately, the paper argues that recontextualization and visibility was as important a Christianisation strategy as destruction of pagan material culture.
The term “posthumanism” is used to refer to a multitude of theoretical positions, with the common... more The term “posthumanism” is used to refer to a multitude of theoretical positions, with the common denominator of being critical of traditional conceptions of the privileges and limitations of “the human.” Scholars within diverse fields have recently embraced posthumanist theories to challenge the standard dichotomies of Renaissance humanism in their research, stressing instead the mutual relationship between matter and discourse, and considering the agency of animals, artefacts, landscapes, and ideas alongside humans. The session demonstrates posthuman theory’s great potential to develop classical scholarship in general, and specifically classical archaeology, in relation to how we approach both ancient cultures and our own positions as researchers. Posthuman perspectives are particularly relevant for the topics of Roman mythology and religion, with their emphasis on metamorphoses, hybrid creatures, and encounters between actors that are human, divine, monstrous, or all of it. Roman religion is rife with animated landscapes and sacred groves, the oracular capacity of “inanimate” objects and liquid boundaries between images of gods and the gods themselves. In such instances, the assumptions of traditional scholarship have sometimes resulted in the construction of philosophical conundrums that may have been alien to Roman culture. We explore how posthuman perspectives instead are capable of acknowledging the various ways in which Roman approaches to elements of myth, art and material culture, built and natural space and the sacred, displace and complicate modern notions of human exceptionalism and individualist subjectivity. The session aims to critically engage with the human/individual- focused research practices that have dominated archaeology, to explore the possibilities posthuman perspectives can provide for the development of Roman archaeology.
Our session raises the question “What can Posthumanism do for Classical Studies?”. My paper aims ... more Our session raises the question “What can Posthumanism do for Classical Studies?”. My paper aims not at answering this question, but explore some of the possibilities posthumanist theory provide for our field. As the session title hints at, posthumanist theory is still a very new theoretical direction within the humanities in general, and certainly within Classics. Thus, this paper aims at shedding light on posthumanism as a theoretical direction and research tool, its impact on, and reception in, humanities thus far, and at exploring the potential of posthumanism in our future research. Firstly, I will give an overview of the central aims and themes of the posthumanist debate. The main focus of posthumanist theory is to go beyond the Cartesian notion of “Man”, something that can be explored through considering non-human and trans-human agency in our research (Barad 2003;Braidotti 2013). Central themes in the debate have been, amongst others, the agency and power of artefacts (e.g Gell 1998, Olsen 2010), the agency of nature and the relationship between human/ culture and nature, including human/animal relations (Conneller 2004; Harraway 2008) and humans as geological force – the so called “Anthropocene problem” (Solli 2011). Lastly, I will raise the question that the title of the session asks. What can Posthumanism do for us? How can Posthumanist theory contribute to Classics, to Roman archaeology, to us as researchers?
In : Schmitt A. & E. Anstett (ed) - Des cadavres dans nos poubelles. Restes humains et espaces dé... more In : Schmitt A. & E. Anstett (ed) - Des cadavres dans nos poubelles. Restes humains et espaces détritiques de la Préhistoire à nos jours
--- Full PDF available upon request ---
Religion has always impacted how we structure the phy... more --- Full PDF available upon request ---
Religion has always impacted how we structure the physical world around us, and the Roman world was no exception. Roman cities were constructed and shaped around religious life and religious practices. Religious art was omnipresent, and religious architecture monumental. When Christianity displaced all traditional cults and became the primary state religion in the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity, religious life and religious practices changed significantly. This study investigates how changed religious life and religious practices in Late Antiquity reshaped Roman cities in Western Asia Minor, concentrating on the three cities Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis.
Written sources from Late Antiquity – laws and saints’ lives – can create the impressions that pagan material culture was violently destroyed, and that pagan statues and temple buildings were the main foci of Christian destruction. The fate of pagan material culture during the Christianisation has traditionally mainly been investigated using textual rather than archaeological sources. This has led to a persistent view of the religious transformation as characterized by polarisation, violence, and intolerance. Further, investigations have focused mainly on the types of material culture most frequently described in these texts: pagan temples and statues. The present study falls in line with several recent critical studies arguing that the Christianisation process was more complex and dynamic, and that the rapidly growing archaeological record should be used to reassess and nuance persisting narratives of destruction and decline.
The study analyses how material culture can be used as agents of societal change, and what part pagan material culture played in the religious transformation in Late Antiquity (c. 350–620 CE). The analytical concept memory manipulation is employed in order to 1), reassess Christian responses to pagan material culture that are established in scholarly debate, such as conversion and destruction, and 2), reassess the categories of pagan material traditionally associated with the Christianisation, such as temple buildings and imagery. Rather than destroying pagan material culture, memory manipulation entails altering how material things are perceived and how material things interact with their surroundings through small and large alterations. Ultimately, memory manipulation alter how material culture is remembered by a society. By employing the concept of ‘memory manipulation’, the Christianisation process can be understood as constructive and future-oriented rather than expressions of intolerance and anger.
