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Masters of the stone: The stonecutters' workshops and the rise of the late antique epigraphical cultures (third-fifth century AD)

Project description

Explaining changes in Roman epigraphic culture

What was the reason for the great transformation of Roman imperial epigraphic traditions during the third century AD? What do we know about the subsequent rise of the so-called epigraphic cultures of late antiquity? All this remains to be explained. The EU-funded STONE-MASTERS project will search for answers – its main goal is to provide a definite answer as to the reasons behind this transition. The project will focus on the artisans – those making the inscriptions – by collecting all the evidence about ancient stonecutters and organising it digitally. The findings will shed light on how artisans worked as primary agents of top-to-bottom dissemination of cultural patterns via epigraphy.

Objective

"The STONE-MASTERS project aims at exploring one of the most startling problems in the global history of research on collective memory and commemorative practices - the transformation of Roman Imperial epigraphic traditions in the later 3rd c. AD, and the subsequent rise of the so-called epigraphic cultures of Late Antiquity. The problem has been passionately debated since the 1980s, but so far no definite conclusions have been reached. In this project, the PI argues that the main reason for the transformation is to be ascribed to the dissemination of changes in the elite's approach to epigraphy by the workshops of stonecutters and mosaicists, and that only a thorough study of workshops can provide us with a complete understanding of the processes underpinning this same transition. So far, epigraphists of the Roman period have had few instruments to draw upon for the purposes of pursuing synthetic workshop studies, and have been overwhelmingly captivated by other strands: the quantitative research, the study of the self-representation, the visibility of inscriptions, and the ""viewers' culture"". The PI maintains that a significant leap in our understanding is, however, attainable through the building of a highly regionalized network/stemma of workshops, which will identify workshops of origin for all the inscriptions from the 3rd-5th c., and through applying the methodologies of workshop studies developed for other craftsmanships and periods (in particular for early Greek vase painters, and for scribes and scriptoria) which the PI will adapt to the needs of the Graeco-Roman epigraphy. Assuming that these new methodological lenses will redefine the field and re-focus our attention on the actual actors behind the production of epigraphy - artisans and workshops - as primary agents of top-to-bottom cultural transfer, then we can anticipate an entire restructuring of our understanding of the way artisans disseminated elitist culture in the lower echelons of society."

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(opens in new window) ERC-2021-STG

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Host institution

UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI
Net EU contribution

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€ 1 499 625,00
Address
KRAKOWSKIE PRZEDMIESCIE 26/28
00-927 WARSZAWA
Poland

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 499 625,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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