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Material Identities examines the way that individuals use material objects as tools for projecting aspects of their identities. Considers the way identity is fashioned, launched, used, and admired in the material world. Contributors intervene from the disciplines of art history, anthropology, design and material culture. Considers contrasting media - painting, print, sculpture, dress, coinage, architecture, furniture, luxury items, and interior design. Explores the complexity of identity through the intersection notions of gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, and class. Reaffirms the central role of public identities and their impact on social life.
Where Dreams May Come was the winner of the 2018 Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit, awarded by the Society for Classical Studies. In this book, Gil H. Renberg examines the ancient religious phenomenon of “incubation", the ritual of sleeping at a divinity’s sanctuary in order to obtain a prophetic or therapeutic dream. Most prominently associated with the Panhellenic healing god Asklepios, incubation was also practiced at the cult sites of numerous other divinities throughout the Greek world, but it is first known from ancient Near Eastern sources and was established in Pharaonic Egypt by the time of the Macedonian conquest; later, Christian worship came to include similar practices. Renberg’s exhaustive study represents the first attempt to collect and analyze the evidence for incubation from Sumerian to Byzantine and Merovingian times, thus making an important contribution to religious history. This set consists of two books.
Few empires had such an impact on the conquered peoples as did the Roman empire, creating social, economic, and cultural changes that erased long-standing differences in material culture, languages, cults, rituals and identities. But even Rome could not create a single unified culture. Individual decisions introduced changes in material culture, identity, and behavior, creating local cultures within the global world of the Roman empire that were neither Roman nor native. The author uses Northwest Italy as an exemplary case as it went from a marginal zone to one of the most flourishing and strongly urbanized regions of Italy, while developing a unique regional culture. This volume will appeal to researchers interested in the Roman Empire, as well as those interested in individual and cultural identity in the past.
A wide-ranging and dramatic account of the Antonine plague, the mysterious disease that struck the Roman Empire at its pinnacle In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor Marcus Aurelius reigned over a vast territory that stretched from Britain to Egypt. The Roman-made peace, or Pax Romana, seemed to be permanent. Then, apparently out of nowhere, a sudden sickness struck the legions and laid waste to cities, including Rome itself. This fast-spreading disease, now known as the Antonine plague, may have been history’s first pandemic. Soon after its arrival, the Empire began its downward trajectory toward decline and fall. In Pox Romana, ...
The third volume in the Society's series on the excavations of this late Iron Age and Roman site. Excavations on the site of the forum baslica of the civitas capital at Calleva Atrebatum have produced the first substantial evidence of the layout and character of the late Iron Age oppidum. In addition to the structural evidence, major assemblages of late Iron Age coins, ceramics, metalwork, faunal and other environmental data are reported on.
In a novel study of the impact of classical culture, John McManamon demonstrates that Renaissance scholars rediscovered the importance of swimming to the ancient Greeks and Romans and conceptualized the teaching of swimming as an art. The ancients had a proverb that described a truly ignorant person as knowing “neither letters nor swimming.” McManamon traces the ancient textual and iconographic evidence for an art of swimming, demonstrates its importance in warfare, and highlights the activities of free-divers who exploited the skill of swimming to earn a living. Renaissance theorists of a humanist education first advocated a rebirth for swim training, Erasmus included the classical proverb in his Adages, and two sixteenth-century scholars wrote treatises in dialogue form on methods for teaching young people how to swim.
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Includes section "Notices of recent publications".
"Nemo Non Metuit": Magic in the Roman World has the ambitious goal of discussing some of the fundamental themes in the development of the idea of magic, in all its facets, in the long chronological span of the Roman world, between the 8th century BCE and the 5th century CE. At the same time, this volume is the result of a team effort that has brought together both accomplished scholars and young researchers at the beginning of their scholarly careers. Altogether, this ample work is the result of a synergy that brought together different approaches to the study of Roman magic. The broad content of this volume includes studies on magical gems of Etruscan, Greek and Phoenician background; curse...