Beyond temple buildings and statues, the study encompasses a wider range of material manifestations of cult than the traditional foci, and included monuments, sacred spaces, imagery, and inscribed materials in the public areas of the cities in the analysis. The study considers removal, mutilation, spoliation, disposal, appropriation, and reconfiguration as memory manipulation strategies in addition to destruction and conversion.
The study demonstrates that Roman cities in late antique Asia Minor actively used pagan material culture to shape Christian presents and futures. Memory manipulation strategies were not restricted to temple buildings and sanctuaries, but were performed in the entirety of public space. Material culture from sanctuaries were moved into the cityscapes, and into Christian buildings. As a result, memory manipulation reached a larger audience than if manipulation had been restricted to the confines of the sanctuary temenos. Imagery, smaller monuments, and gates in public spaces were subject to Christian manipulation alongside the material culture in the sanctuaries. Streetscapes, thoroughfares, and necropoleis were likewise important arenas for memory manipulation.
The aim of the religious transformation in Late Antiquity was to establish Christianity as the only religion, through making paganism and pagan cult practice a thing of the past. In social memory, the purpose of the past is to identify a group, define their past, and their aspirations for the future. An important issue during Christianisation was therefore to establish how paganism and pagan cult practice should be remembered, and how it could be used to define and realise a Christian future. Individual images, monuments, and environments played different roles in the social memory of the three cities Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis, and the same was true for the pagan cults and pagan practices they were associated with. Therefore, the social memory of each of the three cities differed from the others.
The present study provides a foundation for the continued analysis of how material culture affected and shaped societal change in Late Antiquity. The concept ‘memory manipulation’ is a fruitful and stimulating concept that highlights the complex and changeable relationship between humans and material culture in the past. The study has shown that the entirety of our material surroundings is imbued with meaning, and that they are vital to our understanding of late antique attitudes towards the past.
Supervisors:
Ida Östenberg (University of Gothenburg)
Troels Myrup Kristensen (Århus University)
External examiner:
Ine Jacobs (University of Oxford)
Beyond the Romans: Posthuman Perspectives in Roman Archaeology, 2020
Sample attached.
Previous studies have explored the environmental impact of the Romans (e.g., H... more Sample attached.
Previous studies have explored the environmental impact of the Romans (e.g., Hughes 1996; 2003; 2014; Thommen 2012; Erdkamp et al. 2015 with bibliographies). In this chapter, we build on these prior studies and focus on the intersections among the Anthropocene, the Romans, and posthumanism. In particular, we investigate anthropogenic processes in the Roman period (primarily the Republic and Empire with examples from the early third century BCE through to the late fourth century CE) in order to situate the Romans within the Anthropocene and to demonstrate the need for posthuman perspectives in Roman archaeology. We do not intend to re-date the onset of the Anthropocene to the Roman period, as various archaeological studies suggest that anthropogenic processes dating to millennia before the Roman period have contributed to the rise of the Anthropocene (e.g., Ruddiman 2003; 2007; Ruddiman et al. 2008; Ruddiman and Ellis 2009; Braje and Erlandson 2013a; Erlandson and Braje 2013; Smith and Zeder 2013; Butzer 2015: 1540). Rather, we suggest that the quantity and quality of surviving Roman archaeological and textual sources provides valuable insight into the development of the Anthropocene during the Roman period. Moreover, the Anthropocene provides a conceptually useful global and diachronic framework with which to synthesise these various sources and critically assess the environmental impact of the Romans.
By illuminating the extent of anthropogenic impact on other beings and the environment in the Roman period, we aim to include the Romans in the rapidly growing Anthropocene discourse, to offer some insight into our present environmental concerns and conditions, and to encourage posthuman perspectives in the study of Roman archaeology. We begin with a discussion on the Anthropocene and anthropogenic impact as it relates to archaeology, then we turn to Roman conceptualisations and perceptions of nature, before we investigate anthropogenic processes in the Roman period in three case studies: Roman mining, exploitation of (non-human) animal populations, and agricultural expansion. We close with a discussion of the environmental impact of the Romans, the relationships between the age of the Anthropocene and the Romans, and the posthuman provocations of our findings.
Please contact me for an off-print if you are interested.
The Romans and the Anthropocene: Posthuman Provocations – Beyond the Romans: Posthuman Perspectives in Roman Archaeology (Selsvold, Webb (eds.)), 2020
This chapter illuminates the extent of anthropogenic impacts on other beings and the evironment t... more This chapter illuminates the extent of anthropogenic impacts on other beings and the evironment through a discussion of Roman conceptualisations and perceptions of nature and three case studies of Roman mining, exploitation of animal populations and agriculture. With this chapter, we aim to include the Romans in the rapid growing Anthropocene discourse, offer some insight into present environmental concerns, and encourage posthuman perspectives in the study of Roman archaeology.
Beyond the Romans: Posthuman Perspectives in Roman Archaeology, 2020
This third volume in the TRAC Themes in Roman Archaeology series offers a new encounter between p... more This third volume in the TRAC Themes in Roman Archaeology series offers a new encounter between posthumanism and Roman archaeology. Posthuman theoretical perspectives have had substantial impacts in various fields, including archaeology, critical studies, and feminist studies, but only recently have emerged in the study of the ancient world.
