Browsing by Subject "iconography"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 23
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    Civilization Under Construction: Depictions of Architecture on the Column of Trajan
    (Archaeological Institute of America., 2010-01) Thill, Elizabeth Wolfram
    More than 300 depictions of architectural structures appear throughout the Column of Trajan, illustrating both Roman and Dacian fortifications and settlements. Despite the prevalence of architectural depictions on the column, there has been little attention specifically devoted to these important components of the frieze. While recent scholarship has focused on the composition and message of the column as a whole, for the most part this work has not contributed to the interpretation of architecture on the frieze. Previous discussions of the architectural representations have focused almost exclusively on reconciling the pictorial record with the archaeological record and on explaining away what has been seen as a series of mistakes in the architecture on the frieze. This article demonstrates that the many features traditionally interpreted as misunderstandings actually form consistent patterns that draw a purposeful contrast between a supposedly superior Roman culture and a primitive, barbarian Dacian culture.
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    Depicting barbarism on fire: architectural destruction on the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius
    (Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2011) Wolfram Thill, Elizabeth
    This article explores the depictions of architecture on the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. Trajan’s Column alone features depictions of over 300 architectural structures, the vast majority of which can be clearly associated with either Roman or Dacian culture, and which project a clear disparity between those cultures.1 On both columns, destruction plays a crucial rôle in the contrast between Roman and indigenous architecture and cultures. On Trajan’s, fully one-fourth of Dacian architectural structures are either on fire or threatened by fire. Both Roman soldiers and Dacian warriors participate in this destruction, filling 7 separate sequences that illustrate the annihilation and erasure of Dacian culture in the face of the Roman advance. The theme of architectural destruction as a metaphor for cultural erasure is echoed on the Column of Marcus Aurelius, but with important modifications that speak to differences in how the two monuments portray war, victory, and aggressive imperialism.
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    Dismembering a Sacred Cow: The Extispicium Relief in the Louvre
    (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018) Grunow Sobocinski, Melanie; Wolfram Thill, Elizabeth
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    Don’t Confuse Us with the Facts: Visualizing the Frontier in the Capital City
    (In LIMES XXIII. Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies Ingolstadt 2015, 2018) Wolfram Thill, Elizabeth
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    The Emperor in Action: Group Scenes in Trajanic Coins and Monumental Reliefs
    (American Journal of Numismatics, 2014) Wolfram Thill, Elizabeth
    Under Trajan, over ten new group scene types were created for imperial coin-age. Significantly understudied, these new coin types were innovative in both composition and content, and represented a dramatic departure from traditional coin reverse types, which typically featured at most two figures. The new designs depicted the emperor interacting directly with his subjects, civilian and military. In both composition and theme, the Trajanic coin reverses are similar to the group scenes on contemporaneous monumental reliefs. The group scenes on both sculpture and coins point to a key emphasis in the Trajanic period on the relationship and interaction between the emperor and his subjects, and broaden our understanding of both the artistic innovations and official representation of the Trajanic regime.
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    Exploring the Forma Urbis Romae Fragments: A New Approach
    (2019) Wolfram Thill, Elizabeth
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    Monumental Reliefs
    (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015) Grunow Sobocinski, Melanie; Wolfram Thill, Elizabeth
    Monumental reliefs, also known as “historical” or “state” reliefs, adorned an unprecedented range of public buildings in the Roman empire. Introduced during the Republic, produced mainly under the Principate in Rome, and rarely used as a marker of Roman affiliation in the provinces, monumental reliefs became one of the most distinctive forms of Roman sculpture. Although scholars originally concentrated on the supposed historicity of the events depicted, recent semiotic approaches contextualize the reliefs’ imagery and explore intended messages. Scholarship also has moved beyond merely identifying historical iconography to examining broader categories of imagery across multiple reliefs. Challenges for the study of monumental reliefs include lack of archaeological context, ambiguity in dating and identification, and the reuse (both ancient and modern) of reliefs. Despite a long history of study, opportunities for innovative work remain, including database-driven quantitative approaches, re-evaluations of understudied provincial monuments, and scrutiny of polychromy and topographic contexts.