Dress and Adornment
Above: Marble frieze on the Parthenon depicting water-carriers in the Panathenaic Procession; 440-432 BCE.
Source: Wikimedia Commons. Creator: Sharon Mollerus. License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.
Insights from anthropology, religious studies, biblical studies, sociology, classics, and Jewish studies are here combined to provide a cutting-edge guide to dress and religion in the Greco-Roman World and the Mediterranean basin. Clothing, jewellery, cosmetics, and hairstyles are among the many aspects examined to show the variety of functions of dress in communication and in both establishing and defending identity. The volume begins by reviewing how scholars in the fields of classics, anthropology, religious studies, and sociology examine dress. The second section then looks at materials, including depictions of clothing in sculpture and in Egyptian mummy portraits. The third (and largest) part of the book then examines dress in specific contexts, beginning with Greece and Rome and going on to Jewish and Christian dress, with a specific focus on the intersection between dress, clothing and religion. The book provides a unique overview of different approaches to and contexts of dress.
The study of dress in antiquity has expanded in the last 20 years, evolving from investigations of costume and ethnicity in ancient art and texts and analyses of terms relating to textiles and their production, to broader studies of the social roles of dressed bodies in ancient contexts, texts, and images. This volume emerges from Approaches to Dress and the Body sessions at the Annual Meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research in 2016 and 2017, as well as sessions relating to ancient dress and personal adornment at the Annual Meetings of the Archaeological Institute of America in 2018. Following the broad notion of dress first presented in Eicher and Roach-Higgins in 1992 as the “assemblage of modifications of the body and/or supplements to the body,” the contributions to this volume study varied materials, including physical markings on the body, durable goods related to dressed bodies in archaeological contexts, dress as represented in the visual arts as well as in texts, most bringing overlapping bodies of evidence into play. Examining materials from a range of geographic and chronological contexts including the prehistoric Caucasus, Iran, Mesopotamia, Syria and the Levant, the Aegean, Greece, the Roman world and Late Antique Central Asia, this volume takes as its starting point that dress does not simply function as a static expression of identity or status, inscribed on the body to be “read” by others, but is a dynamic component in the construction, embodiment, performance and transformation of identity.
Who dressed as a woman in an attempt to commit adultery with Julius Caesar‘s wife? How did the ancient Greeks make blusher from seaweed? Just how does one wear a toga? If, as many claim, the importance of clothes lies in their detail, then this a book that no sartorially savvy Classicist should be without. Greek and Roman Dress from A to Z is an alphabetized compendium of styles and accessories that form the well-known classical image: a reference source of stitches, drapery, hairstyles, colours, fabrics and jewellery, and an analysis of the intricate system of social meanings that they comprise. The entries range in length from a few lines to a few pages and cover individual aspects of dress alongside surveys of wider topics and illuminating socio-cultural analysis, drawn from ancient art, literature and archaeology. For those who want to take their reading further, there are references to both primary sources and modern scholarship. This book is be fascinating for anyone delving into it with an interest in style and dress, and an invaluable companion for any classicist.
The recent renaissance of interest in the history of dress and its cultural importance is celebrated in this collection of interdisciplinary essays. The sixteen contributors present ongoing research into the study of the clothed body in ancient Egypt and the Aegean, Classical Greece, Rome and Late Antiquity. Through literary and artistic evidence and film, they discuss how dress articulates and defines an individual within his or her given society, at the same time highlighting common themes in scholarship, methodological differences between disciplines and periods, as well as contrasting definitions of what constitutes the clothed body. Essays discussing Aegean Bronze Age fashions, costume design in filmed biblical epics, clothing in Aristophanic comedy, Greek and Roman female undergarments, the symbolism of the Roman toga, and the spectacle of images of Byzantine dress, are just some of the diverse subjects covered in this study.
Personal adornment, as an extension of the body, is a crucial component in social interaction. The active process of adorning the body can shape embodied identities, such as social status, ethnicity, gender, and age. As a result of its dynamic and performative nature, the body can often convey meaning more powerfully and convincingly than verbal communication. Yet adornment is not easily read and does not necessarily reflect actual lived experience. Rather, bodily adornment, and the performances that accompany it, can be manipulated to conceal or exaggerate reality, thus speaking more to identity discourse. The interpretation of such discourse must be grounded in an understanding of the context-specific and negotiable nature of adornment. The essays in this volume, which are united by their focus on material and visual evidence, cover a broad chronological and geographical span, from the ancient Near East to Roman Britain, and bring together innovative scholarly work on adornment by an international group of art historians and archaeologists. This attention to the archaeological evidence makes the volume a valuable resource, as those working with material or visual culture face unique methodological and theoretical challenges to the study of adornment.
