Caspar Meyer | Bard College (original) (raw)

Books by Caspar Meyer

Research paper thumbnail of Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia: From Classical Antiquity to Russian Modernity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Since their discovery in nineteenth-century Russia, Greco-Scythian artefacts have been interprete... more Since their discovery in nineteenth-century Russia, Greco-Scythian artefacts have been interpreted as masterpieces by Greek craftsmen working according to the tastes of the Scythian nomads and creating realistic depictions of their barbarian patrons. Drawing on a broad array of evidence from archaeology, art history and epigraphy to contextualize Greco-Scythian metalwork in ancient society, this volume confronts the deep confusion between ancient representation and historical reality in contemporary engagements with classical culture. It argues that the strikingly life-like figure scenes of Greco-Scythian art were integral to the strategies of a cosmopolitan elite who legitimated its economic dominance by asserting an intermediary cultural position between the steppe inland and the urban centres on the shores of the Black Sea. Investigating the reception of this 'Eurasian' self-image in tsarist Russia, Meyer unravels the complex relationship between ancient ideology and modern imperial visions, and its legacy in current conceptions of cultural interaction and identity.

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Research paper thumbnail of Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE

The cultures and societies of ancient Eurasia are rarely given prominence in their own right. Too... more The cultures and societies of ancient Eurasia are rarely given prominence in their own right. Too often, the region is treated as a crossroads of goods and ideas originating in the sedentary states to the south of the steppe. In many respects, the marginalization of Eurasia as an engine of history goes back to literary traditions penned by sedentary outsiders who described the diverse inhabitants of the steppe as stereotyped barbarian nomads, lacking the major achievements of city-based civilization. The following Special Issue of Arts aims to reevaluate the cultural dynamics of ancient Eurasia by exploring ritual and everyday material practices beyond the purview of literary representation. The contributions are structured around case studies focusing on the distinctive archaeological and artistic legacies of the Eurasian steppe in the first millennium BCE, from the permafrost tombs of the Altai mountains to the kurgans and hillfort sites of the northern Black Sea region. Dealing with exciting new discoveries as well as legacy data, “Situating Eurasia in Antiquity” develops a framework that highlights the varied forms of organization in the region by calling on evidence of mobility and interaction and the generative role of material culture in shaping social relations.

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Research paper thumbnail of Drawing the Greek Vase

Visual Conversations in Art and Archaeology, 2023

How have two-dimensional images of ancient Greek vases shaped modern perceptions of these artefac... more How have two-dimensional images of ancient Greek vases shaped modern perceptions of these artefacts and of the classical past? This is the first scholarly volume devoted to the exploration of drawings, prints, and photographs of Greek vases in modernity. Case studies of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries foreground ways in which artists have depicted Greek vases in a range of styles and contexts within and beyond academia. Questions addressed include: how do these images translate three-dimensional ancient utilitarian objects with iconography central to the tradition of Western painting and decorative arts into two-dimensional graphic images carrying aesthetic and epistemic value? How does the embodied practice of drawing enable people to engage with Greek vases differently from museum viewers, and what insights does it offer on ancient producers and users? And how did the invention of photography impact the tradition of drawing Greek vases? The volume addresses art historians, archaeologists, and classical reception scholars.

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Research paper thumbnail of Metalwork: Special Issue of W86th

West 86th A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of D. C. Kurtz, with H.-C. Meyer, D. A. Saunders, A. Tsingarida and N. Harris (eds.), Essays in Classical Archaeology for Eleni Hatzivassiliou 1977-2007, Oxford: Archaeopress, 2008.

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Papers by Caspar Meyer

Research paper thumbnail of Gold Artifacts from the Early Scythian Princely Tomb Arzhan 2, Tuva-Aesthetics, Function, and Technology

Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE, 2024

This article explores the extraordinarily rich gold finds from the Early Scythian princely tomb A... more This article explores the extraordinarily rich gold finds from the Early Scythian princely tomb Arzhan 2 in the Republic of Tuva, southern Siberia (late 7th to early 6th centuries BCE), through the methodological framework of the chaîne opératoire (operational sequence), in order to reconstruct the objects’ processes of manufacture. Through an interdisciplinary study of the finds at the State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the principal author analyzed tool marks and surface morphologies, which allow for the comprehensive identification and documentation of the numerous techniques employed in the creation of the often very elaborate jewelry, decorated weapons, and other personal ornaments. The production of both individual pieces and extensive series of thousands of identical trimmings attests to the existence of complex craft processes and workshop organizations. The technological aspects of the gold finds impress through their diversity and outstanding quality, both artistically and in terms of their craftsmanship. As this article will demonstrate, the objects present the earliest evidence for a highly specialized goldsmith artform in southern Siberia.

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Research paper thumbnail of Why Drawing Still Matters: Connecting Hands and Minds in the Study of Greek Vases

Drawing the Greek Vase, 2023

This chapter explores drawings of Greek vases from three turning points in the history of ceramic... more This chapter explores drawings of Greek vases from three turning points in the history of ceramic studies and in archaeological thinking more broadly: they reveal how these objects were made sense of through the emergent taxonomies of early modern antiquarianism, how Neoclassical critics reinterpreted the materiality of the painted decoration as form and reconceptualized the act of drawing itself, and finally how drawing allowed painted pottery to be accommodated in the all-embracing classifications of scientific archaeology that crystalized in the twentieth century. The final section considers how drawing aided the formation of processes of knowing, inviting the consideration of touch, embodied viewing, and craft in general into object-based research. Throughout, the aim is to shift the conversation from evaluating drawings of vases as more or less accurate visual records to the transformations which the practice of visualization itself accomplishes—how it shapes the viewer’s perceptions and has given rise to new frameworks of interpretation.

