University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 The Writing On The Wall: Inscriptions And Memory In The Temples Of Late Antique Greece And Asia Minor Anna Marie Sitz University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Classics Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Sitz, Anna Marie, "The Writing On The Wall: Inscriptions And Memory In The Temples Of Late Antique Greece And Asia Minor" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2886. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2886 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2886 For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Writing On The Wall: Inscriptions And Memory In The Temples Of Late Antique Greece And Asia Minor Abstract This dissertation documents late antique (fourth to seventh century CE) Christian responses to earlier, pagan inscriptions at sanctuaries, as seen in the archaeological record. I argue that Christians in Greece and Asia Minor neither ignored nor unthinkingly destroyed older inscriptions, but rather were generally tolerant toward these legible reminders of the pagan past, selectively editing them only occasionally. In order to clarify the types of inscriptions that Christians encountered on temple walls and architraves, I have assembled the first catalog of inscriptions on temples, which er veals that the majority of texts inscribed on sacred structures between the seventh century BCE and the third century CE were, counterintuitively, not about religion, but rather civic matters: political privileges, economic/territorial rights, and elite social structures. This data further reveals regional variations and chronological trends in the ancient practice of inscribing temples, including a proclivity for the practice in Caria and a break in the Roman imperial period from the Hellenistic habit of inscribing important documents on temples. Christian reception of these inscribed texts is explored in depth at six sites: Ankara, Sagalassos, Labraunda, the Corycian Cave (Cilicia) Clifftop Temple, Aizanoi, and Aphrodisias. Inscriptions on temples at these sites have been overlooked in late antique scholarship because of disciplinary biases. Art historical/ archaeological studies have traditionally fixated on the original appearance of monuments rather than their full lifespan, while epigraphic publications often treat texts as historical data rather than elements of larger, trans-temporal architectural settings. Each of these sites shows a different approach toward the older inscriptions, including preservation in place, reuse, modification, and erasure. I argue that the civic- focused nature of the majority of inscribed texts on temple walls inflected late antique conceptualization of temples and provided a counterbalance to the negative, polemical depiction of temples presented in hagiographical texts. This study therefore adds a new facet to our understanding of Christianization between the ancient Roman and early Byzantine periods. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Art & Archaeology of Mediterranean World First Advisor Robert Ousterhout Keywords Christianization, Greece, Greek epigraphy, Late Antiquity/early Christian period, Pagan sanctuaries, Turkey Subject Categories Classics | History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2886 THE WRITING ON THE WALL: INSCRIPTIONS AND MEMORY IN THE TEMPLES OF LATE ANTIQUE GREECE AND ASIA MINOR Anna M. Sitz 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 2017 Supervisor of Dissertation ____ __________________ Robert Ousterhout Professor Emeritus of History of Art Graduate Group Chairperson _______________________ Thomas F. Tartaron, Associate Professor of Classical Studies Dissertation Committee C. Brian Rose James B. Pritchard Professor of Archaeology Ivan Drpić Associate Professor of History of Art To my family ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT I am greatly indebted to many people and institutions for their support, material and immaterial, throughout the process of writing this dissertation. My research across four continents was funded by various sources: the Louis J. Kolb Socie ty at the Penn Museum, the Phi Beta Kappa Sibley Fellowship, the Penn Museum Colburn Fellowship, the CAORC Mediterranean Regional Fellowship, the Penfield Di ssertation Research Fellowship , a nd the A.G. Leventis Scholarship for Medieval Greek. My summer archaeological fieldwork and further travel was supported by Penn’s Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World (AAMW) program, Penn Museum summer grants, Greenewalt Funds of the Kolb Society, and the Institut für Byzantinistik at L udwig- Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich . I had the opportunity to visit several research institutes, whose welcoming personnel and exemplary libraries made my visits both pleasant and productive: the Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik in Munich, the Byzantinistik and Archäologie institutes at LMU , the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA), the American Res earch Institute in Turkey , and the American Research Center in Egypt . ASCSA gave me my first taste of Greece and provided a home away from home for two years, bringing me into contact with many wonderful colleagues both there and at the other forei gn research institutes in Athens . My years at Penn were much enriched by interactions with colleagues in several departments outside of my own, including Classics, Ancient History, the History of Art, and Historic Preservation. Far more individuals than I can name contributed in large and small ways to this dissertation. I first want to thank my advisor, Bob Ousterhout, for his encouragement, advice, patience, inspiration, hospitality, and many excellent puns. Bob introduced me to the wonders of Istanbul and Cappadocia, and for this and many other things I will always be grateful. I also offer my sincere thanks to the other members of my committee, Brian Rose and Ivan Drpić, who gave me much helpful feedback; any errors that remain are my own. Elizabeth Bolman was enthusiastically involved in the development of this project. Franz Alto Bauer kindly read a chapter and made many helpful suggestions on structure and content, in addition to organizing group excursions to Turkey to think through some of my material on-site. I want to thank numerous other colleagues and friends: Jeremy McInerney, Edward Harris, Ann Kuttner, Kim Bowes, Molly Richardson, Jim Wright, Maria Georgopoulou, Maria Xenaki, Tolga Uyar, Jesper Blid, Lothar Haselberger, Dale Kinney, Gretchen Umholtz, Tom Tartaron, Stephanie Hagan, Jordan Pickett, Shannon Steiner, Kaelin Jewell, Agnes Szymanska, Emily Neumeier, Sarah Nash, Diane Nelson, Kate Morgan, Daira Nocera, Steve Renette, Kurtis Tanaka, Phillip Ihmor, and Rike Kranig. I want to offer special thanks to Alden Smith for making Latin fun so many years ago and encouraging me to pursue a PhD, to Ayşe Belgin Henry for teaching me to dig, to Olivier Henry for letting me further develop my digging skills at Labraunda, and to Tasos Tanoulas for many stimulating conversations on the Acropolis and for his xenia , including several of the best meals I had in Greece, which is saying a lot. Finally, I want to thank my family, especially my parents, for always supporting my academic pursuits, and even coming to visit me in some of my more distant locales. This dissertation is for them. iii ABSTRACT THE WRITING ON THE WALL: INSCRIPTIONS AND MEMORY IN THE TEMPLES OF LATE ANTIQUE GREECE AND ASIA MINOR Anna M. Sitz Robert Ousterhout This dissertation documents late antique (fourth to seventh century CE) Christian responses to earlier, pagan inscriptions at sanctuaries, as seen in the archaeological record. I argue that Christians in Greece and Asia Minor neither ignored nor unthinkingly destroyed older inscriptions, but rather were generally tolerant toward these legible reminders of the pagan past, selectively editing them only occasionally. In order to clarify the types of inscriptions that Christians encountered on temple walls and architraves, I have assembled the first catalog of inscriptions on temples, which reveals that the majority of texts inscribed on sacred structures between the seventh century BCE and the third century CE were, counterintuitively, not about religion, but rather civic matters: political privileges, economic/territorial rights, and elite social structures. This data further reveals regional variations and chronological trends in the ancient practice of inscribing temples, including a proclivity for the practice in Caria and a break in the Roman imperial period from the Hellenistic habit of inscribing important documents on temples. Christian reception of these inscribed texts is explored in depth at six sites: Ankara, Sagalassos, Labraunda, the Corycian Cave (Cilicia) Clifftop Temple, Aizanoi, and Aphrodisias. Inscriptions on temples at these sites have been overlooked in late antique scholarship because of disciplinary biases. Art historical/archaeological studies have traditionally fixated on the original appearance of monuments rather than their full lifespan,