Hebrew manuscripts are our most important source of knowledge about Jewish intellectual, religious and everyday life in the Middle Ages, and anyone wishing to engage with medieval Jewish history needs to know about the manuscripts themselves, how to study them, and the literary genres to which they belong. Colette Sirat offers a comprehensive overview of these subjects in this illustrated introduction to Hebrew manuscript culture. This 2002 work is a considerably re-structured, extended and updated version of an earlier presentation in French. It now encompasses all aspects of Hebrew manuscripts - textual, codicological and palaeographical - combining different disciplines to give an all-embracing view of the subject. The volume has been translated from the author's revision of her earlier French book, and edited for an English readership, by leading Hebrew scholar Nicholas de Lange, who worked closely with Professor Sirat in the preparation of the new book.

What was the 'Classical Revolution' in Greek art? What were its contexts, aims, achievements, and impact? This book introduces students to these questions and guides them towards the answers. Andrew Stewart examines Greek architecture, painting, and sculpture of the fifth and fourth centuries BC in relation to the great political, social, cultural, and intellectual issues of the period.

During the period between Solon's reforms and the end of the Peloponnesian War, worshippers dedicated hundreds of statues to Athena on the Acropolis, Athens's primary sanctuary. Some of these statues were Archaic marble korai, works of the greatest significance for the study of Greek art; all are documents of Athenian history. This book brings together all of the evidence for statue dedications on the Acropolis in the sixth and fifth centuries BC, including inscribed statue bases that preserve information about the dedicators and the evidence for lost bronze sculptures. Placing the korai and other statues from the Acropolis within the original votive contexts, Katherine Keesling questions the standard interpretation of the korai as generic, anonymous votaries, while shedding light upon the origins and significance of Greek portraiture.

What do Greek myths mean and how was meaning created for the ancient viewer? In Art, Myth and Ritual in Classical Greece, Judith Barringer considers the use of myth on monuments at several key sites - Olympia, Athens, Delphi, Bassai, and Trysa - showing that myth was neither randomly selected nor purely decorative. The mythic scenes on these monuments had meaning, the interpretation of which depends on context. Barringer explains how the same myth can possess different meanings and how, in a monumental context, the mythological image relates to the site and often to other monuments surrounding it, which redouble, resonate, or create variation on a theme. The architectural sculpture examined here is discussed in a series of five case studies, which are chronologically arranged and offer a range of physical settings, historical and social circumstances, and interpretive problems. Providing new interpretations of familiar monuments, this volume also offers a comprehensive way of seeing and understanding Greek art and culture as an integrated whole.

What do Greek myths mean and how was meaning created for the ancient viewer? In Art, Myth and Ritual in Classical Greece, Judith Barringer considers the use of myth on monuments at several key sites - Olympia, Athens, Delphi, Bassai, and Trysa - showing that myth was neither randomly selected nor purely decorative. The mythic scenes on these monuments had meaning, the interpretation of which depends on context. Barringer explains how the same myth can possess different meanings and how, in a monumental context, the mythological image relates to the site and often to other monuments surrounding it, which redouble, resonate, or create variation on a theme. The architectural sculpture examined here is discussed in a series of five case studies, which are chronologically arranged and offer a range of physical settings, historical and social circumstances, and interpretive problems. Providing new interpretations of familiar monuments, this volume also offers a comprehensive way of seeing and understanding Greek art and culture as an integrated whole.

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 character of Roman art history has changed in recent years. More than ever before, it is concerned with the role of art in ancient society, including the functions that it served and the values and assumptions that it reflects. At the same time, images have become centrally important to the study of ancient history in general. This book offers a new, critical introduction to Roman art against the background of these developments. Focusing on selected examples and themes, it sets the images in context, explains how they have been interpreted, and explodes some of the modern myths that surround them. It also explores some of the problems and contradictions that we face when we try to deal with ancient art in this manner. From wall-paintings to statues, from coins to the gravestones, this is a lucid and often provocative reappraisal of the world of Roman images.

Examines the styles and contexts of portrait statues produced during one of the most dynamic eras of Western art, the early Hellenistic age. Often seen as the beginning of the Western tradition in portraiture, this historical period is here subjected to a rigorous interdisciplinary analysis. Using a variety of methodologies from a wide range of fields - anthropology, numismatics, epigraphy, archaeology, history, and literary criticism - an international team of experts investigates the problems of origins, patronage, setting, and meanings that have consistently marked this fascinating body of ancient material culture.

