Opuscula 5 (2012) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com. Dancing with decorum. The eclectic usage of kalathiskos dancers and pyrrhic dancers in Roman visual culture By Julia Habetzeder Abstract This article examines two groups of motifs in Roman visual culture: females modelled on kalathiskos dancers, and males modelled on pyrrhic dancers. Eclecticism is emphasized as a strategy which was used to introduce novelties that were appropriate within a Roman cultural context. The figures representing kalathiskos dancers and pyrrhic dancers were both changed in an eclectic manner and this resulted in motifs representing the goddess Victoria, and the curetes respectively. Kalathiskos dancers and eclectic Victoriae occur on many different media at least from the Augustan era and into the 2nd century AD. It is argued here that the establishment of these two motifs in Roman visual culture is closely related to the aesthetics which came to the fore during the reign of Augustus. Thereafter, both kalathiskos dancers and eclectic Victoriae lingered on in the Roman cultural context until many of the material categories on which they were depicted ceased to be produced. Unlike the kalathiskos dancers, the male figures…

Opuscula 4 (2011) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com. Books reviewed in Opuscula 4 (2011) Susanne Berndt-Ersöz | M. Xagorari-Gleissner, Meter Theon: Die Göttermutter bei den Griechen (Peleus Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Griechenlands und Zypern, 40), Ruhpolding: Verlag Franz Philipp Rutzen 2008. 161 pp., 14 pls. ISBN: 3-938646-26-7. https://doi.org/10.30549/opathrom-04-08 Hans Lejdegård | Ralph W. Mathisen & Danuta Shanzer (eds.), Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World. Cultural Interaction and the Creation of Identity in Late Antiquity, Farnham: Ashgate 2011. 378 pp., 27 ills. ISBN: 978-0-7546-6814-5. https://doi.org/10.30549/opathrom-04-09 Karin W. Tikkanen | S. J. Harrison (ed.), Living Classics. Greece and Rome in Contemporary Poetry in English (Classical Presences), Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009. 346 pp., 1 fig. ISBN 978-0-19-923373-1. https://doi.org/10.30549/opathrom-04-10 Luciano Santella | B. Santillo Frizell, Lana, carne, latte. Paesaggi pastorali tra mito e realtà, Mauro Pagliai Editore, Firenze 2010, ISBN 978-88-564-0095-3. https://doi.org/10.30549/opathrom-04-11 Bibliographical information ‘Book reviews’, Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome (OpAthRom) 4, 159–168. Stockholm 2011. ISSN: 2000-0898 ISBN: 978-91-977798-3-8. Softcover, 168 pages.

Opuscula 4 (2011) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com. Italian dreams, Roman longings. Vilhelm Lundström and the first Swedish philological-archaeological course in Rome, 1909 By Anna Blennow & Frederick Whitling Abstract In Sweden, the future of Classical Philology and the study of the ancient past remain uncertain a century after the first Swedish university course in Rome, led by Vilhelm Lundström, Professor of Latin at Gothenburg, and the simultaneous establishment of the study of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History in Swedish academia in 1909. The institutionalisation of the Swedish scholarly presence in Rome materialised with the establishment of the Swedish Institute in Rome (SIR) in 1925, and its inauguration the following year—partly as a result of Lundström’s pioneering initiative. The present article discusses the implications of Lundström’s course in Rome as well as in Sweden, and sheds light on his neohumanist vision of an integrated study of antiquity; with Classical Archaeology and Ancient History as integral elements of Classical Philology. This vision lay abandoned throughout the twentieth century, but deserves to be taken into account when discussing how philology relates to archaeology, or considering the study of antiquity…

Opuscula 4 (2011) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com. Is it possible to believe in a syncretistic god? A discussion on conceptual and contextual aspects of Hellenistic syncretism By Petra Pakkanen Abstract This article will look into the phenomenon of syncretism from two different points of view. Firstly, syncretism will be discussed from a conceptual perspective in relation to elaborations on belief, an equally perplexing concept in the studies of ancient Greek religion. Secondly, a very selective example of the syncretism between the goddess Demeter and Isis as an object of veneration in Ptolemaic Egypt will be looked at more closely in order to bring the conceptual perspective into closer contact with the contextual one. It will be argued that syncretism can be regarded both as an essence of polytheistic religious systems in particular, and as a process of syncretization. Once a metaphorical understanding of syncretism is added to these views, believing in a syncretistic deity (Demeter-Isis in our case) appears doubtful since a new entity in a polytheistic belief-system would have entailed a fundamental change in the belief system itself as well as an introduction of totally…

Opuscula 4 (2011) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com. Representing consulship. On the concept and meanings of the consular diptychs By Cecilia Olovsdotter Abstract Although the consular diptych does not appear as a distinct category of art until the end of the Roman consulate’s thousand-year history (c. 400–541), it constitutes a primary example of the continuance of Roman honorific tradition, developing concurrently with the division and transformation of the Roman empire and the resurgence of the consulate as the most prestigious office on the cursus honorum. By analysing and interpreting the patterns of motif selection, compositional structure and representational mode in the consular diptychs, it is possible to trace the various contextual factors, cultural and historical, that contributed towards their conception, and to gain valuable insights into the precepts of the late antique ‘ideology of consulship’ that was transmitted through this new visual medium. The present article discusses the different layers of meaning within the consular imagery, conveyed through an increasing elaboration and regularization of form and content, from the basic theme of official apparatus and ceremonial to the more symbolic themes through which the ideal aspects and…