Posthumanism is an umbrella term for a multiplicity of theoretical perspectives that critique humanism, de-centre the human subject, reconsider the boundaries and relations among humans and the natural world, and frame the human condition as non-fixed and variable. Such perspectives also consider the agency of non-humans, their entanglements, interactions, and relations with humans, as well as the ethical implications thereof.
The Romans were entangled with other beings and the world around them: they were relational beings, as we are today. With this volume, the editors aim to explore the potential and utility of posthuman theoretical perspectives for Roman archaeology.
The contributors to this volume consider a diverse array of themes including posthuman performances of emperors, the agency and relationality of epigraphic funerary markers, the ritual function and agency of votive figurines, the materiality of divine agency in the city of Rome, hybrid chicken-human coins, plant agency, the agency and nature of water in Roman urban infrastructure, and the Anthropocene. Collectively, the contributions demonstrate the numerous possibilities posthumanism offers Roman archaeology and reveal the posthuman nature of the Roman world.
Ultimately, the volume stresses that humans and non-humans are entangled and imbricated in larger systems: we are all posthuman.
Foreword: A Posthuman Call to Scholars – Francesca Ferrando
1. Introduction: Posthuman Perspectives in Roman Archaeology – Lewis Webb and Irene Selsvold
2. Posthuman Ambitions in the Roman Principate: The Cases of Caligula and Nero – Filippo Carlà-Uhink
3. Roman Epigraphic Funerary Markers, Ontological Transition, and Relational Work-nets – Vladimir D. Mihajlović
4. Decentralising Human Agency: A Study of the Ritual Function of the Votive Figurines from Grotta Bella, Umbria – Arianna Zapelloni Pavia
5. The Materiality of Divine Agency in Imperial Rome – Kristine Iara
6. Chicken Hybrid Imagery on Late Iron Age Coinage in Northern Gaul and Southern England during the Iron Age–Roman Transition – Mike P. Feider, Ellen Hambleton, and Mark Maltby
7. Weeds in the Field, Weeds in the City: Posthuman Approaches to Plants in the Roman World – Lisa Lodwick
8. Two Parts Hydrogen, Oxygen One? Re-evaluating the Nature of Roman Urban Water Infrastructure – Jay Ingate
9. The Romans and the Anthropocene: Posthuman Provocations – Irene Selsvold and Lewis Webb
10. Commentary: Pathways to Posthumanism – Oliver J.T. Harris
Beyond the Romans: Posthuman Perspectives in Roman Archaeology (Oxbow), 2020
This third volume in the TRAC Themes in Roman Archaeology series offers a new encounter between p... more This third volume in the TRAC Themes in Roman Archaeology series offers a new encounter between posthumanism and Roman archaeology. Posthuman theoretical perspectives have had substantial impacts in various fields, including archaeology, critical studies, and feminist studies, but only recently have emerged in the study of the ancient world. Posthumanism is an umbrella term for a multiplicity of theoretical perspectives that critique humanism, de-centre the human subject, reconsider the boundaries and relations among humans and the natural world, and frame the human condition as non-fixed and variable. Such perspectives also consider the agency of non-humans, their entanglements, interactions, and relations with humans, as well as the ethical implications thereof. The Romans were entangled with other beings and the world around them: they were relational beings, as we are today. With this volume, the editors aim to explore the potential and utility of posthuman theoretical perspectives for Roman archaeology. The contributors to this volume consider a diverse array of themes including posthuman performances of emperors, the agency and relationality of epigraphic funerary markers, the ritual function and agency of votive figurines, the materiality of divine agency in the city of Rome, hybrid i en-human coins, plant agency, the agency and nature of water in Roman urban infrastructure, and the Anthropocene. Collectively, the contributions demonstrate the numerous possibilities posthumanism offers Roman archaeology and reveal the posthuman nature of the Roman world. Ultimately, the volume stresses that humans and non-humans are entangled and imbricated in larger systems: we are all posthuman.
Table of Contents
Series Foreword Katherine A. Crawford Foreword: A Posthuman Call to Scholars Francesca Ferrando 1. Introduction: Posthuman Perspectives in Roman Archaeology Lewis Webb and Irene Selsvold 2. Posthuman Ambitions in the Roman Principate: The Cases of Caligula and Nero Filippo Carlà-Uhink 3. Roman Epigraphic Funerary Markers, Ontological Transition, and Relational Work-nets Vladimir D. Mihajlović 4. Decentralising Human Agency: A Study of the Ritual Function of the Votive Figurines from Grotta Bella, Umbria Arianna Zapelloni Pavia 5. The Materiality of Divine Agency in Imperial Rome Kristine Iara 6. Chicken Hybrid Imagery on Late Iron Age Coinage in Northern Gaul and Southern England during the Iron Age–Roman Transition Mike P. Feider, Ellen Hambleton, and Mark Maltby 7. Weeds in the Field, Weeds in the City: Posthuman Approaches to Plants in the Roman World Lisa Lodwick 8. Two Parts Hydrogen, Oxygen One? Re-evaluating the Nature of Roman Urban Water Infrastructure Jay Ingate 9. The Romans and the Anthropocene: Posthuman Provocations Irene Selsvold and Lewis Webb 10. Commentary: Pathways to Posthumanism Oliver J.T. Harris
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Necropolis, but also on finds and scientific analyses, which this article will reflect. In addition
to outlining the progress in the field, some preliminary notes on material studies are
included, as the main bulk of excavations have been completed.