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Research paper thumbnail of Afterword

Drawing the Greek Vase, 2023

This afterword highlights connections between the discussions of drawings in the foregoing chapte... more This afterword highlights connections between the discussions of drawings in the foregoing chapters and the emergence of ontological approaches to material culture in the past twenty years. It considers the implications of describing drawings of Greek vases as ‘illustrations’ or ‘representations’ of objects with anterior properties and argues for the importance of understanding image-making as a generative process in its own right. The relationship between drawing and knowing is brought out by exploring the expressive capacity of the drawn mark to present the object as a ‘timeless’ type or as a ‘palimpsest’ of traces of the artefact’s previous history of use. Finally, the continued importance of drawing in the twenty-first century is emphasized by reference to its value in training responsible users and producers of digital surrogates of archaeological heritage.

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Research paper thumbnail of Rhythm and Possibility: Making Space for Ancient Futures

Possibility Studies & Society, 2023

This essay explores some of the ways in which archeology and possibility studies can enrich each ... more This essay explores some of the ways in which archeology and possibility studies can enrich each other's understanding of time, agency and materiality in human behavior. It discusses the implications of linear conceptions of time for our perception of human pasts and futures, and argues for the adoption of rhythm as an alternative mode of inquiry that is capable of liberating the past from our hindsight and making space for the possible as a generative dimension of cultural practice.

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Research paper thumbnail of Domesticating the Ancient House: The Archaeology of a False Analogy

Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Material and Textual Approaches, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of Editors' Introduction: Putting Work into Metal

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Research paper thumbnail of "Ancient Vases in Modern Vitrines: The Sensory Dynamics and Social Implications of Museum Display", Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, 63. 1 (2020) 91–109.

This contribution explores the changing sensory priorities underpinning the display of Greek pain... more This contribution explores the changing sensory priorities underpinning the display of Greek painted pottery in European collections. The focus is on the introduction of glass-fronted cabinets in the purpose-designed public museums of art and archaeology of the mid-nineteenth century. Contrary to expectations, the contemporaneous debates surrounding the use of gallery furniture show that the museum stakeholders were less worried about the safety of the objects than the prospect of middle-and working-class visitors being exposed to the sexualized imagery on Athenian pottery. A survey of the different traditions of display in Britain and continental Europe highlights the shift from the multisensory engagements in early modern elite collections with vases as evidence of ancient custom to the selective viewing of the objects' painted decoration as works of art whose proper interpretation called for classical education.

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Research paper thumbnail of "From Scythian Ethnography to Aryan Christianity: Herodotean Revolutions on the Eve of the Russian Revolution", in T. Harrison and J. Skinner (eds.), Herodotus in the Long Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

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Research paper thumbnail of “What is the Value of Images? On the Social Significance of Time Spent Looking at Classical Art”, in C. Draycott, R. Raja, K. Welch and W. T. Wootton (eds.), Visual Histories: Visual Remains and Histories of the Classical World. Essays in Honour of R.R.R. Smith, Turnhout: Brepols, 2018, 34–46.

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Research paper thumbnail of “Foucault’s Clay Feet: Ancient Greek Vases in Modern Theories of Sex”, History Workshop Journal 85 (2018) 143–68.

Although Michel Foucault never mentions the objects explicitly, his work on ancient Greek sexuali... more Although Michel Foucault never mentions the objects explicitly, his work on ancient Greek sexuality depends in critical aspects on evidence from sex scenes on ancient Greek pottery. The significance of the images comes to the fore in his argument concerning the radical difference of the gender-blind ethics of desire in Greek antiquity from the gender-based norms of modernity. In the overarching narrative of his multi-volume genealogy of modern sexuality, the alterity of Greece underlines his broader contention about the discursive basis of sexual experience. This article confronts the historiographical biases that led Foucault to disregard the material nature of his sources and explores the implications this silence spelled for his successors. Its argument revolves around the disciplinary instruments which scholars employ to contain three-dimensional objects within the bounds of verbal explanation. Two-dimensional copies, in particular, enable historians to isolate vase images from their contexts of consumption and redeploy them strategically to support unrelated arguments. The discussion first takes a critical look at the archives of vase images that made possible, or responded to, Foucault’s synthesis, and then turns to the possibilities of interpretation which the sex scenes hold out when reunited with their ceramic bodies. Of special interest are the manual operations involved in experiencing the artefacts in convivial settings and the interdependencies of painted and potted forms that mark the objects as intentionally subversive and open-ended. Despite its criticism, this essay is itself Foucauldian in its effort to cultivate critical historiography. Its goal is to perform a ‘genealogy’ of Foucault’s genealogy, with a focus on the objects and practices which sustained the debate on Greek homosexuality as one of scholarship’s foremost contributions to the liberationist projects of the twentieth century.

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Research paper thumbnail of “All about the Body? The Matter of Temporality in the Study of Greek Sculpture”, in A. Lichtenberger and R. Raja (eds.), The Diversity of Classical Archaeology. Studies in Classical Archaeology. Vol. 1, Brepols, 2017.

