Between the ninth and seventh centuries BC the small kingdom of Assyria in northern Iraq expanded through conquest to dominate the region from Egypt to Iran. The power of the Assyrian kings was reflected in the creation of a series of magnificent palaces in which the walls of principal rooms and courtyards were lined with huge panels of alabaster carved with images of the monarch as priest, victorious warrior and hunter. Together, the sculptures constitute some of the most impressive and eloquent witnesses of the ancient Middle East. This book serves as a superb visual introduction to what are undoubtedly some of the greatest works of art from the ancient world, showcasing a series of specially taken photographs of the British Museum's unrivalled collection of Assyrian sculptures. These stunning images capture the majesty of the Assyrian king, his magnificent court and its protecting divinities, through individual panels or extraordinary, often overlooked details, such as incised embroidery on robes, the contours of flesh and musculature, the turn of a horse's head or the order within the apparent chaos of battle. An introduction sets the sculptures in their cultural and art-historical context. A brief history of Assyria and the royal palaces is followed by an overview of their discovery, reception and understanding. These are the earliest examples of complex narrative art, and their multilayered meanings occupied entire rooms in which the raw emotion and energy of animals and humans was captured with remarkable vitality. Many of these exceptional carvings rank among the greatest achievements in the history of art.

The frames of classical art are often seen as marginal to the images that they surround. Traditional art history has tended to view framing devices as supplementary 'ornaments'. Likewise, classical archaeologists have often treated them as tools for taxonomic analysis. This book not only argues for the integral role of framing within Graeco-Roman art, but also explores the relationship between the frames of classical antiquity and those of more modern art and aesthetics. Contributors combine close formal analysis with more theoretical approaches: chapters examine framing devices across multiple media (including vase and fresco painting, relief and free-standing sculpture, mosaics, manuscripts and inscriptions), structuring analysis around the themes of 'framing pictorial space', 'framing bodies', 'framing the sacred' and 'framing texts'. The result is a new cultural history of framing - one that probes the sophisticated and playful ways in which frames could support, delimit, shape and even interrogate the images contained within.

Ever since Sir Arthur Evans first excavated at the site of the Palace at Knossos in the early twentieth century, scholars and visitors have been drawn to the architecture of Bronze Age Crete. Much of the attraction comes from the geographical and historical uniqueness of the island. Equidistant from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Minoan Crete is on the shifting conceptual border between East and West, and chronologically suspended between history and prehistory. In this culturally dynamic context, architecture provided more than physical shelter; it embodied meaning. Architecture was a medium through which Minoans constructed their notions of social, ethnic, and historical identity: the buildings tell us about how the Minoans saw themselves, and how they wanted to be seen by others.

Architecture of Minoan Crete is the first comprehensive study of the entire range of Minoan architecture--including houses, palaces, tombs, and cities--from 7000 BC to 1100 BC. John C. McEnroe synthesizes the vast literature on Minoan Crete, with particular emphasis on the important discoveries of the past twenty years, to provide an up-to-date account of Minoan architecture. His accessible writing style, skillful architectural drawings of houses and palaces, site maps, and color photographs make this book inviting for general readers and visitors to Crete, as well as scholars.

A revised edition of a classic title, now with digitally restored photographs, showcasing the finest surviving examples of ancient Buddhist art. Since their chance re-discovery in 1819, the breathtaking paintings and sculptures of the Ajanta caves have inspired and delighted experts and amateurs alike. Ranging in date from the second century BCE to the sixth century CE, these ancient Buddhist artworks rank among the world’s most important cultural treasures. Benoy K. Behl captured the beauty and luminosity of these works using long exposures and only natural light and now presents them here digitally restored to show the paintings closer to their original glory than ever before. The exquisite murals, depicting the tales of previous incarnations of Buddha, scenes of princely processions and fantastical birds and beasts, provide virtually the only evidence of painting styles that first developed in India and remain crucially important to the understanding of Buddhist art throughout Asia. On UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites, the Ajanta caves survive as a potent symbol of the great beauty of India’s rich artistic past. This new edition provides for the first time a view of some of the masterpieces of Ajanta painstakingly digitally restored by Behl. Sensitively carried out, the restoration makes the paintings clearer without interfering with their original grace and nuance, leading to a deeper appreciation of their artistry. Accompanied by expert commentaries to fully immerse the reader in the cultural context of the murals, this book will help preserve the legacy of the glorious art of Ajanta for years to come.