A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion, Volume 1: In Antiquity
Whilst seemingly simple garments such as the tunic remained staples of the classical wardrobe, sources from the period reveal a rich variety of changing styles and attitudes to clothing across the ancient world. Covering the period 500 BCE to 800 CE and drawing on sources ranging from extant garments and architectural iconography to official edicts and literature, this volume reveals Antiquity's preoccupation with dress, which was matched by an appreciation of the processes of production rarely seen in later periods. From a courtesan's sheer faux-silk garb to the sumptuous purple dyes of an emperor's finery, clothing was as much a marker of status and personal expression as it was a site of social control and anxiety. Contemporary commentators expressed alarm in equal measure at the over-dressed, the excessively ascetic or at 'barbarian' silhouettes. Richly illustrated with 100 images, this work presents an overview of the period with essays on textiles, production and distribution, the body, belief, gender and sexuality, status, ethnicity, visual representations, and literary representations.
Bronze statuette of a veiled and masked dancer; 3rd/2nd century BCE.
Source/creator: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. License: CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
From headdresses to sandals, from warrior's armor to priestess's robes, the authentic costumes of people from all walks of life in the Roman and Greek civilizations are here pictured comprehensively and clearly. Three hundred finely drawn, detailed engravings (containing over 700 illustrations) show just what was worn by the poets, philosophers, priests and priestesses, peasants, Bacchanalians, emperors, generals, Amazons, and virgins of a bygone age. Carefully copied from ancient vases and statuary by Thomas Hope (1770–1831), a British collector and designer, these engravings combine an unusual clarity of style with unquestioned authenticity. Their range, too, is unusually great, for besides the many plates on the costumes of the Greeks and Romans, there are representative illustrations of the typical dress of such other civilizations as the Phrygian, Egyptian, Parthian, Etruscan, and Persian. In addition, scores of engravings are devoted to such now-forgotten objects as ancient musical instruments (the lyre, double flute, pipes of Pan, etc.), Bacchanalian implements, articles of furniture, women's trinkets and jewelry, sarcophagi, altars, and other adjuncts to ancient life. Such comprehensiveness makes this book indispensable to costume designers, stage fitters, and producers of classic plays, students of fashion design, and others interested in ancient costumes. The material included here is covered in no ordinary history, and only here can the interested reader discover just how the draping of the Greek robe was achieved, or what was worn at festivals and funerals by the various classes. Art directors, advertising managers, and others on the lookout for unusual and eye-catching illustrations will also treasure this collection. All of the engravings are royalty free and may be used in any way, whether as striking contrasts to modern styles in dress, jewelry, or furniture; for historical perspective; for mood pieces; or simply as unusual attention-getters.
Ancient Greek, Roman & Byzantine Costume
Greek women routinely wore the veil. That is the unexpected finding of this major study. The Greeks, rightly credited with the invention of civic openness, are revealed as also part of a more eastern tradition of seclusion. Llewellyn-Jones' work proceeds from literary and, notably, from iconographic evidence. In sculpture and vase painting it demonstrates the presence of the veil, often covering the head, but also more unobtrusively folded back onto the shoulders. This discreet fashion not only gave a privileged view of the face to the ancient art consumer, but also, incidentally, allowed the veil to escape the notice of traditional modern scholarship. From Greek literary sources, the author shows that full veiling of the head and face was commonplace. He analyses the elaborate Greek vocabulary for veiling and explores what the veil meant to achieve. He shows that the veil was a conscious extension of the house and was often referred to as tegidion, literally "a little roof". Veiling was thus an ingenious compromise; it allowed women to circulate in public while maintaining the ideal of a house-bound existence. Alert to the different types of veil used, the author uses Greek and more modern evidence (mostly from the Arab world) to show how women could exploit and subvert the veil as a means of eloquent, sometimes emotional, communication. First published in 2003, Llewellyn-Jones' book has established itself as a central -- and inspiring -- text for the study of ancient women.
