The Legacies of Herod the Great, Burrell 2014 (original) (raw)
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This paper pays close attention to architectural decoration in King Herod’s construction projects and offers a renewed perspective on Herod’s use of monumental display to situate his own kingdom within the empire. His increased reliance on the Corinthian rather than the Doric order, for example, appears to reflect Augustus’s choice of the Corinthian order as representing the new Roman taste. His introduction into local architecture of particularly Roman architectural elements, such as the stucco ceilings of the “coffer-style” and the console cornice, moreover, transformed the adornment of buildings throughout Judaea. The recently discovered mausoleum in Herodium identified by its excavators as Herod’s tomb exemplifies how these new Roman trends were incorporated into the local Hellenistic architectural tradition. I suggest that Herod’s decorative program influenced the tastes of many of his subjects; the architectural decoration in cities such as Jerusalem demonstrates how the innovations introduced by Herod to the local architecture were embraced by the upper-class citizens of those cities. In peripheral cities and smaller sites such as En-Gedi and Gamla, however, the architectural decoration maintains the local Hellenistic tradition. In these sites, the Doric order continues to be popular, and entablature elements are rare.
Herod the Tastemaker. Near Eastern Archaeology 77.2 (2014), pp. 108-119.
For the final four decades of the first century BCE everybody who lived in the southernmost Levant lived under the direct rule or in the long shadow of Herod, the Roman-appointed king of Judea. Herod was many things: political tyrant, architectural visionary, regional power broker, ruthless parent, and self-indulgent lover of imported luxuries. It is the effect of this last point that I would like to consider. My question is simple: was Herod a style-setter? This is not as shallow a question as it might sound. The transmission of style allows us to see the cultural market in action, that realm by which people distinguish themselves and compete for status. By definition, style is specific and status is scarce: if anybody can acquire some thing, that thing can not be stylish and therefore can not confer status. And, since what is “in” is directly connected to who is in (as reified a thousand fold in modern popular culture), studying the transmission of style and the cultural capital it confers reveals who matters, and to whom, in a given time and place. In the case of Herod, answering the question has large implications. The consensus of historians ancient and modern is that Herod was feared and reviled by those over whom he ruled. I contend that the era’s material remains reveal another facet to the relationship between ruler and ruled. By examining the archaeological evidence – not according to archaeological taxonomies but as personal possessions, social signifiers that people chose for use and display – we can observe the significant but archaeologically flimsy subjects of taste, fashion, style, and status in action. This vantage point affords an interesting double view: on the one hand, of Herod as a status-setter and, on the other hand, of some contemporary residents of Jerusalem as, briefly, status-seekers – a short efflorescence of celebrity and its aura.
BEYOND THE WALLS: LOCATING THE COMMON DENOMINATOR IN HEROD'S LANDSCAPE PALACES
2017
The Question of King Herod's personal involvement in the Building Projects attributed to him was always one of the more dominant topics in the study of Herodian archaeology. The purpose of this short paper is to try and answer this question by researching and discussing the location of a 'common denominator' in the structure of Herod's "Landscape" palaces, through the study of the relationship each palace has with its surroundings. These palaces-the Promontory Palace in Caesarea, the Third Palace in Jericho, the Northern Palace in Masada and the Palace of Great Herodium-were chosen as case studies for their scale, architectural complexity and the unique connection they share with the landscape. While a close study of the interior of the palaces and their structural units show that each palace plan is unique and shares almost nothing in common with the other plans, a research of the landscape in which the palaces are located indicates that a common denominator to all four palaces can be found in the forms of the elements of water and the dramatic landscape. These two elements, combined with the uniqueness of the structures themselves, point to Herod's own involvement in the planning of the four "Landscape" palaces .
Ehud Netzer and Herodian Archaeology
Strata 30, 9-36, 2012
Ehud Netzer was the leading figure in Herodian archaeology right up to his sudden death in October 2010, specialising in the architecture of Herod’s palaces. In the course of his career, there was scarcely a site in Israel where there was a known Herodian palace which Netzer did not excavate. His archaeological findings were so considerable that their significance is still being evaluated by scholars. This article examines one aspect, namely the light that has been cast on the extent of Roman influence on the art, architecture and construction methods of Herod’s extensive building projects.