Katherine Dunbabin | |
---|---|
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Oxford |
Thesis | Studies in the mosaic pavements of Roman North Africa (1970) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Classics |
Sub-discipline | Roman art |
Institutions | McMaster University |
Katherine Dunbabin is an archaeologist specialising in Roman art and Professor Emerita of Classics at McMaster University. [1]
Dunbabin studied at the University of Oxford,and was awarded her doctorate in 1970. Her thesis was titled Studies in the mosaic pavements of Roman North Africa. [2] When Dunbabin started her DPhil there was little English-language research into Roman art. [3] Her first book,The mosaics of Roman North Africa:studies in iconography and patronage with the Clarendon Press,was published in 1978. It was based on her doctoral research. Barry Cunliffe described it as 'a contribution to classical studies of considerable significance,for not only does it give a thorough treatment to a body of material of outstanding beauty and interest,but in doing so it greatly enlivens our understanding of the social,economic and artistic systems which pervade the Roman world.' [4] Her interest in the subject of Roman art continued,and in 1999 she published a book,Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World,with Cambridge University Press. A review in The Telegraph described the book as 'a masterpiece of visual,historical,technical and social analysis'. [5]
While preparing a book on mosaics,Dunbabin began researching Roman dining spaces,looking particularly at how they were decorated. This led to Dunbabin publishing a second book with Cambridge University Press,exploring how art can be used to give insight into social history. [6] Dunbabin was a visiting fellow at All Souls College,Oxford between January and June 2001. [7] In 2004,Dunbabin was awarded a Killam Fellowship so she could dedicate time to researching the role of theatre in Roman society and Roman art. The aim was to produce a book and deliver a series of public lectures on the topic. [8] She retired from McMaster University in 2006. [9]
Dunbabin has been part of the Journal of Roman Archaeology's editorial board since 2009. [10] [11]
The Alexander Mosaic, also known as the Battle of Issus Mosaic, is a Roman floor mosaic originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii, Italy.
Parian marble is a fine-grained, semi translucent, and pure-white marble quarried during the classical era on the Greek island of Paros in the Aegean Sea. A subtype, referred to as Parian lychnites, was particularly notable in antiquity by ancient Greeks as a material for making sculptures.
Roman Africa or Roman North Africa is the culture of Roman Africans that developed from 146 BC, when the Roman Republic defeated Carthage and the Punic Wars ended, with subsequent institution of Roman Imperial government, through the 5th and 6th centuries AD under Byzantine Imperial control. In referring to "Africa", the Romans themselves meant mainly northern Africa or Mediterranean Africa, with Roman Egypt a separate province having a distinct Greco-Egyptian culture and society, and Aethiopia representing the largely unknown bounds of sub-Saharan Africa. The loose geography of "Roman Africa" encompasses primarily present-day Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and northern Morocco.
Antiochia ad Cragum also known as Antiochetta or Latin: Antiochia Parva is an ancient Hellenistic city on Mount Cragus overlooking the Mediterranean coast, in the region of Cilicia, in Anatolia. In modern-day Turkey the site is encompassed in the village of Güneyköy, District of Gazipaşa, Antalya Province.
The Velabrum is the low valley in the city of Rome that connects the Forum with the Forum Boarium, and the Capitoline Hill with the western slope of the Palatine Hill. The outer boundaries of the area are not themselves clear. Roman etymologies of the name are confused, with attempts to connect it to the Latin words vehere (conveyance) and velum (cloth): Varro, Propertius, and Tibullus claimed that it was the location of a ferry; Plutarch, however, claimed the name derived from the awnings placed over the Circus Maximus during games. The name may also translate to "place of mud".
The House of the Faun, constructed in the 2nd century BC during the Samnite period, was a grand Hellenistic palace that was framed by peristyle in Pompeii, Italy. The historical significance in this impressive estate is found in the many great pieces of art that were well preserved from the ash of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It is one of the most luxurious aristocratic houses from the Roman Republic, and reflects this period better than most archaeological evidence found even in Rome itself.
Sthennis was an Olynthian sculptor from the 4th century BC. He was the son of Herodotus and father of Herodorus, both sculptors as well.