This book examines the development of Roman temple architecture from its earliest history in the sixth century BC to the reigns of Hadrian and the Antonines in the second century AD. Although archaeologists, architects, and historians have studied the temples of this period since the Renaissance, this book is unique for its specific analysis of Roman temples as a building type. John Stamper analyzes their formal qualities, the public spaces in which they were located and, most importantly, the authority of precedent in their designs. The basis of that authority was the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the city's first and most important temple. Stamper challenges the accepted reconstruction of this temple, proposing a new reconstruction, and assessing its role in the transformation of Rome. He also traces Rome's temple architecture as it evolved over time and how it accommodated changing political and religious contexts, as well as the effects of new stylistic influences.

What was the impact of Romanisation on non-elite life in central Italy during the late third and second centuries BC? Focusing on the increasing spread of black-gloss pottery across the peninsula, Dr Roth demonstrates the importance of the study of such everyday artefacts as a way of approaching aspects of social history that are otherwise little documented. Placing its subject within the wider debate over cultural identity in the Roman world, the book argues that stylistic changes in such objects of everyday use document the development of new forms of social representation among non-elite groups in Roman Italy. In contrast to previous accounts, the book concludes that, rather than pointing to a loss of regional cultural identities, the ceramic patterns suggest that the Romanisation of Italy provided new material opportunities across the social scale.

In this book, Clemente Marconi provides a new interpretation for the use of figural decoration in Greek temples of the Archaic period, through a study of the Archaic metopes of Selinus. The study of figural decoration on Greek temples has traditionally been identified with the broader study of architectural sculpture. At the same time, the original, articulated appearance of Archaic temples has been fragmented into a discussion of individual types. Marconi argues against both the typological approach and the tendency to investigate style and iconography as two aspects unrelated to the cultural and social background within which temple decoration operated. He explores the relation between style and function and examines the function of figures on temples within the cultural and social context of the communities for which these images were created. Critical to this exploration are the reintegration of the figures into the fabric of buildings, the space of Archaic sanctuaries and cities, and the ritual dimension that represented the context for the reception of the figural decoration of Greek temples. Marconi argues for a closer interaction between art history and disciplines such as semiotics, anthropology, and hermeneutics.

The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond examines the evidence for the pre-history and origin of drama. The belief that drama developed from religious ritual has been commonplace since the time of Aristotle but there is little agreement on just how this happened. Recently, scholars have even challenged the historical connection between drama and ritual. This volume is the most thorough examination on the origins of Greek drama to date. It brings together seventeen essays by leading scholars in a variety of fields, including classical archaeology, iconography, cultural history, theater history, philosophy, and religion. Though it primarily focuses up on ancient Greece, the volume includes comparative studies of ritual drama from ancient Egypt, Japan, and medieval Europe. Collectively, the essays show how the relationship of drama to ritual is one of the most controversial, complex, and multi-faceted questions of modern times.

This luxuriously illustrated book surveys Greek archaeology from the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces to the subordination of the last Hellenistic kingdoms to Rome. Its aim is to study Greek art through the material record, and against its cultural and social backdrop. It takes the reader on a tour of ancient Greece along the most important period in its history, the 1st millennium BC. Architecture, city planning, sculpture, painting, pottery, metallurgy, jewellery, and numismatics are some of the areas covered. With concise, systematic coverage of the main categories of classical monuments, the book caters for the non-specialist looking for the essential in ancient Greece, students of Greek archaeology and art, as well as anyone interested in Greek art and culture. The text is divided into accessible, user-friendly sections including case studies, terminology, charts, maps, a timeline and full index. This is the first English language edition of the original Greek edition and was thoroughly revised and expanded by Dimitris Plantzos before translation by the British archaeologist Nicola Wardle. 592 colour illustrations.

From its foundation in the fourth century to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth, the city of Constantinople boasted a collection of antiquities unrivalled by any city of the medieval world. The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople reconstructs the collection from the time that the city was founded by Constantine the Great through the sixth-century reign of the emperor Justinian. Drawing on medieval literary sources and, to a lesser extent, graphic and archaeological material, it identifies and describes the antiquities that were known to have stood in the city's public spaces. Individual displays of statues are analysed as well as examined in conjunction with one another against the city's topographical setting, in an effort to understand how ancient sculpture was used to create a distinct historical identity for Constantinople.

Bucchero is a very common type of fine pottery that was made by the Etruscans when their civilization was at its height, from the seventh to the fourth century BC. This study concentrates on the products of South Etruria, where the earliest and finest bucchero was made, and where the tradition lasts longest. Until recently bucchero has been little studied, and the aim of this book is to present a sequence of pottery from archaeological contexts, so that the development of the ware can be seen as a whole within a chronological framework. Many of the tomb-groups catalogued are published here for the first time. In studying the shapes careful consideration is given to the affinities with Greek and with other Etruscan wares. A full survey of the decorative techniques is included, and the pattern of distribution both within Etruria and further afield is discussed. An important feature of the book is a series of sixty pages of drawings of the profiles of every shape of bucchero pot studied. Bucchero is of considerable importance as a dating tool, and although the book is directed primarily at specialists, it will also be of interest to anyone who is curious about Etruscan art and archaeology.

