Statuary Collections in the Late Roman Villas of Hispania and Southwestern Gaul Sarah Elizabeth Beckmann University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2016 Statuary Collections In The Late Roman Villas Of Hispania And Southwestern Gaul Sarah Elizabeth Beckmann University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Beckmann, Sarah Elizabeth, "Statuary Collections In The Late Roman Villas Of Hispania And Southwestern Gaul" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2183. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2183 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2183 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Statuary Collections In The Late Roman Villas Of Hispania And Southwestern Gaul Abstract Excavations in the Roman Southwest, in what is now Portugal, Spain, and southern France, have brought to light a diverse corpus of sculpture that was displayed in late antique villas, ca. 250-450 CE: monumental reliefs, mythological statues and statuettes, and portraits, of both private individuals and imperial personages. Although the production of some statues is roughly contemporaneous with the late antique villa in which they stood, many pieces were antiques, carved centuries earlier. But the diversity within and across these statuary assemblages, and the concentration of such finds in villas of Hispania and Gaul, have not been given a full treatment in modern scholarship. Rather, sculpture is interpreted generically as evidence for the elite status of a villa owner, leading to problematic assumptions that all statuary collections, and late-Roman villas more broadly, evince an indistinguishable class of “elite” Romans. This dissertation invites readers to reconsider the narrow but well-established definitions of the late antique elite, through analysis of the many differences that are readily apparent among villas and their material assemblages. I argue that material culture can and should be interpreted as evidence of the regionalism which played an important role in late antique society, and thus I treat sculpture as a window into the social practices and peer polity negotiations among villa domini. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Art & Archaeology of Mediterranean World First Advisor Ann Kuttner Keywords Gaul, Hispania, Late Antiquity, Roman, Sculpture, Villa Subject Categories Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity | History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2183 STATUARY COLLECTIONS IN THE LATE ROMAN VILLAS OF HISPANIA AND SOUTHWESTERN GAUL Sarah E. Beckmann A DISSERTATION in Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 Supervisor of Dissertation _______________________ Ann Kuttner, Associate Professor of History of Art Graduate Group Chairperson _______________________ Thomas Tartaron, Associate Professor of Classical Studies Dissertation Committee Kimberly Bowes, Associate Professor of Classical Studies C. Brian Rose, James B. Pritchard Professor of Archaeology STATUARY COLLECTIONS IN THE LATE ROMAN VILLAS OF HISPANIA AND SOUTHWESTERN GAUL COPYRIGHT 2016 Sarah Elizabeth Beckmann This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have always thought that this small piece of the dissertation would be the easiest to write, but in sitting down to do so, I realize I am completely wrong. It is next to impossible to find the right words to express my gratitude towards all of the people who have made an indelible impression on me during my graduate career, both personally and professionally, but I will do my best. First and foremost, this dissertation would not exist without the unwavering support and encouragement of my committee, Kim Bowes, Brian Rose, and the chair of my dissertation, Ann Kuttner. Each has had a profound effect on my research and on my development as a scholar. I thank these three heartily, while taking care to note that any faults that remain in this dissertation are purely my own. I thank Brian for his generosity and his insight. I will always treasure a piece of advice he once gave me in the writing process, that no piece of scholarship is ever the work of one scholar, but that it is the product of reflection, revision and constant discourse between the author and her advisors and colleagues. This dissertation is a demonstration of that principle. I thank Kim in particular for sharing her knowledge of and insight into villas and domestic archaeology with me at an early and defining moment in my graduate career. It was in her class on the ancient house in fall of 2010 that the seeds of this dissertation were sown. I have long since admired her scholarship, and the enthusiasm with which she approaches material iv culture, international collaboration, and critical study. I thank her immensely for her input and inspiration, and feel lucky to count her in my professional circle. Finally, I thank my chair, Ann Kuttner, for the interminable intellectual and emotional support I have received from her throughout the writing of this dissertation, and throughout my graduate career. I have never once doubted her commitment to me as a young scholar. My interest in Roman sculpture was honed in her classroom as early as 2009, and since then she has generously shared her time and her knowledge. I thank her especially in the dissertation for challenging me to explain and frame my arguments coherently and to situate my work in a bigger picture. I look forward to maintaining this personal and professional relationship into the future. I must also extend my gratitude to one additional member of the AAMW department, Ann Brownlee. Courses with Dr. Brownlee honed my interest in collection studies and the acquisition histories of objects. I look back fondly on the many discussions she and I have had over the years. Remembering those, there is a part of me that hopes that no one is able to solve the puzzles around Isaac and Henry Charles Lea, and thus that there will always a place for me in her research. Within the AAMW department, I also want to thank Tom Tartaron, who has been constant source of encouragement as department chair, and Lothar Haselberger, Jeremy McInerney, and Cam Grey, in whose classes I gained valuable teaching experiences. I thank also Darlene Jackson, for dealing with my mail during my years abroad, and fielding constant questions and headaches about concur. No more, I promise! v The Penn ancient studies graduate student community is such that it would be challenging to give everyone whom I count as a friend due recognition here, but a few members merit express mention. To Meg Andrews, Jeremy Labuff, Jason Nethercut, Amanda Reiterman, and Sarah Scullin, I looked up to you all for much of my graduate career, and I still do. Thank you for your friendship. I add here fellow AAMW folk, Lara Fabian, Kate Morgan, Kurtis Tanaka, and non-AAMWer Stephanie Hagan to a list that could be considerably longer than space allows. I want to give a special thanks to the only other member of a small, Sarah-centric AAMW cohort, Sarah Linn. I remember meeting Sarah for the first time at the corner of 34th and Walnut, when I had been feeling nervous about this graduate school thing, but somehow her friendly smile made me feel like maybe things weren’t so bad. Nearly eight years later, you have become a confidant and a true friend. I can’t imagine having gone through this with anyone else. I love you, Slinnamin! On the note of lifelong friendship, I also want to share my gratitude and love for two members of a larger ancient studies cohort, both of whom entered alongside me in 2009, if in Classics and Ancient History, Heather Elomaa and Kyle Mahoney. Heather, your kind, generous spirit is a continual source of inspiration and encouragement. Thank you for being there for me, always but especially this last year. You’ll never truly know how happy getting your emails while living abroad has made me feel. And Kyler, I am now remembering walking home and chatting with you for probably the first time ever vi after Lothar’s class in fall 2009. Who would have thought that eight years later, you’d be one of my dearest friends. Thanks for always making me laugh, buddy. In the course of my research I also spent a great deal of time away from Penn, and there are many individuals and institutions to whom I owe my gratitude. I would like to extend special thanks to a number of museums and curators, to the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid; to Antonio Carvalho and the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia in Lisbon; to Pascal Capus of the Musée Saint-Raymond, and to Rui Parreira and the Museo Municipal in Faro. I also extend my gratitude to the Archaeological Institute of America for awarding me the Archaeology of Portugal Fellowship to carry out my research in Lisbon and Faro, and the Fulbright Commission for sponsoring a year of study in France. Special thanks is due as well to the many friends and friendships I have made and cultivated during the course of research abroad. To Nuno Beja, I am at a loss for words as to how to express how welcome you made me feel in Faro. Perhaps this is because I never mastered Portuguese. Thank you for giving me a place to work – an actual desk! – and for introducing me to Portuguese food, to the Alentejo, and to the beauty of the Roman and the modern Algarve.