In late Classical Greek art, ichthyocentaurs were centaurine sea beings with the upper body of a human, the lower anterior half and fore-legs of a horse, and the tailed half of a fish. The earliest example dates to the 2nd century B. C., among the friezes in the Pergamon Altar. There are further examples of Aphros and/or Bythos, the personifications of foam and abyss, respectively, depicted as ichthyocentaurs in mosaics and sculptures.
A Roman mosaic is a mosaic made during the Roman period, throughout the Roman Republic and later Empire. Mosaics were used in a variety of private and public buildings, on both floors and walls, though they competed with cheaper frescos for the latter. They were highly influenced by earlier and contemporary Hellenistic Greek mosaics, and often included famous figures from history and mythology, such as Alexander the Great in the Alexander Mosaic.
The Goddess Africa, in Latin Dea Africa, was the personification of Africa by the Romans in the early centuries of the common era. She was one of the fertility and abundance deities to some. Her iconography typically included an elephant-mask head dress, a cornucopia, a military standard, and a lion.
Ada Cohen is an American art historian. She serves as Professor of Art History and Israel Evans Professor in Oratory and Belles Lettres at Dartmouth College. Her work focuses on ancient Greek art, particularly imagery of Alexander the Great. From 1990-1991, she was a member of the Columbia University Society of Fellows in the Humanities.
The mosaics of Delos are a significant body of ancient Greek mosaic art. Most of the surviving mosaics from Delos, Greece, an island in the Cyclades, date to the last half of the 2nd century BC and early 1st century BC, during the Hellenistic period and beginning of the Roman period of Greece. Hellenistic mosaics were no longer produced after roughly 69 BC, due to warfare with the Kingdom of Pontus and the subsequently abrupt decline of the island's population and position as a major trading center. Among Hellenistic Greek archaeological sites, Delos contains one of the highest concentrations of surviving mosaic artworks. Approximately half of all surviving tessellated Greek mosaics from the Hellenistic period come from Delos.
Boxford Roman mosaic is a mosaic at Boxford, West Berkshire, England, discovered during an archaeological dig in August 2017. It dates from the Roman period. The 4th century (AD) mosaic is over 6 metres (20 ft) long. Its central panel is thought to show Bellerophon, at the court of either Iobates or Proteus, battling Chimera.
Mireille Corbier is a French historian of Classical history. Currently Research Director Emerita at Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), she has published a number of books and articles, and since 1992 has been editor-in-chief of L'Année épigraphique.
Rebecca Jane Sweetman is an Irish classical scholar. She is Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology and the former Head of the School of Classics at the University of St Andrews. Sweetman is known in particular for her work on the archaeology of Roman and Late Antique Greece. Since September 2022, she has been Director of the British School at Athens.
Louise Revell is a Roman archaeologist, currently associate professor in Roman Studies at the University of Southampton. Revell's research focuses on provincial archaeology of the Western Roman Empire.
Astrid van Oyen is currently professor of archaeology at Radboud University, Nijmegen. She is a leading archaeologist studying the social, economic and cultural aspects of empire, rural economies, craft production, and storage in Italy and the western provinces.
Helladia (5th-century) was an Ancient Roman stage artist - an actress and dancer.
Puticuli were open pits used as mass graves for the poor in ancient Rome. According to Varro, a Roman scholar, puticuli were located outside of towns. He claims that the name originates from the Latin word for wells and pits, putei. Varro also describes an alternative etymology proposed by his mentor Aelius Stilo. Aelius believed that since the bodies were thrown into the puticuli to rot, the name originated from the Latin verb, putescebant, meaning "used to rot." Varro also cites another Roman writer named Afranius, who calls the puticuli "pit-lights." Afranius referred to the puticuli with these terms since the bodies that were thrown into the grave looked up at the light from the pit. Puticuli were also filled with waste, animal carcasses, and rubbish; they are sometimes seen as an example of waste management in ancient Rome. Another issue for classicists is the importance of these gravesites to Roman society. It has been argued that the ordered arrangement of graves found in this site implies the Roman government was involved in their creation and regulation. Furthermore, the limited size of the gravesites indicates they were intended for temporary use and were not a commonplace means of burial and disposal.
The Umm ar-Rasas mosaics are a number of Byzantine mosaics discovered by Michele Piccirillo in the ruins of the Church of St. Stephen in Umm ar-Rasas, Jordan, in 1986.