Opuscula 4 (2011) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com. The New Swedish Cyprus Expedition 2010. Excavations at Dromolaxia Vizatzia/Hala Sultan Tekke. Preliminary results. With appendices by P. Klingborg, F. and F. Kärfve, C. Hagberg, O. Svensson, S. Macheridis and L. Franz By Peter M. Fischer, with appendices by P. Klingborg, F. Kärfve, F. Kärfve, C. Hagberg, O. Svensson, S. Macheridis, L. Franz Abstract Determination of the complete occupational sequence of the site, including investigation of pre-12th century levels which were thoroughly studied by P. Åström since the 1970s, is the main task of the planned project. During the course of the expedition (NSCE11) in spring 2010 a ground-penetrating radar survey (GPR) was carried out at Dromolaxia Vizatzia/Hala Sultan Tekke in Area 6, leading to the discovery of a large Late Cypriote complex. The compound is bordered to the north by a substantial wall, against which nine rooms (so far) could be exposed. Two occupational phases have been verified but there are indications of a third. The suggested functions of the various structures of the most recent phase are: living, working, storage and administration spaces. The rich find contexts…

Opuscula 4 (2011) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com. Labraunda 2010. A preliminary report on the Swedish excavations By Lars Karlsson, Jesper Blid & Olivier Henry Abstract The campaign of 2010 continued the work which was initiated last year. The excavations in the fortress on the Tepesar Hill were completed. The fortress consists of a large, early Hekatomnid tower where two black-gloss vessels indicated a dating of the tower to about 380–350 BC. In the two additions to the tower, several wellpreserved vessels dating from the 3rd century BC were uncovered. The latest fragment was a painted piece from a lagynos from around 200 BC, but there were no fragments of Megarian bowls. The test probe of last year in the West Church Complex was extended to a larger trench measuring c. 9 × 12 m. Evidence for three major phases could be established by J. Blid: (1) a Late Classical stoa; (2) the stoa colonnade is rebuilt into a Christian basilica of the 5th century AD; (3) a Middle Byzantine building of possibly 12th–13th-century date. Many marble pieces were retrieved from the marble furniture of the church,…

Opuscula 4 (2011) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com. A courtyard gate at Thourioi By Henrik Gerding Abstract In the early seventies Paola Zancani Montuoro suggested that a large paved structure, which had recently been uncovered at the site of Sybaris/Thourioi in southern Italy, was the remains of an ancient neosoikos, or shipshed. This idea quickly gained widespread acceptance and is still often repeated, despite some objections having been raised. In this paper it is argued that the structure, which cannot have been a shipshed, was actually a courtyard gate belonging to the Late Classical or Early Hellenistic city wall of Thourioi. Bibliographical information Henrik Gerding, ‘A courtyard gate at Thourioi’, Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome (OpAthRom) 4, 7–18. Stockholm 2011. ISSN: 2000-0898 ISBN: 978-91-977798-3-8. Softcover, 168 pages. https://doi.org/10.30549/opathrom-04-02

Opuscula 3 (2010) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com. Books reviewed in Opuscula 3 (2010) Eva Rystedt | S. Langdon, Art and identity in Dark Age Greece, 1100–700 B.C.E., Cambridge University Press 2008. 388 pp., 119 ills. (black-and-white photos), 4 tables. ISBN 978-0-521-51321-0. https://doi.org/10.30549/opathrom-03-10 Eva Rystedt | V. Karageorghis, A lifetime in the archaeology of Cyprus. The memoirs of Vassos Karageorghis, Stockholm: Medelhavs­museet 2007. xvi + 226 pp., 187 figs. ISBN 91-89242-14-9. https://doi.org/10.30549/opathrom-03-11 Bibliographical information ‘Book reviews’, Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome (OpAthRom) 3, 219–224. Stockholm 2010. ISSN: 2000-0898. ISBN: 978-91-977798-2-1. Softcover, 224 pages.

Opuscula 3 (2010) is now available for purchase and free download at Bokorder.se. Also available at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Bokus.com, and Adlibris.com. Pictures and people. Seals, figurines and Peloponnesian imagery By Erika Weiberg Abstract The point of departure for this paper is the publication of two Early Helladic sealing fragments from the coastal settlement of Asine on the north-east Peloponnese in Greece. After an initial description and discussion they are set in the context of sealing custom established on the Greek mainland around 2500 BCE. In the first part of the paper focus is on the apparent qualitative differences between the available seals and the contemporary seal impressions, as well as between different sealing assemblages on northeastern Peloponnese. This geographical emphasis is carried into the second part of the paper which is a review and contextualisation of the representational art of the Aegean Early Bronze Age in general, and northeastern Peloponnese in particular. Seal motifs and figurines are the main media for Early Helladic representational art preserved until today, yet in many ways very dissimilar. These opposites are explored in order to begin to build a better understanding of Peloponnesian representational art, the choices of motifs, and their roles in the…