This chapter aims to demonstrate that, to gain traction on aspects of ancient experience, we need... more This chapter aims to demonstrate that, to gain traction on aspects of ancient experience, we need to concentrate less on the stylistic choices by which sculpted bodies materialized beliefs about living bodies than on the ways in which the sculptural monument as a whole shaped the durational aspects of its being perceived. Even though we cannot see their art as the Greeks did, we can nevertheless examine the temporal frameworks through which monuments created their possibilities of reception. I focus on two case studies selected to give as wide as possible a cross section of the formats of classical sculpture and their conditions of display. One is a freestanding bronze statue group from the Athenian Agora, the other a grave relief from the borders of the Greek world. One brings into play the problems entailed in understanding the changing mechanisms and agents involved in the act of dedication, the other the problems of making sense of the diversity of sculpture’s formats and locations. One is justifiably famous, the other has remained obscure and undeservedly faces a future of even less renown.

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Research paper thumbnail of “Russian Encounters with Classical Antiquities: Archaeology, Museums and National Identity in the Tsarist Empire”, in Z. Martirosova Torlone, D. LaCourse Munteanu and D. Dutsch (eds.), A Handbook to Classical Reception in Eastern and Central Europe, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017

This chapter explores the opportunities which displays of classical antiquities offer for underst... more This chapter explores the opportunities which displays of classical antiquities offer for understanding Russia’s conflicted self‐identification as a nation. The study of Russian archaeological collecting derives its interest from the multiple associations of classical antiquities, evoking potential genealogies in Roman imperialism, Byzantine Orthodoxy, and Russia’s “native” antiquity on the Black Sea shore—the symbiotic relations between Greek colonists and Scythian nomads. The survey contrasts two currents in display practice, distinguished by the strategies deployed to resolve the perceived lack of organic continuity in Russia’s past. Eighteenth‐century collecting rationalized Greco‐Roman marbles in allegorical terms, as embodiments of the Enlightenment values that justify imperial rule. In response to Slavocentric nationalism, the court’s antiquarians discovered in the nineteenth century an alternative ancestry for the cosmopolitan empire in the Scythian monarchies of South Russia. This analogical conception of antiquity has its legacy in the current theories of cultural convergence in Eurasianist historiography.

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Research paper thumbnail of Political Monuments of the Early Spartocid State

Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia: From Classical Antiquity to Russian Modernity, 2013

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Research paper thumbnail of Looking at Greco-Scythian Art

Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia: From Classical Antiquity to Russian Modernity, 2013

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Research paper thumbnail of Greco-Scythian Art in Practice

Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia: From Classical Antiquity to Russian Modernity, 2013

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Research paper thumbnail of Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia: From Classical Antiquity to Russian Modernity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Since their discovery in nineteenth-century Russia, Greco-Scythian artefacts have been interprete... more Since their discovery in nineteenth-century Russia, Greco-Scythian artefacts have been interpreted as masterpieces by Greek craftsmen working according to the tastes of the Scythian nomads and creating realistic depictions of their barbarian patrons. Drawing on a broad array of evidence from archaeology, art history and epigraphy to contextualize Greco-Scythian metalwork in ancient society, this volume confronts the deep confusion between ancient representation and historical reality in contemporary engagements with classical culture. It argues that the strikingly life-like figure scenes of Greco-Scythian art were integral to the strategies of a cosmopolitan elite who legitimated its economic dominance by asserting an intermediary cultural position between the steppe inland and the urban centres on the shores of the Black Sea. Investigating the reception of this 'Eurasian' self-image in tsarist Russia, Meyer unravels the complex relationship between ancient ideology and modern imperial visions, and its legacy in current conceptions of cultural interaction and identity.

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Research paper thumbnail of Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE

The cultures and societies of ancient Eurasia are rarely given prominence in their own right. Too... more The cultures and societies of ancient Eurasia are rarely given prominence in their own right. Too often, the region is treated as a crossroads of goods and ideas originating in the sedentary states to the south of the steppe. In many respects, the marginalization of Eurasia as an engine of history goes back to literary traditions penned by sedentary outsiders who described the diverse inhabitants of the steppe as stereotyped barbarian nomads, lacking the major achievements of city-based civilization. The following Special Issue of Arts aims to reevaluate the cultural dynamics of ancient Eurasia by exploring ritual and everyday material practices beyond the purview of literary representation. The contributions are structured around case studies focusing on the distinctive archaeological and artistic legacies of the Eurasian steppe in the first millennium BCE, from the permafrost tombs of the Altai mountains to the kurgans and hillfort sites of the northern Black Sea region. Dealing with exciting new discoveries as well as legacy data, “Situating Eurasia in Antiquity” develops a framework that highlights the varied forms of organization in the region by calling on evidence of mobility and interaction and the generative role of material culture in shaping social relations.

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Research paper thumbnail of Drawing the Greek Vase

Visual Conversations in Art and Archaeology, 2023

How have two-dimensional images of ancient Greek vases shaped modern perceptions of these artefac... more How have two-dimensional images of ancient Greek vases shaped modern perceptions of these artefacts and of the classical past? This is the first scholarly volume devoted to the exploration of drawings, prints, and photographs of Greek vases in modernity. Case studies of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries foreground ways in which artists have depicted Greek vases in a range of styles and contexts within and beyond academia. Questions addressed include: how do these images translate three-dimensional ancient utilitarian objects with iconography central to the tradition of Western painting and decorative arts into two-dimensional graphic images carrying aesthetic and epistemic value? How does the embodied practice of drawing enable people to engage with Greek vases differently from museum viewers, and what insights does it offer on ancient producers and users? And how did the invention of photography impact the tradition of drawing Greek vases? The volume addresses art historians, archaeologists, and classical reception scholars.