Experience, Narrative, and Criticism in Ancient Greece pursues a new approach to ancient Greek narrative beyond the taxonomies of structuralist narratologies. Focusing on the phenomenal and experiential dimension of our response to narrative, it triangulates ancient narrative with ancient criticism and cognitive approaches, opening up new vistas within the study of classical literature while ably deploying the ancient material to demonstrate the value of a historical perspective for cognitive studies. Concepts such as immersion and embodiment help to establish a more comprehensive understanding of ancient narrative and ancient reading habits, as manifested in Greek criticism and rhetorical theory. The thirteen chapters presented here tackle a broad range of narrative genres, broadly understood: besides epic, historiography, and the novel, tragedy and early Christian texts are also considered alongside non-literary media, such as dance and sculpture. Authored by international specialists in the language, literature, and culture of ancient Greece, each chapter utilizes a rich set of theoretical and methodological tools drawn from cognitive studies, phenomenology, and linguistics that place them at the vanguard of a strong new current in classical scholarship and literary criticism more generally.

The Parthenon frieze, one of Western civilization's major monuments, has been the subject of intense study for over two hundred years. Most scholarship has sought an overall interpretation of the monument's iconography and therefore neglects the visual language of the sculpture, an essential tool for a full understanding of the narrative. Dr Jenifer Neils's study provides an in-depth examination of the frieze which decodes its visual language, but also analyzes its conception and design, style and content, and impact on the visual arts over time. Unique in its wide-ranging approach, The Parthenon Frieze also brings ethical reasoning to bear on the issue of repatriation as part of the ongoing debate on the Elgin Marbles.

The use of pictures to communicate a story has a long tradition in Japanese culture that dates back more than a thousand years. Such narrative illustrations draw on Buddhist texts, classic literature, poetry, and theatrical scenes to create rich visual imagery realised in a wide range of media and format. Quotations from and allusions to heroic epics and romances were disseminated through exquisite paintings, woodblock prints, and in pieces of applied arts such as lacquer ware or ceramics, thus becoming anchored in the collective consciousness. As story-telling art found expression in a variety of materialities, it became an integral part of daily life. A fascinating narrative space evolved that combined artistic excellence and aesthetic pleasure. Love, Fight, Feast features some one hundred paintings, woodblock prints, illustrated woodblock-printed books, as well as lacquer and metal objects, porcelain, and textiles from the 13th to the 20th century, alongside scholarly essays on a range of aspects of Japanese narrative art. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the renowned Museum Rietberg in Zurich, the book offers a unique survey of the multifaceted, colourful, and imaginative world of Japanese narrative art across eight centuries.

The Attic white lekythoi, funerary vases long appreciated for their beautiful polychrome images, evoke the style of lost classical wall and mural paintings. This richly illustrated volume closely examines the four major types of scenes: domestic pictures; the mythological conductors of the soul; the prothesis (wake); and visits to the grave. John Oakley analyzes these pictures in context, documenting relationships between the "rites of passage," Athenian history, and the changing perceptions of death in fifth-century Athens.

This book, first published in 2004, develops a theory for the understanding of Roman pictorial art. By treating Roman art as a semantic system it establishes a connection between artistic forms and the ideological messages contained within. The history of Roman art traditionally followed the model of a sequence of stylistic phases affecting the works of their era in the manner of a uniform Zeitgeist. By contrast, the author shows different stylistic forms being used for different themes and messages. The reception of Greek models, a key phenomenon of Roman art, thus appear in a new light. The formulations of specific messages are established from Greek art types of different eras serving to express Roman ideological values: classical forms for the grandeur of the state, Hellenistic forms for the struggling effort of warfare. In this way a conceptual and comprehensible pictorial language arose, uniting the multicultural population of the Roman state.

Widely known as an innovative figure in contemporary archaeology, Michael Shanks has written a challenging contribution to recent debates on the emergence of the Greek city states in the first millennium BC. He interprets the art and archaeological remains of Korinth to elicit connections between new urban environments, foreign trade, warfare, and the ideology of male sovereignty. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, which draws on an anthropologically informed archaeology, ancient history, art history, material culture studies and structural approaches to the classics, his book raises large questions about the links between design and manufacture, political and social structure, and culture and ideology in the ancient Greek world.