How should articulations of blackness from the fifth century BCE to the twenty-first century be properly read and interpreted? This important and timely new book is the first concerted treatment of black skin color in the Greek literature and visual culture of antiquity. In charting representations in the Hellenic world of black Egyptians, Aithiopians, Indians, and Greeks, Sarah Derbew dexterously disentangles the complex and varied ways in which blackness has been co-produced by ancient authors and artists; their readers, audiences, and viewers; and contemporary scholars. Exploring the precarious hold that race has on skin coloration, the author uncovers the many silences, suppressions, and misappropriations of blackness within modern studies of Greek antiquity. Shaped by performance studies and critical race theory alike, her book maps out an authoritative archaeology of blackness that reappraises its significance. It offers a committedly anti-racist approach to depictions of black people while rejecting simplistic conflations or explanations.

The Art and Archeology of Ancient Greece is an introductory-level textbook for students with little or no background in ancient art. Arranged chronologically in broad swathes of time, from the Bronze and Iron Ages through the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, and concluding with the Roman conquest of the Greek world, the textbook focuses on Greek art but also incorporates Near Eastern, Etruscan, and Roman objects. Judith M. Barringer examines a variety of media, analyzing marble and bronze sculpture, public architecture, and vase painting, as well as coins, domestic architecture, mosaics, terracotta figurines and reliefs, jewelry, and wall painting. This book adopts an approach that considers objects and monuments within their cultural contexts. * More than 500 illustrations, with over 400 in color and 13 maps, including specially commissioned photographs, maps, plans, and reconstructions * Includes text boxes, chapter summaries and timelines, and detailed glossary * Looks at Greek art from perspectives of both art history and archaeology, giving students an understanding of the historical and everyday context of art objects

This book explores how deities were used to communicate and negotiate imperial power under the Severan dynasty (AD 193-235). Septimius Severus connected his reign to the divine support of Liber Pater and Hercules, while Caracalla placed a particular emphasis on the gods Apollo, Aesculapius and Sarapis. Elagabalus' reign was characterised by the worship of the Emesene deity Elagabal, which resulted in a renewed emphasis on the cult of Jupiter under Severus Alexander. Numismatic evidence is reintegrated into the wider material culture of the Severan period in order to bring new insights into the use of the divine in this period, as well as the role played by the provinces in the formation and reception of this ideology. By taking a dynastic approach, this book demonstrates the dynamic nature of the imperial public image and the complex dialogue that existed between Rome and the wider Empire in this period.

Why did Roman portrait statues, famed for their individuality, repeatedly employ the same body forms? The complex issue of the Roman copying of Greek 'originals' has so far been studied primarily from a formal and aesthetic viewpoint. Jennifer Trimble takes a broader perspective, considering archaeological, social historical and economic factors, and examines how these statues were made, bought and seen. To understand how Roman visual replication worked, Trimble focuses on the 'Large Herculaneum Woman' statue type, a draped female body particularly common in the second century CE and surviving in about two hundred examples, to assess how sameness helped to communicate a woman's social identity. She demonstrates how visual replication in the Roman Empire thus emerged as a means of constructing social power and articulating dynamic tensions between empire and individual localities.

This book analyzes the murals and texts of the Dunhuang Grottoes, one of the most famous sites of cultural heritage on the Silk Road in Northwest China, from an educational perspective. The Dunhuang Grottoes are well-known in the world for their stunning beauty and magnificence, but the teaching of Dunhuang advocates a philosophical perspective that cosmos, nature, and humanity are an interconnected whole, and that all elements function interactively according to universal and relational principles of continuity, cause-and-effect, spiritual connection, and enlightenment. Xu Di and volume contributors highlight the moral education and ethics found throughout the Dunhuang with numerous stories of the personal journeys and growth of the Buddha and bodhisattvas, discussing and analyzing these teachings, and their possible implications for modern education systems throughout China and the world today.