Kjetil Bortheim, Erika Cappelletto, David Hill, Henrike Kiesewetter, Helene Russ, Irene Selsvold, Camilla Cecilie Wenn, Megan Wong
å foreta utgravninger av utvalgte gravbygninger og gravområder for å avdekke nekropolens bruksperioder.
Valget falt på en gruppe med tre bygninger og tre sarkofager i nekropolens øverste del; i tillegg ble det foretatt noen spredte stikkgravninger rundt i gravplassområdet. Dette arbeidet dannet grunnlaget for videre studier, der vi i en sosial sammenheng ønsket å undersøke en bybefolkning i detalj over en lengre periode gjennom studier av gravarkitektur og landskapsoppfatning,
organisasjon, familietilhørighet og entreprenørvirksomhet, rituell handling og praksis, genetiske relasjoner og opphav, paleodemografi, helse og sykdommer, dietter og enkeltpersoners bevegelsesmønstre. For å kunne svare på mange av disse spørsmålene ble det også foretatt bioarkeologiske undersøkelser, som C14-dateringer, osteologi og
DNA- og isotopanalyser. Målet med denne artikkelen er å diskutere hva de foreløpige studiene rundt disse spørsmål kan fortelle oss om liv og død i Hierapolis, sett i en videre lokal og regional kulturkontekst. Gravplassens historie strekker seg fra 1./2. årh. e.Kr. til ca. år 1300,
og fanger opp religionsskiftet i senantikken. Der er derfor naturlig, etter en historisk innledning, å se på hvorledes døden (gjennom gravenes lokalisering, form og innhold) ble behandlet før og etter religionsskiftet, deretter hva skjelettene kan fortelle om livskvalitet og endringer i den
From 2007 to 2015 the University of Oslo, invited by The Italian Archaeological Mission at Hierapolis in Phrygia, conducted archaeological research in the North-East Necropolis at Hierapolis. The aim of the project was to document all visible tombs and sarcophagi of the necropolis and excavate selected tomb areas and tombs. The research, including osteological, DNA- and isotope-analyses, investigated the life of the inhabitants over a long period of time (ca. 100–1300 A.C.) with reference to tomb architecture, landscape perception, organization, entrepreneurship, ritual practices, genetic relations and origins, demography, health, sickness, diets, and individual movement patterns. Many of the aims are
answered in the article, here shall only be mentioned two important discoveries: cremation has been documented as late as the 5th/6th centuries A.C., in periods of crisis perhaps used to signal pagan opposition to imposed Christian practices; the life conditions in the Roman/
Early Byzantine period were much better than in that of the Middle Byzantine period.
The paper focuses on spolia as spatial palimpsests in the public spaces of Ephesus and Aphrodisias in Asia Minor. Through a series of examples from the two cities I demonstrate how pagan monuments are broken down, moved, and form new assemblages that affect and are affected by people as they inhabit public space. Particular attention is brought to the effects of interaction during daily and ritual movement through streetscapes.
Ultimately, the paper argues that recontextualization and visibility was as important a Christianisation strategy as destruction of pagan material culture.
critical of traditional conceptions of the privileges and limitations of “the human.” Scholars within diverse fields have recently
embraced posthumanist theories to challenge the standard dichotomies of Renaissance humanism in their research, stressing
instead the mutual relationship between matter and discourse, and considering the agency of animals, artefacts, landscapes,
and ideas alongside humans.
The session demonstrates posthuman theory’s great potential to develop classical scholarship in general, and specifically
classical archaeology, in relation to how we approach both ancient cultures and our own positions as researchers. Posthuman
perspectives are particularly relevant for the topics of Roman mythology and religion, with their emphasis on metamorphoses,
hybrid creatures, and encounters between actors that are human, divine, monstrous, or all of it. Roman religion is rife with
animated landscapes and sacred groves, the oracular capacity of “inanimate” objects and liquid boundaries between images
of gods and the gods themselves. In such instances, the assumptions of traditional scholarship have sometimes resulted in the
construction of philosophical conundrums that may have been alien to Roman culture.
We explore how posthuman perspectives instead are capable of acknowledging the various ways in which Roman approaches
to elements of myth, art and material culture, built and natural space and the sacred, displace and complicate modern
notions of human exceptionalism and individualist subjectivity. The session aims to critically engage with the human/individual-
focused research practices that have dominated archaeology, to explore the possibilities posthuman perspectives can provide
for the development of Roman archaeology.
this question, but explore some of the possibilities posthumanist theory provide for our field. As the session title hints at,
posthumanist theory is still a very new theoretical direction within the humanities in general, and certainly within Classics.