Ancient Greek Costume: An Annotated Bibliography, 1784-2005
Costume production distinguishes early civilization from the Paleolithic era as much as architectural production. Costume transcends boundaries, as it first unites and then divides mankind. The mode of dress differentiates friend from foe and peasant from prince. Changes in the appearance and types of garments through the ages are a significant indicator of social, economic and chronological changes. This annotated bibliography of 603 references, taken from monographs, dissertations, festschrifts, periodicals, encyclopedias and handbooks, is the most comprehensive research tool for the subject of ancient Greek costume. This subject is of increasing interest to scholars in many fields, including archaeology and anthropology, art and art history, classics, drama, history, ancient literature, even modern literature. Myths tell of disguises in costume, recognition from weavings, and poisoned garments. Textile production was an important part of the ancient Greek economy. Garments and accessories were dedicated to gods in sanctuaries and provided for the afterlife in burials. The references in this bibliography range from the encyclopedia entry to the monograph, and show a variety of themes: women's dress, men's dress, foreign dress, accessories, jewelry, headdresses, theater dress, textile production and literary evidence.
Some of the loveliest works of Archaic art were the Athenian korai -- sculptures of beautiful young women presenting offerings to the goddess Athena that stood on the Acropolis. Sculpted in the sixth and early fifth centuries B.C., they served as votives until Persians sacked the citadel in 480/79 B.C. Subsequently, they were buried as a group and forgotten for nearly twenty-four centuries, until archaeologists excavated them in the 1880s. Today, they are among the treasures of the Acropolis Museum. Mary Stieber takes a fresh look at the Attic korai in this book. Challenging the longstanding view that the sculptures are generic female images, she persuasively argues that they are instead highly individualized, mimetically realistic representations of Archaic young women, perhaps even portraits of real people. Marshalling a wide array of visual and literary evidence to support her claims, she shows that while the korai lack the naturalism that characterizes later Classical art, they display a wealth and realism of detail that makes it impossible to view them as generic, idealized images. This iconoclastic interpretation of the Attic korai adds a new dimension to our understanding of Archaic art and to the distinction between realism and naturalism in the art of all periods.
Pair of gold armbands; ca. 200 BCE. Source/creator: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. License: CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
This book traces the development of hammering techniques in Greek, Roman and related (e.g. Graeco-Scythian) jewellery and toreutics based on the analysis of ancient tools used for manufacture of hammered metalwork, primarily punches and matrices with figural designs, and actual finds of metalwork and jewellery. The work offers essays on metalworkers' tools from Mycenean Greece until the Late Roman Period. It includes chapters on different categories of hammered metalwork in the corresponding periods and an Excursus about particular matrices or punches and hoards of toreutics. Bringing together the tools of metalworkers and actual objects manufactured with them opens new perspectives on chronological and cultural attribution of ancient jewellery and toreutics and illuminates the role of mass production and artistic creativity in ancient history.
The first in-depth study of the field in more than 20 years analyzes the role of various metals in the context of Greek economic life, politics, culture and art, traces the movement of metal from ore to finished objects, including works of art, and shows the relations between the regions where metals were extracted and the centres of metalworking, the structure of the workshops and the connections between them and the role of the workshops in economic life at different stages in Greek history. In doing so it adopts a multidisciplinary approach, defining the role of metals in the history of Greek society using the widest possible variety of sources: the excavated remains of workshops and hoards, archaeo-metallurgical finds; the results of studies of ancient mines and analyses of ancient metal objects; bronze plastics and jewelry, coins, etc. The chronological span of the study is the 8th-1st centuries B.C., i.e. from the beginning of the main period of Greek colonization till the end of the Hellenistic era. The geographical scope of the work is the Greek oikumene. New to most scholars will be Treister's knowledge of objects and technologies in the eastern Greek and Roman world of the Northern Black Sea and Colchis. While this book does not pretend to be a definitive survey of the history of mining and metallurgy in the Greek world, it is a particularly useful interim report.
Greek Gold: Jewellery of the Classical World
Dyfri Williams & Jack Ogden, 1994
During the classical period in ancient Greece, the skill of Greek jewellers and the beauty of the designs they created raised their craft to a miniature art. Published to accompany an exhibition, this catalogue describes and illustrates 200 of the finest surviving pieces of Greek jewellery dating from the 5th to 3rd century BC. Drawn from the collections of the Hermitage, St Petersburg, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the British Museum, many of the pieces are being exhibited for the first time.
The core of the book focuses on tragic costume in its original performance context of fifth-century Athens, but the implications of subsequent uses in Roman and more recent performances are also taken into consideration. Most importantly, the reader is invited to think about how tragic costume worked as a language in ancient performance and was manipulated physically and verbally in order to create meaning. Elements of this language are shown through a series of test cases from a range of ancient tragedies. All ancient passages are given in translation and the book includes a glossary of terms.
Marble statue of Eirene, the personification of peace; ca. 14–68 CE, Roman copy of Greek original by Kephisodotos.
Source/creator: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. License: CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.