Author: Garrett G. FaganPublisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472088652
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 480
Book Description
An uninhibited glance into the extensive baths of Rome
Bathing in Public in the Roman World
Author: Garrett G. FaganPublisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472088652
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 480
Book Description
An uninhibited glance into the extensive baths of Rome
A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse
Author: Yaron Z. EliavPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691243441
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
A provocative account of Jewish encounters with the public baths of ancient Rome Public bathhouses embodied the Roman way of life, from food and fashion to sculpture and sports. The most popular institution of the ancient Mediterranean world, the baths drew people of all backgrounds. They were places suffused with nudity, sex, and magic. A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse reveals how Jews navigated this space with ease and confidence, engaging with Roman bath culture rather than avoiding it. In this landmark interdisciplinary work of cultural history, Yaron Eliav uses the Roman bathhouse as a social laboratory to reexamine how Jews interacted with Graeco-Roman culture. He reconstructs their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about the baths and the activities that took place there, documenting their pleasures as well as their anxieties and concerns. Archaeologists have excavated hundreds of bathhouse facilities across the Mediterranean. Graeco-Roman writers mention the bathhouse frequently, and rabbinic literature contains hundreds of references to the baths. Eliav draws on the archaeological and literary record to offer fresh perspectives on the Jews of antiquity, developing a new model for the ways smaller and often weaker groups interact with large, dominant cultures. A compelling and richly evocative work of scholarship, A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse challenges us to rethink the relationship between Judaism and Graeco-Roman society, shedding new light on how cross-cultural engagement shaped Western civilization.
A Cultural History of Bathing in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium
Author: Michal ZytkaPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351134094
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
This book discusses social, religious and medical attitudes towards bathing in Late Antiquity. It examines the place of bathing in late Roman and early Byzantine society as seen in the literary, historical, and documentary sources from the late antique period. The author argues that bathing became one of the most important elements in defining what it meant to be a Roman; indeed, the social and cultural value of bathing in the context of late Roman society more than justified the efforts and expense put into preserving bathing establishments and the associated culture. The book contributes a unique perspective to understanding the changes and transformations undergone by the bathing culture of the day, and illustrates the important role played by this culture in contributing to the transitional character of the late antique period. In his examination of the attitudes of medical professionals and laymen alike, and the focus on its recuperative utility, Zytka provides an innovative and detailed approach to bathing.
Decoration and Display in Rome's Imperial Thermae
Author: Maryl B. GensheimerPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190614781
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Book Description
Across the Roman Empire, ubiquitous archaeological, art historical, and literary evidence attests to the significance of bathing for Romans' routines and relationships. Decoration and Display in Rome's Imperial Thermae presents a detailed analysis of the extensive decoration of the best preserved of these bathing complexes, the Baths of Caracalla (inaugurated 216 CE).
Thermae Et Balnea
Author: Inge NielsenEconomic Circularity in the Roman and Early Medieval Worlds
Author: Jonathan WoodPublisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789259975
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234
Book Description
Economic circularity is the ability of a society to reduce waste by recycling, reusing, and repairing raw materials and finished products. This concept has gained momentum in academia, in part due to contemporary environmental concerns. Although the blurry conceptual boundaries of this term are open to a wide array of interpretations, the scholarly community generally perceives circular economy as a convenient umbrella definition that encompasses a vast array of regenerative and preservative processes. Despite the recent surge of interest, economic circularity has not been fully addressed as a macrophenomenon by historical and archaeological studies. The limitations of data and the relatively new formulation of targeted research questions mean that several processes and agents involved in ancient circular economies are still invisible to the eye of modern scholarship. Examples include forms of curation, maintenance, and repair, which must have had an influence on the economic systems of premodern societies but are rarely accounted for. Moreover, the people behind these processes, such as collectors and scavengers, are rarely investigated and poorly understood. Even better-studied mechanisms, like reuse and recycling, are not explored to their full potential within the broader picture of ancient urban economies. This volume stems from a conference held at Moesgaard Museum supported by the Carlsberg Foundation and the Centre for Urban Networks Evolutions (UrbNet) at Aarhus University. To enhance our understanding of circular economic processes, the contributions in this volume aim to expand the framework of the discussion by exploring circular economy over the longue durée and by integrating an interdisciplinary perspective. Furthermore, the volume wants to give prominence to classes of material, processes, agents, and methodologies generally overlooked or ignored in modern scholarship.