Thus, this paper aims at shedding light on posthumanism as a theoretical direction and research tool, its impact on, and
reception in, humanities thus far, and at exploring the potential of posthumanism in our future research.
Firstly, I will give an overview of the central aims and themes of the posthumanist debate. The main focus of posthumanist
theory is to go beyond the Cartesian notion of “Man”, something that can be explored through considering non-human and
trans-human agency in our research (Barad 2003;Braidotti 2013). Central themes in the debate have been, amongst others,
the agency and power of artefacts (e.g Gell 1998, Olsen 2010), the agency of nature and the relationship between human/
culture and nature, including human/animal relations (Conneller 2004; Harraway 2008) and humans as geological force – the
so called “Anthropocene problem” (Solli 2011).
Lastly, I will raise the question that the title of the session asks. What can Posthumanism do for us? How can Posthumanist
theory contribute to Classics, to Roman archaeology, to us as researchers?
Religion has always impacted how we structure the physical world around us, and the Roman world was no exception. Roman cities were constructed and shaped around religious life and religious practices. Religious art was omnipresent, and religious architecture monumental. When Christianity displaced all traditional cults and became the primary state religion in the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity, religious life and religious practices changed significantly. This study investigates how changed religious life and religious practices in Late Antiquity reshaped Roman cities in Western Asia Minor, concentrating on the three cities Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis.
Written sources from Late Antiquity – laws and saints’ lives – can create the impressions that pagan material culture was violently destroyed, and that pagan statues and temple buildings were the main foci of Christian destruction. The fate of pagan material culture during the Christianisation has traditionally mainly been investigated using textual rather than archaeological sources. This has led to a persistent view of the religious transformation as characterized by polarisation, violence, and intolerance. Further, investigations have focused mainly on the types of material culture most frequently described in these texts: pagan temples and statues. The present study falls in line with several recent critical studies arguing that the Christianisation process was more complex and dynamic, and that the rapidly growing archaeological record should be used to reassess and nuance persisting narratives of destruction and decline.
The study analyses how material culture can be used as agents of societal change, and what part pagan material culture played in the religious transformation in Late Antiquity (c. 350–620 CE). The analytical concept memory manipulation is employed in order to 1), reassess Christian responses to pagan material culture that are established in scholarly debate, such as conversion and destruction, and 2), reassess the categories of pagan material traditionally associated with the Christianisation, such as temple buildings and imagery. Rather than destroying pagan material culture, memory manipulation entails altering how material things are perceived and how material things interact with their surroundings through small and large alterations. Ultimately, memory manipulation alter how material culture is remembered by a society. By employing the concept of ‘memory manipulation’, the Christianisation process can be understood as constructive and future-oriented rather than expressions of intolerance and anger.
Beyond temple buildings and statues, the study encompasses a wider range of material manifestations of cult than the traditional foci, and included monuments, sacred spaces, imagery, and inscribed materials in the public areas of the cities in the analysis. The study considers removal, mutilation, spoliation, disposal, appropriation, and reconfiguration as memory manipulation strategies in addition to destruction and conversion.
The study demonstrates that Roman cities in late antique Asia Minor actively used pagan material culture to shape Christian presents and futures. Memory manipulation strategies were not restricted to temple buildings and sanctuaries, but were performed in the entirety of public space. Material culture from sanctuaries were moved into the cityscapes, and into Christian buildings. As a result, memory manipulation reached a larger audience than if manipulation had been restricted to the confines of the sanctuary temenos. Imagery, smaller monuments, and gates in public spaces were subject to Christian manipulation alongside the material culture in the sanctuaries. Streetscapes, thoroughfares, and necropoleis were likewise important arenas for memory manipulation.
The aim of the religious transformation in Late Antiquity was to establish Christianity as the only religion, through making paganism and pagan cult practice a thing of the past. In social memory, the purpose of the past is to identify a group, define their past, and their aspirations for the future. An important issue during Christianisation was therefore to establish how paganism and pagan cult practice should be remembered, and how it could be used to define and realise a Christian future. Individual images, monuments, and environments played different roles in the social memory of the three cities Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis, and the same was true for the pagan cults and pagan practices they were associated with. Therefore, the social memory of each of the three cities differed from the others.
The present study provides a foundation for the continued analysis of how material culture affected and shaped societal change in Late Antiquity. The concept ‘memory manipulation’ is a fruitful and stimulating concept that highlights the complex and changeable relationship between humans and material culture in the past. The study has shown that the entirety of our material surroundings is imbued with meaning, and that they are vital to our understanding of late antique attitudes towards the past.
Supervisors:
Ida Östenberg (University of Gothenburg)
Troels Myrup Kristensen (Århus University)
External examiner:
Ine Jacobs (University of Oxford)
Necropolis, but also on finds and scientific analyses, which this article will reflect. In addition
to outlining the progress in the field, some preliminary notes on material studies are
included, as the main bulk of excavations have been completed.