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Research paper thumbnail of Metalwork: Special Issue of W86th

West 86th A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of D. C. Kurtz, with H.-C. Meyer, D. A. Saunders, A. Tsingarida and N. Harris (eds.), Essays in Classical Archaeology for Eleni Hatzivassiliou 1977-2007, Oxford: Archaeopress, 2008.

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Research paper thumbnail of Gold Artifacts from the Early Scythian Princely Tomb Arzhan 2, Tuva-Aesthetics, Function, and Technology

Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE, 2024

This article explores the extraordinarily rich gold finds from the Early Scythian princely tomb A... more This article explores the extraordinarily rich gold finds from the Early Scythian princely tomb Arzhan 2 in the Republic of Tuva, southern Siberia (late 7th to early 6th centuries BCE), through the methodological framework of the chaîne opératoire (operational sequence), in order to reconstruct the objects’ processes of manufacture. Through an interdisciplinary study of the finds at the State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the principal author analyzed tool marks and surface morphologies, which allow for the comprehensive identification and documentation of the numerous techniques employed in the creation of the often very elaborate jewelry, decorated weapons, and other personal ornaments. The production of both individual pieces and extensive series of thousands of identical trimmings attests to the existence of complex craft processes and workshop organizations. The technological aspects of the gold finds impress through their diversity and outstanding quality, both artistically and in terms of their craftsmanship. As this article will demonstrate, the objects present the earliest evidence for a highly specialized goldsmith artform in southern Siberia.

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Research paper thumbnail of Why Drawing Still Matters: Connecting Hands and Minds in the Study of Greek Vases

Drawing the Greek Vase, 2023

This chapter explores drawings of Greek vases from three turning points in the history of ceramic... more This chapter explores drawings of Greek vases from three turning points in the history of ceramic studies and in archaeological thinking more broadly: they reveal how these objects were made sense of through the emergent taxonomies of early modern antiquarianism, how Neoclassical critics reinterpreted the materiality of the painted decoration as form and reconceptualized the act of drawing itself, and finally how drawing allowed painted pottery to be accommodated in the all-embracing classifications of scientific archaeology that crystalized in the twentieth century. The final section considers how drawing aided the formation of processes of knowing, inviting the consideration of touch, embodied viewing, and craft in general into object-based research. Throughout, the aim is to shift the conversation from evaluating drawings of vases as more or less accurate visual records to the transformations which the practice of visualization itself accomplishes—how it shapes the viewer’s perceptions and has given rise to new frameworks of interpretation.

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Research paper thumbnail of Afterword

Drawing the Greek Vase, 2023

This afterword highlights connections between the discussions of drawings in the foregoing chapte... more This afterword highlights connections between the discussions of drawings in the foregoing chapters and the emergence of ontological approaches to material culture in the past twenty years. It considers the implications of describing drawings of Greek vases as ‘illustrations’ or ‘representations’ of objects with anterior properties and argues for the importance of understanding image-making as a generative process in its own right. The relationship between drawing and knowing is brought out by exploring the expressive capacity of the drawn mark to present the object as a ‘timeless’ type or as a ‘palimpsest’ of traces of the artefact’s previous history of use. Finally, the continued importance of drawing in the twenty-first century is emphasized by reference to its value in training responsible users and producers of digital surrogates of archaeological heritage.

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Research paper thumbnail of Rhythm and Possibility: Making Space for Ancient Futures

Possibility Studies & Society, 2023

This essay explores some of the ways in which archeology and possibility studies can enrich each ... more This essay explores some of the ways in which archeology and possibility studies can enrich each other's understanding of time, agency and materiality in human behavior. It discusses the implications of linear conceptions of time for our perception of human pasts and futures, and argues for the adoption of rhythm as an alternative mode of inquiry that is capable of liberating the past from our hindsight and making space for the possible as a generative dimension of cultural practice.

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Research paper thumbnail of Domesticating the Ancient House: The Archaeology of a False Analogy

Housing in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Material and Textual Approaches, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of Editors' Introduction: Putting Work into Metal

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Research paper thumbnail of "Ancient Vases in Modern Vitrines: The Sensory Dynamics and Social Implications of Museum Display", Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, 63. 1 (2020) 91–109.

This contribution explores the changing sensory priorities underpinning the display of Greek pain... more This contribution explores the changing sensory priorities underpinning the display of Greek painted pottery in European collections. The focus is on the introduction of glass-fronted cabinets in the purpose-designed public museums of art and archaeology of the mid-nineteenth century. Contrary to expectations, the contemporaneous debates surrounding the use of gallery furniture show that the museum stakeholders were less worried about the safety of the objects than the prospect of middle-and working-class visitors being exposed to the sexualized imagery on Athenian pottery. A survey of the different traditions of display in Britain and continental Europe highlights the shift from the multisensory engagements in early modern elite collections with vases as evidence of ancient custom to the selective viewing of the objects' painted decoration as works of art whose proper interpretation called for classical education.

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Research paper thumbnail of "From Scythian Ethnography to Aryan Christianity: Herodotean Revolutions on the Eve of the Russian Revolution", in T. Harrison and J. Skinner (eds.), Herodotus in the Long Nineteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

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Research paper thumbnail of “What is the Value of Images? On the Social Significance of Time Spent Looking at Classical Art”, in C. Draycott, R. Raja, K. Welch and W. T. Wootton (eds.), Visual Histories: Visual Remains and Histories of the Classical World. Essays in Honour of R.R.R. Smith, Turnhout: Brepols, 2018, 34–46.

