Pasts Imperfect (6.16.22)
Ancient Souvenirs, Modern Repatriation, and Digital Maps
A new book by art historian Maggie Popkin looks at Souvenirs and the Experience of Empire in Ancient Rome. From an inscribed writing stylus to the production of gladiatorial figurines, Popkin explores souvenirs and memorabilia within the Roman Mediterranean as a mode of self expression as well as material culture that acted as creators of collective memory in antiquity. The richly illustrated volume has maps, pictures, and in depth analysis of myriad ancient objects massed produced as mementos bought by travelers, spectators, and pilgrims. She also addresses these objects’ function as “vicarious souvenirs”; meaning they can serve as a proxy for a person actually attending an athletic event, a religious festival, or perhaps traveling to a pilgrimage site. Finally, she looks at souvenirs as a means for mentally imagining the Roman Empire and its provinces, demonstrating their role in Roman world-building—as well as their use to reinforce marginalization of persons and professions.
Global Antiquity In the News
In our “Antiquities” section in Public Books, Stephanie Wong interviews Sarah Derbew about her new book, Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
On a side note, Juneteenth is on Sunday (and so the federal holiday is observed Monday). Read more about its history and the color red in this AAIHS article from Endia Hayes.
In epigraphy news, a Greek inscription dating to the reign of the emperor Claudius (r. 41-54 CE) resurfaced after being recovered in storage at the National Museums, Scotland. Greek epigrapher Peter Liddel spoke with NPR about the epigraphic document, which turns out to be a list of 31 young men within the ephebate. A translation of the inscription has been added to Attic Inscriptions Online (AIO).
There are some exciting updates over at The FLAME Project (Framing the Late Antique and early Medieval Economy). The numismatic DH project is an attempt to understand the early medieval economy from 325-725 CE within Western Afro-Eurasia. As they note:
[FLAME] supplies hard data about the early medieval economy, in the form of hundreds of thousands of coins, to contribute to the scholarly understanding of key historical questions in this period such as the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of Islam and the origins of the European economy. FLAME has concluded its first phase (Minting) and has recently launched its second phase (Circulation), accessible here. It is a project of the Princeton University Numismatic Collection and the Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity. To collaborate with FLAME and/or contribute your data, click here!
In Digital Humanities news, the AWMC maptiles often downloaded and incorporated into spatial digital humanities projects are now being hosted at the Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio at the University of Iowa Libraries. For more formats and notes on open licensing (CC-BY-4.0), citations, and downloads of these digital maps, please see the new CAWM launch page.
In repatriation news, Egypt Today reports that the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced recently that there are preparing for the repatriation of a number of illegally smuggled ancient Egyptian artifacts from Switzerland.
The artifacts include a statue of a woman made from alabaster, a stone piece with inscriptions that represent pat of God Bes, a cover for a Canopic pot, Sphinx statue made of stone, painting with inscriptions and writings and a cylinder alabaster pot.
Additionally, in April the U.S. returned two 4th century BCE busts to Libya which originally came from ancient Cyrene. One smuggled bust had been bought by a private collector, whereas the other had since 1998 been at the Metropolitan Museum of New York.
A newly published study of ancient incense from 9thC CE China in the journal PNAS by Meng Ren, Xinlai Ren, Xinyi Wang and Yimin Yang looks at the “Characterization of the incense sacrificed to the sarira of Sakyamuni from Famen Royal Temple during the ninth century in China.”
This study identifies three types of incense associated with the sacred sarira of Sakyamuni Budda from the underground palace of Famen Royal Temple in central China, providing direct evidence of aromatics including elemi, agarwood, and frankincense as well as their composite product, namely Hexiang (blending of aromatics), in Buddhist activities, which may have promoted the spread of incense and the development of aromatic knowledge systems in medieval China.
Finally, Happy Pride Month 🏳️🌈! To celebrate, here is a great post on “Eros: A Queer Reading” by Joe Watson for the National Museums Scotland’s blog, discussing queer themes connected to the Eros of the lebes gamikos.
New Online Journal Issues @YaleClassicsLib
American Journal of Archaeology Vol. 126, No. 3 (July 2022)
Studies in Church History Vol. 58 (2022) The Church in Sickness and in Health
Études platoniciennes 17 (2022) Le retour de l'âme #openaccess
Antiquity Vol. 96, No. 387 (June 2022)
Arethusa Vol. 54, No. 3 (Fall 2021) Origins and Original Moments in Late Greek and Latin Texts
Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Vo.73, No. 1 (2022)
Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome Vol. 66, (2022) #openaccess
Internet Archaeology. No. 60 (2022) Climate Change and Archaeology EAC symposium proceedings #openaccess
Proceedings of the Danish Institute at Athens Vol.9 (2022) #openaccess
The Journal of Early Christian History has a new special issue focused on “Pain and Remedy in Early Judaism and Christianity” with articles from everyone from Andrew Crislip to Erin Galgay Walsh.
Nota Bene: Pasts Imperfect will be on hiatus again until August, but we thought we would provide a mid-summer update.