Kjetil Bortheim, Erika Cappelletto, David Hill, Henrike Kiesewetter, Helene Russ, Irene Selsvold, Camilla Cecilie Wenn, Megan Wong
å foreta utgravninger av utvalgte gravbygninger og gravområder for å avdekke nekropolens bruksperioder.
Valget falt på en gruppe med tre bygninger og tre sarkofager i nekropolens øverste del; i tillegg ble det foretatt noen spredte stikkgravninger rundt i gravplassområdet. Dette arbeidet dannet grunnlaget for videre studier, der vi i en sosial sammenheng ønsket å undersøke en bybefolkning i detalj over en lengre periode gjennom studier av gravarkitektur og landskapsoppfatning,
organisasjon, familietilhørighet og entreprenørvirksomhet, rituell handling og praksis, genetiske relasjoner og opphav, paleodemografi, helse og sykdommer, dietter og enkeltpersoners bevegelsesmønstre. For å kunne svare på mange av disse spørsmålene ble det også foretatt bioarkeologiske undersøkelser, som C14-dateringer, osteologi og
DNA- og isotopanalyser. Målet med denne artikkelen er å diskutere hva de foreløpige studiene rundt disse spørsmål kan fortelle oss om liv og død i Hierapolis, sett i en videre lokal og regional kulturkontekst. Gravplassens historie strekker seg fra 1./2. årh. e.Kr. til ca. år 1300,
og fanger opp religionsskiftet i senantikken. Der er derfor naturlig, etter en historisk innledning, å se på hvorledes døden (gjennom gravenes lokalisering, form og innhold) ble behandlet før og etter religionsskiftet, deretter hva skjelettene kan fortelle om livskvalitet og endringer i den
From 2007 to 2015 the University of Oslo, invited by The Italian Archaeological Mission at Hierapolis in Phrygia, conducted archaeological research in the North-East Necropolis at Hierapolis. The aim of the project was to document all visible tombs and sarcophagi of the necropolis and excavate selected tomb areas and tombs. The research, including osteological, DNA- and isotope-analyses, investigated the life of the inhabitants over a long period of time (ca. 100–1300 A.C.) with reference to tomb architecture, landscape perception, organization, entrepreneurship, ritual practices, genetic relations and origins, demography, health, sickness, diets, and individual movement patterns. Many of the aims are
answered in the article, here shall only be mentioned two important discoveries: cremation has been documented as late as the 5th/6th centuries A.C., in periods of crisis perhaps used to signal pagan opposition to imposed Christian practices; the life conditions in the Roman/
Early Byzantine period were much better than in that of the Middle Byzantine period.
The paper focuses on spolia as spatial palimpsests in the public spaces of Ephesus and Aphrodisias in Asia Minor. Through a series of examples from the two cities I demonstrate how pagan monuments are broken down, moved, and form new assemblages that affect and are affected by people as they inhabit public space. Particular attention is brought to the effects of interaction during daily and ritual movement through streetscapes.
Ultimately, the paper argues that recontextualization and visibility was as important a Christianisation strategy as destruction of pagan material culture.
critical of traditional conceptions of the privileges and limitations of “the human.” Scholars within diverse fields have recently
embraced posthumanist theories to challenge the standard dichotomies of Renaissance humanism in their research, stressing
instead the mutual relationship between matter and discourse, and considering the agency of animals, artefacts, landscapes,
and ideas alongside humans.
The session demonstrates posthuman theory’s great potential to develop classical scholarship in general, and specifically
classical archaeology, in relation to how we approach both ancient cultures and our own positions as researchers. Posthuman
perspectives are particularly relevant for the topics of Roman mythology and religion, with their emphasis on metamorphoses,
hybrid creatures, and encounters between actors that are human, divine, monstrous, or all of it. Roman religion is rife with
animated landscapes and sacred groves, the oracular capacity of “inanimate” objects and liquid boundaries between images
of gods and the gods themselves. In such instances, the assumptions of traditional scholarship have sometimes resulted in the
construction of philosophical conundrums that may have been alien to Roman culture.
We explore how posthuman perspectives instead are capable of acknowledging the various ways in which Roman approaches
to elements of myth, art and material culture, built and natural space and the sacred, displace and complicate modern
notions of human exceptionalism and individualist subjectivity. The session aims to critically engage with the human/individual-
focused research practices that have dominated archaeology, to explore the possibilities posthuman perspectives can provide
for the development of Roman archaeology.
this question, but explore some of the possibilities posthumanist theory provide for our field. As the session title hints at,
posthumanist theory is still a very new theoretical direction within the humanities in general, and certainly within Classics.
Thus, this paper aims at shedding light on posthumanism as a theoretical direction and research tool, its impact on, and
reception in, humanities thus far, and at exploring the potential of posthumanism in our future research.
Firstly, I will give an overview of the central aims and themes of the posthumanist debate. The main focus of posthumanist
theory is to go beyond the Cartesian notion of “Man”, something that can be explored through considering non-human and
trans-human agency in our research (Barad 2003;Braidotti 2013). Central themes in the debate have been, amongst others,
the agency and power of artefacts (e.g Gell 1998, Olsen 2010), the agency of nature and the relationship between human/
culture and nature, including human/animal relations (Conneller 2004; Harraway 2008) and humans as geological force – the
so called “Anthropocene problem” (Solli 2011).
