Musings on Daily Life in the Ancient and Early Medieval Mediterranean By Sarah E. Bond
The inscription I want to focus on today is from Rome and is now kept at the Vatican (CIL VI, 2147=CIL XV 7126). I went to see it the other afternoon, and found the Greco-Roman galleries eerily empty as the crowds rushed to the Sistine Chapel before closing. Understandable, but as anthropologist James Deetz noted (and in fact built... Continue Reading →
As I have long harped upon, there are many parts of antiquity that are, unfortunately, ephemeral. Unless a textual source tells us, we cannot know either what Augustus' voice was like when he addressed the people or the sound of Theodora's whispers in the ear of Justinian. We must rely on textual, epigraphical, and to some extent... Continue Reading →
This week, it seems that my classical friends wished me to learn a great deal about clothing--or lack thereof. I started off reading (and then quickly consumed) the splendid book by late antique historian Kristi Upson-Saia on Early Christian Dress (Plug: now out in paperback!), then had Roman bioanthropologist Kristina Killgrove ask about Greco-Roman diapers, and... Continue Reading →
This past week, I listened to stellar papers at the ILAN conference held at NYU's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. One of my favorites was also the last: Fabian Stroth (Heidelberg) delved eloquently into the complex monograms on the capitals in Justinian's Hagia Sophia. I hadn't really thought very much about monograms generally,... Continue Reading →
The Transformation of Poverty, Philanthropy, and Healthcare in Late AntiquityThe Society for Late Antiquity announces that the eleventh biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity conference will take place at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA, March 26-29, 2015. The period of Late Antiquity (A.D. 200-700) witnessed great changes in respect to attitudes towards poverty,... Continue Reading →
History From Below 