Art and Inscriptions in the Ancient World

This book explores the juxtapositions of image and text in a wide variety of ancient works of art.

Zahra Newby (Edited by), Ruth Leader-Newby (Edited by)

9780521868518, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 December 2006

322 pages, 74 b/w illus.
24.4 x 17 x 1.9 cm, 0.71 kg

'This volume is a very timely contribution to the dialogue between archaeologists and epigraphists.' The Anglo-Hellenic Review

The ancient visual environment was packed with instances where words and images appeared side by side: statues with dedicatory inscriptions, labels on paintings or mosaics, or complex juxtapositions of images and engraved texts on funerary monuments. In the past these elements have often been divorced from one another and studied in isolation. In this volume art historians and epigraphers have come together to look at the complex ways in which images and words interacted with one another, illustrating, explaining or reinterpreting each other or, conversely, making competing demands upon the viewer. Their essays range widely in their focus from archaic Greek pottery through Hellenistic honorific statues and Pompeian wall-paintings to Late Roman mosaics. The insights that emerge contribute to our wider picture of the relationships between art and text in the ancient world, as well as illuminating the complexity and variety in ancient material culture.

Introduction Zahra Newby
Part I. Inscribing Images, Illustrating Texts: Juxtapositions of Text and Image: 1. The problems with honouring Samos: an Athenian document relief and its interpretation Alastair Blanshard
2. Idem ego sum discumbens, ut me videtis: inscription and image on Roman ash chests Glenys Davies
3. A painted garland: weaving words and images in the House of the Epigrams at Pompeii Bettina Bergmann
4. The motto in the grotto: inscribing illustration and illustrating inscription at Sperlonga Michael Squire
Part II. Images and their Labels: 5. Writing on archaic Greek pottery Robin Osborne and Alexandra Pappas
6. Reading the allegory of the Archesilaos relief Zahra Newby
7. Inscribed mosaics in the Late Roman Empire: perspectives from East and West Ruth Leader-Newby
Part III. Inscriptions and their Statues: 8. Hellenistic honorific statues and their inscriptions John Ma
9. Reusing statues, rewriting inscriptions and bestowing honours in Roman Athens Julia L. Shear
10. 'Honour takes wing': unstable images and anxious orators in the Greek tradition Verity Platt.

Subject Areas: History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]