Lastly, I will raise the question that the title of the session asks. What can Posthumanism do for us? How can Posthumanist
theory contribute to Classics, to Roman archaeology, to us as researchers?
Religion has always impacted how we structure the physical world around us, and the Roman world was no exception. Roman cities were constructed and shaped around religious life and religious practices. Religious art was omnipresent, and religious architecture monumental. When Christianity displaced all traditional cults and became the primary state religion in the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity, religious life and religious practices changed significantly. This study investigates how changed religious life and religious practices in Late Antiquity reshaped Roman cities in Western Asia Minor, concentrating on the three cities Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis.
Written sources from Late Antiquity – laws and saints’ lives – can create the impressions that pagan material culture was violently destroyed, and that pagan statues and temple buildings were the main foci of Christian destruction. The fate of pagan material culture during the Christianisation has traditionally mainly been investigated using textual rather than archaeological sources. This has led to a persistent view of the religious transformation as characterized by polarisation, violence, and intolerance. Further, investigations have focused mainly on the types of material culture most frequently described in these texts: pagan temples and statues. The present study falls in line with several recent critical studies arguing that the Christianisation process was more complex and dynamic, and that the rapidly growing archaeological record should be used to reassess and nuance persisting narratives of destruction and decline.
The study analyses how material culture can be used as agents of societal change, and what part pagan material culture played in the religious transformation in Late Antiquity (c. 350–620 CE). The analytical concept memory manipulation is employed in order to 1), reassess Christian responses to pagan material culture that are established in scholarly debate, such as conversion and destruction, and 2), reassess the categories of pagan material traditionally associated with the Christianisation, such as temple buildings and imagery. Rather than destroying pagan material culture, memory manipulation entails altering how material things are perceived and how material things interact with their surroundings through small and large alterations. Ultimately, memory manipulation alter how material culture is remembered by a society. By employing the concept of ‘memory manipulation’, the Christianisation process can be understood as constructive and future-oriented rather than expressions of intolerance and anger.
Beyond temple buildings and statues, the study encompasses a wider range of material manifestations of cult than the traditional foci, and included monuments, sacred spaces, imagery, and inscribed materials in the public areas of the cities in the analysis. The study considers removal, mutilation, spoliation, disposal, appropriation, and reconfiguration as memory manipulation strategies in addition to destruction and conversion.
The study demonstrates that Roman cities in late antique Asia Minor actively used pagan material culture to shape Christian presents and futures. Memory manipulation strategies were not restricted to temple buildings and sanctuaries, but were performed in the entirety of public space. Material culture from sanctuaries were moved into the cityscapes, and into Christian buildings. As a result, memory manipulation reached a larger audience than if manipulation had been restricted to the confines of the sanctuary temenos. Imagery, smaller monuments, and gates in public spaces were subject to Christian manipulation alongside the material culture in the sanctuaries. Streetscapes, thoroughfares, and necropoleis were likewise important arenas for memory manipulation.
The aim of the religious transformation in Late Antiquity was to establish Christianity as the only religion, through making paganism and pagan cult practice a thing of the past. In social memory, the purpose of the past is to identify a group, define their past, and their aspirations for the future. An important issue during Christianisation was therefore to establish how paganism and pagan cult practice should be remembered, and how it could be used to define and realise a Christian future. Individual images, monuments, and environments played different roles in the social memory of the three cities Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis, and the same was true for the pagan cults and pagan practices they were associated with. Therefore, the social memory of each of the three cities differed from the others.
The present study provides a foundation for the continued analysis of how material culture affected and shaped societal change in Late Antiquity. The concept ‘memory manipulation’ is a fruitful and stimulating concept that highlights the complex and changeable relationship between humans and material culture in the past. The study has shown that the entirety of our material surroundings is imbued with meaning, and that they are vital to our understanding of late antique attitudes towards the past.
Supervisors:
Ida Östenberg (University of Gothenburg)
Troels Myrup Kristensen (Århus University)
External examiner:
Ine Jacobs (University of Oxford)
Previous studies have explored the environmental impact of the Romans (e.g., Hughes 1996; 2003; 2014; Thommen 2012; Erdkamp et al. 2015 with bibliographies). In this chapter, we build on these prior studies and focus on the intersections among the Anthropocene, the Romans, and posthumanism. In particular, we investigate anthropogenic processes in the Roman period (primarily the Republic and Empire with examples from the early third century BCE through to the late fourth century CE) in order to situate the Romans within the Anthropocene and to demonstrate the need for posthuman perspectives in Roman archaeology. We do not intend to re-date the onset of the Anthropocene to the Roman period, as various archaeological studies suggest that anthropogenic processes dating to millennia before the Roman period have contributed to the rise of the Anthropocene (e.g., Ruddiman 2003; 2007; Ruddiman et al. 2008; Ruddiman and Ellis 2009; Braje and Erlandson 2013a; Erlandson and Braje 2013; Smith and Zeder 2013; Butzer 2015: 1540). Rather, we suggest that the quantity and quality of surviving Roman archaeological and textual sources provides valuable insight into the development of the Anthropocene during the Roman period. Moreover, the Anthropocene provides a conceptually useful global and diachronic framework with which to synthesise these various sources and critically assess the environmental impact of the Romans.