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Research paper thumbnail of “Foucault’s Clay Feet: Ancient Greek Vases in Modern Theories of Sex”, History Workshop Journal 85 (2018) 143–68.

Although Michel Foucault never mentions the objects explicitly, his work on ancient Greek sexuali... more Although Michel Foucault never mentions the objects explicitly, his work on ancient Greek sexuality depends in critical aspects on evidence from sex scenes on ancient Greek pottery. The significance of the images comes to the fore in his argument concerning the radical difference of the gender-blind ethics of desire in Greek antiquity from the gender-based norms of modernity. In the overarching narrative of his multi-volume genealogy of modern sexuality, the alterity of Greece underlines his broader contention about the discursive basis of sexual experience. This article confronts the historiographical biases that led Foucault to disregard the material nature of his sources and explores the implications this silence spelled for his successors. Its argument revolves around the disciplinary instruments which scholars employ to contain three-dimensional objects within the bounds of verbal explanation. Two-dimensional copies, in particular, enable historians to isolate vase images from their contexts of consumption and redeploy them strategically to support unrelated arguments. The discussion first takes a critical look at the archives of vase images that made possible, or responded to, Foucault’s synthesis, and then turns to the possibilities of interpretation which the sex scenes hold out when reunited with their ceramic bodies. Of special interest are the manual operations involved in experiencing the artefacts in convivial settings and the interdependencies of painted and potted forms that mark the objects as intentionally subversive and open-ended. Despite its criticism, this essay is itself Foucauldian in its effort to cultivate critical historiography. Its goal is to perform a ‘genealogy’ of Foucault’s genealogy, with a focus on the objects and practices which sustained the debate on Greek homosexuality as one of scholarship’s foremost contributions to the liberationist projects of the twentieth century.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of “All about the Body? The Matter of Temporality in the Study of Greek Sculpture”, in A. Lichtenberger and R. Raja (eds.), The Diversity of Classical Archaeology. Studies in Classical Archaeology. Vol. 1, Brepols, 2017.

This chapter aims to demonstrate that, to gain traction on aspects of ancient experience, we need... more This chapter aims to demonstrate that, to gain traction on aspects of ancient experience, we need to concentrate less on the stylistic choices by which sculpted bodies materialized beliefs about living bodies than on the ways in which the sculptural monument as a whole shaped the durational aspects of its being perceived. Even though we cannot see their art as the Greeks did, we can nevertheless examine the temporal frameworks through which monuments created their possibilities of reception. I focus on two case studies selected to give as wide as possible a cross section of the formats of classical sculpture and their conditions of display. One is a freestanding bronze statue group from the Athenian Agora, the other a grave relief from the borders of the Greek world. One brings into play the problems entailed in understanding the changing mechanisms and agents involved in the act of dedication, the other the problems of making sense of the diversity of sculpture’s formats and locations. One is justifiably famous, the other has remained obscure and undeservedly faces a future of even less renown.

Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact

Research paper thumbnail of “Russian Encounters with Classical Antiquities: Archaeology, Museums and National Identity in the Tsarist Empire”, in Z. Martirosova Torlone, D. LaCourse Munteanu and D. Dutsch (eds.), A Handbook to Classical Reception in Eastern and Central Europe, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017

This chapter explores the opportunities which displays of classical antiquities offer for underst... more This chapter explores the opportunities which displays of classical antiquities offer for understanding Russia’s conflicted self‐identification as a nation. The study of Russian archaeological collecting derives its interest from the multiple associations of classical antiquities, evoking potential genealogies in Roman imperialism, Byzantine Orthodoxy, and Russia’s “native” antiquity on the Black Sea shore—the symbiotic relations between Greek colonists and Scythian nomads. The survey contrasts two currents in display practice, distinguished by the strategies deployed to resolve the perceived lack of organic continuity in Russia’s past. Eighteenth‐century collecting rationalized Greco‐Roman marbles in allegorical terms, as embodiments of the Enlightenment values that justify imperial rule. In response to Slavocentric nationalism, the court’s antiquarians discovered in the nineteenth century an alternative ancestry for the cosmopolitan empire in the Scythian monarchies of South Russia. This analogical conception of antiquity has its legacy in the current theories of cultural convergence in Eurasianist historiography.

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Research paper thumbnail of Political Monuments of the Early Spartocid State

Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia: From Classical Antiquity to Russian Modernity, 2013

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Research paper thumbnail of Looking at Greco-Scythian Art

Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia: From Classical Antiquity to Russian Modernity, 2013

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Research paper thumbnail of Greco-Scythian Art in Practice

Greco-Scythian Art and the Birth of Eurasia: From Classical Antiquity to Russian Modernity, 2013

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Research paper thumbnail of “Le sacrement scythe: Rostovtseff, son interprétation de l’art gréco-scythe et l’étude de l’interaction culturelle dans le royaume du Bosphore”, Etudes de lettres 290 (2012) 151–82.

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Research paper thumbnail of "Iranians and Greeks After 90 Years: A Religious History of Southern Russia in Ancient Times”, Ancient West & East 10 (2011) 75–93.

This introductory essay places Rostovtzeff's interpretative model of northern Black Sea archaeolo... more This introductory essay places Rostovtzeff's interpretative model of northern Black Sea archaeology in the context of contemporary historical imagination in Russia and Europe. The discussion focuses in particular on Rostovtzeff's approach to Graeco-Scythian metal-work, as pioneered in his 1913 article on 'The conception of monarchical power in Scythia and on the Bosporus', and the possibilities which religious interpretation of the objects' figured scenes offered in developing the narrative of cultural fusion between Orientals and Occidentals best known in the West from his Iranians and Greeks in South Russia (1922). The author seeks to bring out the teleological tendencies of this account, largely concerned with explaining Russia's historical identity as a Christian empire between East and West.