Small Finds and Ancient Social Practices in the Northwest Provinces of the Roman Empire
Author: Stefanie HossPublisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1785702599
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262
Book Description
Small finds – the stuff of everyday life – offer archaeologists a fascinating glimpse into the material lives of the ancient Romans. These objects hold great promise for unravelling the ins and outs of daily life, especially for the social groups, activities, and regions for which few written sources exist. Focusing on amulets, brooches, socks, hobnails, figurines, needles, and other “mundane” artefacts, these 12 papers use small finds to reconstruct social lives and practices in the Roman Northwest provinces. Taking social life broadly, the various contributions offer insights into the everyday use of objects to express social identities, Roman religious practices in the provinces, and life in military communities. By integrating small finds from the Northwest provinces with material, iconographic, and textual evidence from the whole Roman empire, contributors seek to demystify Roman magic and Mithraic religion, discover the latest trends in ancient fashion (socks with sandals!), explore Roman interactions with Neolithic monuments, and explain unusual finds in unexpected places. Throughout, the authors strive to maintain a critical awareness of archaeological contexts and site formation processes to offer interpretations of past peoples and behaviors that most likely reflect the lived reality of the Romans. While the range of topics in this volume gives it wide appeal, scholars working with small finds, religion, dress, and life in the Northwest provinces will find it especially of interest. Small Finds and Ancient Social Practices grew out of a session at the 2014 Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference.
Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology
Author: Nancy Thomson de GrummondPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134268610
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1579
Book Description
With 1,125 entries and 170 contributors, this is the first encyclopedia on the history of classical archaeology. It focuses on Greek and Roman material, but also covers the prehistoric and semi-historical cultures of the Bronze Age Aegean, the Etruscans, and manifestations of Greek and Roman culture in Europe and Asia Minor. The Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology includes entries on individuals whose activities influenced the knowledge of sites and monuments in their own time; articles on famous monuments and sites as seen, changed, and interpreted through time; and entries on major works of art excavated from the Renaissance to the present day as well as works known in the Middle Ages. As the definitive source on a comparatively new discipline - the history of archaeology - these finely illustrated volumes will be useful to students and scholars in archaeology, the classics, history, topography, and art and architectural history.
The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy
Author: Christer BruunPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199714428
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 929
Book Description
Epigraphy, or the study of inscriptions, is critical for anyone seeking to understand the Roman world, whether they regard themselves as literary scholars, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, religious scholars or work in a field that touches on the Roman world from c. 500 BCE to 500 CE and beyond. The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy is the fullest collection of scholarship on the study and history of Latin epigraphy produced to date. Rather that just a collection of inscriptions, however, this volume seeks to show why inscriptions matter and demonstrate to classicists and ancient historians how to work with the sources. To that end, the 35 chapters, written by senior and rising scholars in Roman history, classics, and epigraphy, cover everything from typograph to the importance of inscriptions for understanding many aspects of Roman culture, from Roman public life, to slavery, to the roles and lives of women, to the military, and to life in the provinces. Students and scholars alike will find the Handbook a crritical tool for expanding their knowledge of the Roman world.
Greek Athletics in the Roman World
Author: Zahra NewbyPublisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191515574
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
The enduring importance of Greek athletic training and competition during the period of the Roman Empire has been a neglected subject in past scholarship on the ancient world. This book examines the impact that Greek athletics had on the Roman world, approaching it through the plentiful surviving visual evidence, viewed against textual and epigraphic sources. It shows that the traditional picture of Roman hostility has been much exaggerated. Instead Greek athletics came to exercise a profound influence upon Roman spectacle and bathing culture. In the Greek east of the empire too, athletics continued to thrive, providing Greek cities with a crucial means of asserting their cultural identity while also accommodating Roman imperial power.