By illuminating the extent of anthropogenic impact on other beings and the environment in the Roman period, we aim to include the Romans in the rapidly growing Anthropocene discourse, to offer some insight into our present environmental concerns and conditions, and to encourage posthuman perspectives in the study of Roman archaeology. We begin with a discussion on the Anthropocene and anthropogenic impact as it relates to archaeology, then we turn to Roman conceptualisations and perceptions of nature, before we investigate anthropogenic processes in the Roman period in three case studies: Roman mining, exploitation of (non-human) animal populations, and agricultural expansion. We close with a discussion of the environmental impact of the Romans, the relationships between the age of the Anthropocene and the Romans, and the posthuman provocations of our findings.
Please contact me for an off-print if you are interested.
Posthumanism is an umbrella term for a multiplicity of theoretical perspectives that critique humanism, de-centre the human subject, reconsider the boundaries and relations among humans and the natural world, and frame the human condition as non-fixed and variable. Such perspectives also consider the agency of non-humans, their entanglements, interactions, and relations with humans, as well as the ethical implications thereof.
The Romans were entangled with other beings and the world around them: they were relational beings, as we are today. With this volume, the editors aim to explore the potential and utility of posthuman theoretical perspectives for Roman archaeology.
The contributors to this volume consider a diverse array of themes including posthuman performances of emperors, the agency and relationality of epigraphic funerary markers, the ritual function and agency of votive figurines, the materiality of divine agency in the city of Rome, hybrid chicken-human coins, plant agency, the agency and nature of water in Roman urban infrastructure, and the Anthropocene. Collectively, the contributions demonstrate the numerous possibilities posthumanism offers Roman archaeology and reveal the posthuman nature of the Roman world.
Ultimately, the volume stresses that humans and non-humans are entangled and imbricated in larger systems: we are all posthuman.
Editors: Irene Selsvold and Lewis Webb
More details: http://trac.org.uk/3-beyond-the-romans/
To purchase: https://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/beyond-the-romans.html
Table of contents:
Series Foreword – Katherine A. Crawford
Foreword: A Posthuman Call to Scholars – Francesca Ferrando
1. Introduction: Posthuman Perspectives in Roman Archaeology – Lewis Webb and Irene Selsvold
2. Posthuman Ambitions in the Roman Principate: The Cases of Caligula and Nero – Filippo Carlà-Uhink
3. Roman Epigraphic Funerary Markers, Ontological Transition, and Relational Work-nets – Vladimir D. Mihajlović
4. Decentralising Human Agency: A Study of the Ritual Function of the Votive Figurines from Grotta Bella, Umbria – Arianna Zapelloni Pavia
5. The Materiality of Divine Agency in Imperial Rome – Kristine Iara
6. Chicken Hybrid Imagery on Late Iron Age Coinage in Northern Gaul and Southern England during the Iron Age–Roman Transition – Mike P. Feider, Ellen Hambleton, and Mark Maltby
7. Weeds in the Field, Weeds in the City: Posthuman Approaches to Plants in the Roman World – Lisa Lodwick
8. Two Parts Hydrogen, Oxygen One? Re-evaluating the Nature of Roman Urban Water Infrastructure – Jay Ingate
9. The Romans and the Anthropocene: Posthuman Provocations – Irene Selsvold and Lewis Webb
10. Commentary: Pathways to Posthumanism – Oliver J.T. Harris
Table of Contents
Series Foreword Katherine A. Crawford
Foreword: A Posthuman Call to Scholars Francesca Ferrando
1. Introduction: Posthuman Perspectives in Roman Archaeology
Lewis Webb and Irene Selsvold
2. Posthuman Ambitions in the Roman Principate: The Cases of Caligula and Nero
Filippo Carlà-Uhink
3. Roman Epigraphic Funerary Markers, Ontological Transition, and Relational Work-nets
Vladimir D. Mihajlović
4. Decentralising Human Agency: A Study of the Ritual Function of the Votive Figurines from Grotta Bella, Umbria
Arianna Zapelloni Pavia
5. The Materiality of Divine Agency in Imperial Rome
Kristine Iara
6. Chicken Hybrid Imagery on Late Iron Age Coinage in Northern Gaul and Southern England during the Iron Age–Roman Transition
Mike P. Feider, Ellen Hambleton, and Mark Maltby
7. Weeds in the Field, Weeds in the City: Posthuman Approaches to Plants in the Roman World
Lisa Lodwick
8. Two Parts Hydrogen, Oxygen One? Re-evaluating the Nature of Roman Urban Water Infrastructure
Jay Ingate
9. The Romans and the Anthropocene: Posthuman Provocations
Irene Selsvold and Lewis Webb
10. Commentary: Pathways to Posthumanism
Oliver J.T. Harris
https://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/9781789251364.html