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Research paper thumbnail of “Rostovtzeff and the Classical Origins of Eurasianism”, Anabases. Traditions et réception de l'Antiquité 9 (2009) 185–98.

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Research paper thumbnail of “A Collection of Ancient Market Weights from Histria, Callatis and Tomis in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Catalogue with Introductory Essay”, Il Mar Nero 5 (2007) 41–76.

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Research paper thumbnail of “A Lead Test-Piece from Histria in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford”, Numismatic Chronicle 166 (2006) 25–6.

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Research paper thumbnail of Borysthenes

The Herodotus Encyclopedia, 2021

River in Scythia (modern Dnieper) flowing into the EUXINE (Black) Sea, named after a river god. H... more River in Scythia (modern Dnieper) flowing into the EUXINE (Black) Sea, named after a river god. Herodotus uses “Borysthenes” also to refer to a city (4.78.5) and trading‐port (4.24.1) whose inhabitants called themselves citizens of OLBIA (Olbiopolitai).

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Research paper thumbnail of Ister

The Herodotus Encyclopedia, 2021

The westernmost of the eight navigable RIVERS of Scythia (the modern Danube), dividing Scythia fr... more The westernmost of the eight navigable RIVERS of Scythia (the modern Danube), dividing Scythia from the territory of the Thracians to the west (4.48, 80, 99). In Herodotus’ work the Ister presents both a cosmographical and a narrative axis, marking the symmetrical opposite of the NILE (2.33–34) and the moral point of no return in DARIUS I’s ill‐fated campaign against the SCYTHIANS c. 513 BCE (4.97).

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Research paper thumbnail of Maeotis

The Herodotus Encyclopedia, 2021

Lake at the eastern edge of Scythia (modern Sea of Azov), marking in Herodotus’ Scythian LOGOS (4... more Lake at the eastern edge of Scythia (modern Sea of Azov), marking in Herodotus’ Scythian LOGOS (4.21, 101) the BOUNDARY between the territories of the SCYTHIANS and the SAUROMATIANS. The lake is fed by the TANAIS (Don) and is connected to the EUXINE (Black) Sea through the Cimmerian BOSPORUS (Kerch Straits). According to a theory reported by Herodotus (4.45.2), the lake also corresponded to the continental division between ASIA and EUROPE.

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Research paper thumbnail of Nomads

The Herodotus Encyclopedia, 2021

For Herodotus and most other ancient authors the defining characteristic of nomads was their igno... more For Herodotus and most other ancient authors the defining characteristic of nomads was their ignorance of AGRICULTURE, requiring them to roam for pasture (Greek νομός, from which νομάδες is derived). Mobile dwellings in wagons or portable huts, a diet of milk and flesh, and elusiveness to outside conquerors, were considered symptomatic corollaries to pastoral subsistence. In Herodotus’ account nomadic people are associated with the fringes of the civilized world in ASIA (SAGARTIANS: 1.125; MASSAGETAE: 1.201–2, 204; PADAEANS and other Indian tribes: 3.98–99), EUROPE (ANDROPHAGI, BUDINI, SAUROMATIANS, and SCYTHIANS: 4.19–23, 106–9), and Africa (nomads of LIBYA: 4.169–81.1, 186–87.1). His excursus on the Scythians of the northern EUXINE (Black) Sea region (modern Ukraine and Russia) provides the most comprehensive and interesting encounter with nomads in ancient literature, not least because it allows us to examine how the author sought to reconcile the ethnographic reports which he had collected with the overarching narrative constraints of his Histories and the cultural expectations of his readers.

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Research paper thumbnail of Olbia

The Herodotus Encyclopedia, 2021

City on the estuary of the HYPANIS (Southern Bug) on the northern coast of the EUXINE (Black) Sea... more City on the estuary of the HYPANIS (Southern Bug) on the northern coast of the EUXINE (Black) Sea, near modern Parutino. In Herodotus’ account, Olbia serves as a focal point for both his geographical description of the northern Euxine coast (4.17) and his juxtaposition of cultural differences between Greeks and SCYTHIANS, exemplified by the stories of ANACHARSIS (4.76–77) and SCYLES (4.78–80). Herodotus consistently calls Olbia the city or trading‐post of the Borysthenites and only mentions the term Olbiopolitai (“citizens of Olbia”) as a name which nearby “Scythian farmers” use to refer to themselves, in contrast to the city‐dwellers’ term for them, Borysthenitai (4.18.1). The Greek word olbios meant “prosperous, happy."

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Research paper thumbnail of Sigynnae

The Herodotus Encyclopedia, 2021

An obscure people said to live north of the ISTER (Danube) River. The Sigynnae are primarily know... more An obscure people said to live north of the ISTER (Danube) River. The Sigynnae are primarily known from Herodotus’ ethnographic reports (5.9). The passage’s descriptive detail has invited numerous ethnic attributions among scholars, ignoring that its very goal was to highlight the limits of ethnographic KNOWLEDGE. Later references (Ap. Rhod. 4.320; Strabo 11.11.8/C520) probably derive from Herodotus.