This monograph on classical engraved gems, which also contains a catalogue of the collection then held by the Fitzwilliam Museum, was published in 1891. J. Henry Middleton (1846 1896) was at the time the Director of the Museum and Slade Professor of Fine Art in Cambridge. His intention was to provide an introductory volume for students of archaeology which both traced the history of the use of engraved gemstones as seals and signets from Babylonian to classical times, described the techniques used to create these miniature works of art, and gave catalogue definitions, enhanced by photographic plates, of the Fitzwilliam collection, which had for the most part been donated by Colonel W. M. Leake (1777 1860), whose antiquarian interests had been aroused when he was sent to the eastern Mediterranean to assist the Turkish army against the French in the early nineteenth century.

In this book, Brenda Longfellow examines one of the features of Roman Imperial cities, the monumental civic fountain. Built in cities throughout the Roman Empire during the first through third centuries AD, these fountains were imposing in size, frequently adorned with grand sculptures, and often placed in highly trafficked areas. Over twenty-five of these urban complexes can be associated with emperors. Dr Longfellow situates each of these examples within its urban environment and investigates the edifice as a product of an individual patron and a particular historical and geographical context. She also considers the role of civic patronage in fostering a dialogue between imperial and provincial elites with the local urban environment. Tracing the development of the genre across the empire, she illuminates the motives and ideologies of imperial and local benefactors in Rome and the provinces and explores the complex interplay of imperial power, patronage, and the local urban environment.

The study of colour has become familiar territory in anthropology, linguistics, art history and archaeology. Classicists, however, have traditionally subordinated the study of colour to form. By drawing together evidence from contemporary philosophers, elegists, epic writers, historians and satirists, Mark Bradley reinstates colour as an essential informative unit for the classification and evaluation of the Roman world. He also demonstrates that the questions of what colour was and how it functioned - as well as how it could be misused and misunderstood - were topics of intellectual debate in early imperial Rome. Suggesting strategies for interpreting Roman expressions of colour in Latin texts, Dr Bradley offers alternative approaches to understanding the relationship between perception and knowledge in Roman elite thought. In doing so, he highlights the fundamental role that colour performed in the realms of communication and information, and its intellectual contribution to contemporary discussions of society, politics and morality.

Combining the studies of modern film, traditional narratology, and Roman art, this interdisciplinary work explores the complex and highly visual techniques of Tacitus' Annales. The volume opens with a discussion of current research in narratology, as applied to Roman historians. Narratology is a helpful and insightful tool, but is often inadequate to deal with specifically visual aspects of ancient narrative. In order to illuminate Tacitus' techniques, and to make them speak to modern readers, this book focuses on drawing and illustrating parallels between Tacitus' historiographical methods and modern film effects. Building on these premises, Waddell examines a wide array of Tacitus' visual narrative devices. Tacitean examples are discussed in light of their narrative effect and purpose in the Annales, as well as the ways in which they are similar to contemporary Roman art and modern film techniques, including focalization, alignment, use of the ambiguous gaze, temporal suggestion and quick-cutting. Through this approach the modern scholar gains a deeper understanding of the many ways in which Tacitus' Annales act upon the reader, and how his narrative technique helps to shape, guide, and deeply layer his history.

For over a century, scholars have recognized an "orientalizing period" in the history of early Greek art, in which Greek artisans fashioned works of art under the stimulus of Near Eastern imports or resident foreign artisans. Previous studies have emphasized the role of Greek and Phoenician traders in bringing about these contacts with the civilizations of the ancient Near East and Egypt, debating their duration or intensity in the Greek world. In this study, Ann Gunter interrogates the categories of "Greek" and "Oriental" as problematic and shifts emphasis to modes of contact and cultural transfers within a broader regional setting. Her provocative study places Greek encounters with the Near East and Egypt in the context of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which by the 8th and 7th centuries BCE extended from southern Turkey to western Iran. Using an expanded array of archaeological and textual sources, she argues that crucial aspects of the identity and meaning of foreign works of art were constructed through circumstances of transfer, ownership, and display.