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Research paper thumbnail of Tanais

The Herodotus Encyclopedia, 2021

The easternmost of the eight navigable RIVERS of Scythia, dividing the territory of the Royal SCY... more The easternmost of the eight navigable RIVERS of Scythia, dividing the territory of the Royal SCYTHIANS from that of the SAUROMATIANS (4.21, 57). According to one ancient view (rejected by Herodotus, 4.45.2) the Tanais (modern Don) also formed the continental boundary between ASIA and EUROPE.

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Research paper thumbnail of Taurians

The Herodotus Encyclopedia, 2021

Inhabitants of the southern Crimean peninsula, between Carcinitis (Eupatoria) and the beginning o... more Inhabitants of the southern Crimean peninsula, between Carcinitis (Eupatoria) and the beginning of the Kerch peninsula, a terrain characterized by the homonymous mountain range (4.99). Herodotus (4.103) describes the Taurians as exceptionally hostile, practicing piracy and HUMAN SACRIFICE.

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Research paper thumbnail of “Scythian Empire”, in J.M. MacKenzie (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Empire, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.

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Research paper thumbnail of “Rostovtzeff, Michael I. (1870-1952)”, in Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine and Sabine R. Huebner (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.

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Research paper thumbnail of “Aristocracy”, in M. Bevir (ed.), Encyclopedia of Political Theory, Los Angeles, 2010, I, 67–71.

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Research paper thumbnail of “City-State”, in M. Bevir (ed.), Encyclopedia of Political Theory, Los Angeles, 2010, I, 184–91.

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Research paper thumbnail of “The People”, in M. Bevir (ed.), Encyclopedia of Political Theory, Los Angeles, 2010, III, 1021–5.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of J. M. Hurwit, Artists and Signatures in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, Journal of Hellenic Studies 137 (2018).

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of N. T. Arrington, Ashes, Images, and Memories: The Presence of the War Dead in Fifth-Century Athens. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, CJ-Online 2016.05.09.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of L. Giuliani, Image and Myth: A History of Pictorial Narration in Greek Art. Trans. J. O’Donnell. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2013, Classical Review 65. 1 (2015) 307–8.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of V.F. Stolba and E. Rogov (eds.), Panskoye I, vol. 2: The Necropolis. Archaeological Investigations in Western Crimea. Aarhus, 2012, Classical Review, Volume 64 (2014) 264–66.

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Research paper thumbnail of V. Coltman (ed.), Making Sense of Greek Art, Exeter 2012, Journal of Hellenic Studies 134 (2014) 259–60.

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Research paper thumbnail of D.V. Grammenos and E.K. Petropoulos (eds.), Ancient Colonies in the Black Sea 2, vols. I-II, BAR International Series 1675, Oxford 2007, Journal of Hellenic Studies 130 (2010) 260–1.

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Research paper thumbnail of P. Guldager Bilde, J. Hjarl Petersen (eds.), Meetings of Cultures in the Black Sea Region: Between Conflicts and Coexistence. Black Sea Studies 8, Aarhus 2008, Classical Review 60 (2010) 498–500.

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Research paper thumbnail of Review of J.E. Kalb, Russia’s Rome: Imperial Visions, Messianic Dreams, 1890-1940, Madison 2008, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 17 (2010) 631–5.

The two works with which the non-Russian reader of this book is most likely to be familiar are Dm... more The two works with which the non-Russian reader of this book is most likely to be familiar are Dmitrii Merezhkovskii's Christ and Antichrist (1895-1905), and Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (1940), discussed in the first and concluding chapters respectively. The texts develop Rome-related themes in contrasting ways to reflect on the transformation of Russian national identity. The protagonists of Merezhkovskii's trilogy seek to reconcile the aesthetic sensibility, human creativity and worldly power associated with paganism with the Christian values of love and self-sacrifice – a task doomed to failure or miscomprehension in the historical settings described in the three books, but which was conceived to hold out messianic possibilities for contemporary Russians and Russia as a whole. In Bulgakov's famous novel the prospect originally suggested by Merezhkovskii of Russia's providential rebirth as a heavenly kingdom on earth is parodied in the thematically parallel stories of an early Soviet author (the Master) and the protagonist of his book manuscript , Yeshua (Aramaic for Jesus), whose faith and livelihood are brutally shattered by the cynical logic of imperial power. Judith Kalb's book traces the literary history of Rome as a symbol of hope and despair linking these two texts through a series of less well-known Russ-ian modernist works. They span the period from the early Symbolism of the 1890s, born not least from Merezhkovskii's self-conscious rejection of the Realism of Dostoevskii, Tolstoi and Turgenev, through the vicissitudes of revolution and world war to the onslaught of Stalin's purges of the 1930s. To Merezhkovskii and his successors, Rome's imperial and religious history offered a semiotic kaleidoscope that enabled them to present their understanding of Russia's ambiguous position at the threshold to a new age, as a potential catalyst and eventual obstacle to universal spiritual renewal. K.'s scope and capacity prove more than a match to explain the workings of Russia's Rome as a 'mythmaking tool'. Her penetrating illustration of the topos' staying

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Research paper thumbnail of D. Braund and S.D. Kryzhitskiy (eds.), Classical Olbia and the Scythian World from the Sixth Century BC to the Second Century AD. Proceedings of the British Academy 142, Oxford 2007, Classical Review 59 (2009) 538–40.

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Research paper thumbnail of R.E. Kistemaker, N.P. Kopaneva, D.J. Meijers and G.V. Vilinbakhov (eds.), The Paper Museum of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg c. 1725-1760: Introduction and Interpretation, Amsterdam 2005, Slavonic and East European Review 84.3 (2006) 555–6.

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Research paper thumbnail of I.V. Tunkina, Russkaya nauka o klassicheskikh drevnostyakh yuga Rossii (XVII-seredina XIX v.), St. Petersburg 2002, Ancient West & East 3.2 (2004) 439–40.

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Research paper thumbnail of Finding the Future in the Past

BGC Symposium, April 7 and 8, 2022

Material culture is often described as a "survival" of the past in the present, be it in the form... more Material culture is often described as a "survival" of the past in the present, be it in the form of evocative fragments or as "traces" enlisted in historical inquiry. The implicit preoccupation with our relationship with the past has diverted attention from the relationship which past actors had with their future and the ways in which they relied on material culture to shape that relationship. If the future-oriented perceptions of past actors are at all considered, they tend to be rationalized in terms of social and economic interests that are external to the material engagements underpinning cultural phenomena. In this symposium an international panel of material culture specialists will explore how imagination and planning towards the future affect relationships between objects and people. How did the future possibilities envisaged by past actors condition the ways in which they created, perceived, transformed, stored, and discarded objects? What are the broader methodological implications of understanding artefacts as starting-points for, rather than outcomes of, cultural practices? To what extent can material culture be understood to embody the desired life-paths of human and non-human agents?

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Research paper thumbnail of Changing regional dynamics in the Mediterranean: material culture, economy, and cult. Panel in the FIEC Conference, London, July 2019

The panel aims to rethink the implications of the concepts of 'region' and 'regionalism' in rela... more The panel aims to rethink the implications of the concepts of 'region' and 'regionalism' in relation to material culture in the ancient Mediterranean world. Archaeologists and ancient historians have applied regional approaches to their respective field of study, in relation to either material evidence or historical traditions. Is the concept of the region useful when attempting to understand the material culture of a locality and its connections to the wider world? The papers in the panel discuss different geographical entities and their material cultures in order to explore the connections, networks, and associations between different localities. Through the examination of material evidence, we seek to enrich current debates on the creation, development, and transformations of regional dynamics of the ancient eastern Mediterranean.

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Research paper thumbnail of Containers Within Containers: Vitrinized Museum Display as a Cultural Technique

Ancient Vases in Modern Showcases , 2023

Anthropologists of the senses have long argued that the emergence of the modern museum as a space... more Anthropologists of the senses have long argued that the emergence of the modern museum as a space devoted to visual learning corresponds to broader shifts in how knowledge is defined and evaluated and whose knowledge is recognized as legitimate. In this account, the glass-fronted display cases that became standard in mid nineteenth century gallery interiors were designed less to protect the objects on display than to discipline the behaviour of the growing number of non-elite visitors who gained access to public collections. Building on previous discussions, this paper will embrace a more object-centered approach to explore display cases as mediatory devices that differentiate ‘inside’ from ‘outside’ and endow the resulting spatial articulations with cultural meaning. If all culture goes back to the introduction of distinctions, what cultural work is performed by museum casework?

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Research paper thumbnail of Beazley the Craftsman

Beazley for the 21st Century, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of Scythian Nomads in Herodotus’ Ethnography and Recent Archaeology

Bard College, 2022

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Research paper thumbnail of Making and Meaning: Early Attic Stelai as Lithic Technology

Classics Seminar, Oslo, March 23, 2021

Stelai are usually studied in disconnected disciplinary categories according to the content of th... more Stelai are usually studied in disconnected disciplinary categories according to the content of the texts and images they bear. Art historians tend to focus on gravestones, votive reliefs and documentary stelai that feature images; political historians concentrate on decrees, honorific commemorations and lists of payments or inventories; and literary historians naturally prefer epigrams and dedications composed in verse. In his talk, Professor Meyer will cut across these traditional genres and types to understand how stelai in late Archaic Athens came to present varying ontological conditions for perceiving incisions as textual or pictorial marks. The discussion will draw on technological analyses and experimental reconstruction of ancient carving techniques to bring out how planar surfaces and incised marks constituted each other and their perception. The aim of exploring stelai from the point of view of their makers is to show that the knowledge invested in making artefacts is a key aspect of understanding their meaning and context. The presented material is part of a broader project which seeks to recover the far-reaching ramifications of technological skill in ancient society, from the level of individual gestures and intentions all the way to the social and ecological impact of procuring raw materials.

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Research paper thumbnail of Connoisseurship: Between Craft and Cybernetics

Work-in-Progress, October 6, 2020

A connoisseur is a person who knows a great deal about art and uses that knowledge to attribute a... more A connoisseur is a person who knows a great deal about art and uses that knowledge to attribute artworks to specific periods, places, or makers. Scholarship has expressed skepticism about the claims advanced by connoisseurs, often dismissing their classifications as dilettantish, subjective, even inimical to the “real” work of social and historical interpretation. In this paper Meyer explores the techniques of visual memorization that underpin connoisseurial skill and the challenges which the associated procedures present to the ever more dominant definitions of disciplinary knowledge as propositional and computable aggregates of fact. His case study revolves around the notebooks of John D. Beazley (1885–1970) recently made available by the Beazley Archive Pottery Database in Oxford. Containing hundreds of pencil drawings of ancient Greek vase paintings, the notebooks shed intriguing light on the development of Beazley’s connoisseurship. The struggles he experienced in framing his engagement with artifacts as a legitimate academic undertaking also resonate with the difficulties many scholars still face in coming to grips with the interdependence of cognitive and manual labor in generating new knowledge.

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