More wide ranging, both geographically and chronologically, than any previous study, this well-illustrated book offers a new definition of Celtic art.

Tempering the much-adopted art-historical approach, D.W. Harding argues for a broader definition of Celtic art and views it within a much wider archaeological context. He re-asserts ancient Celtic identity after a decade of deconstruction in English-language archaeology.

Harding argues that there were communities in Iron Age Europe that were identified historically as Celts, regarded themselves as Celtic, or who spoke Celtic languages, and that the art of these communities may reasonably be regarded as Celtic art.

This study will be indispensable for those people wanting to take a fresh and innovative perspective on Celtic Art.

This interdisciplinary study explores the meanings of mirrors and reflections in Roman art and society. When used as metaphors in Roman visual and literary discourses, mirrors had a strongly moral force, reflecting not random reality but rather a carefully filtered imagery with a didactic message. Focusing on examples found in mythical narrative, religious devotion, social interaction, and gender relations, Rabun Taylor demonstrates that reflections served as powerful symbols of personal change. Thus, in both art and literature, a reflection may be present during moments of a protagonist's inner or outer transformation.

The Handbook of Greek Sculpture aims to provide a detailed examination of current research and directions in the field. Bringing together an international cast of contributors from Greece, Italy, France, Great Britain, Germany, and the United States, the volume incorporates new areas of research, such as the sculptures of Messene and Macedonia, sculpture in Roman Greece, and the contribution of Greek sculptors in Rome, as well as important aspects of Greek sculpture like techniques and patronage. The written sources (literary and epigraphical) are explored in dedicated chapters, as are function and iconography and the reception of Greek sculpture in modern Europe. Inspired by recent exhibitions on Lysippos and Praxiteles, the book also revisits the style and the personal contributions of the great masters.

This illustrated book is the culmination of a project to document and conserve the tomb of Menna, one of the most beautiful and complex painted tombs of the ancient Egyptian necropolis at Luxor. Through conservation, the tomb, which previously lay open to environmental influence, was brought back to its former glory. Aided by non-invasive methods of scientific analysis, the historical and cultural importance of Menna's paintings can now be viewed and studied and enjoyed by a worldwide audience. High-definition photography and drawings complement specialist essays by scholars, scientists, and technicians, who discuss the artistic and cultural significance of the paintings, their architectural context, and scientific importance. Directed by Dr. Hartwig and administered by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) as part of its Egyptian Antiquities Conservation Project, the project was funded by a grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), sponsored by Georgia State University, and carried out in collaboration with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Originally published in 2005, this book examines Roman strategies for the appropriation of the Greek visual culture and argues that the scholarship on this topic, dominated by copy criticism (Kopienkritik), has not appreciated Roman values in the visual arts. Ellen Perry analyzes the Roman aesthetics that lie at the core of the visual conservatism - and innovation - in the art of that civilization. These attitudes help to explain the preponderance of copies, exact or free, after the sculpture of great Greek masters in Roman art. A knowledge of Roman values, Perry demonstrates, explains the entire range of visual appropriation in Roman art, which includes not only the phenomenon of copying, but also such manifestations as allusion, parody, and most importantly aemulatio, successful rivalry with one's models.

This book reveals the rewards of exploring the relationship between art and religion in the first millennium, and the particular problems of comparing the visual cultures of different emergent and established religions of the period in Eurasia - Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity and the pagan religions of the Roman world. Most of these became established and remained in play as what are called 'the world religions'. The chapters in this volume show how the long traditions of studying these topics are caught up in complex local, ancestral, colonial and post-colonial discourses and biases, which have made comparison difficult. The study of Late Antiquity turns out also to be an examination of the intellectual histories of modernity.