The dark side of the Empire:Roman expansionism between object agency and predatory regime

This paper offers a critique of some recent new materialist approaches and their application to Roman expansionism. According to certain authors, ‘Romanisation’ should be about “understanding objects in motion”, a perspective that carries ethical implications. In contrast, we introduce the notion of a predatory political economy as an alternative for conceptualising Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome. Our approach aims to make visible the dark sides of Roman expansionism in order to produce a more balanced and inclusive account. Two archaeological cases studies –Roman conquest and rural communities– are presented to illustrate the potential of such a perspective

Pagan Pasts, Christian Futures: Memory Manipulation and Christianisation in the Cities of Western Asia Minor

Religion has always impacted how we structure the physical world around us, and the Roman world was no exception. Roman cities were constructed and shaped around religious life and religious practices. Religious art was omnipresent, and religious architecture monumental. When Christianity displaced all traditional cults and became the primary state religion in the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity, religious life and religious practices changed significantly. This study investigates how changed religious life and religious practices in Late Antiquity reshaped Roman cities in Western Asia Minor, concentrating on the three cities Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis. Written sources from Late Antiquity – laws and saints’ lives – can create the impressions that pagan material culture was violently destroyed, and that pagan statues and temple buildings were the main foci of Christian destruction. The fate of pagan material culture during the Christianisation has traditionally mainly been investigated using textual rather than archaeological sources. This has led to a persistent view of the religious transformation as characterized by polarisation, violence, and intolerance. Further, investigations have focused mainly on the types of material culture most frequently described in these texts: pagan temples and statues. The present study falls in line with several recent critical studies arguing that the Christianisation process was more complex and dynamic, and that the rapidly growing archaeological record should be used to reassess and nuance persisting narratives of destruction and decline. The study analyses how material culture can be used as agents of societal change, and what part pagan material culture played in the religious transformation in Late Antiquity (c. 350–620 CE). The analytical concept memory manipulation is employed in order to 1), reassess Christian responses to pagan material culture that are established in scholarly debate, such as conversion and destruction, and 2), reassess the categories of pagan material traditionally associated with the Christianisation, such as temple buildings and imagery. Rather than destroying pagan material culture, memory manipulation entails altering how material things are perceived and how material things interact with their surroundings through small and large alterations. Ultimately, memory manipulation alter how material culture is remembered by a society. By employing the concept of ‘memory manipulation’, the Christianisation process can be understood as constructive and future-oriented rather than expressions of intolerance and anger. Beyond temple buildings and statues, the study encompasses a wider range of material manifestations of cult than the traditional foci, and included monuments, sacred spaces, imagery, and inscribed materials in the public areas of the cities in the analysis. The study considers removal, mutilation, spoliation, disposal, appropriation, and reconfiguration as memory manipulation strategies in addition to destruction and conversion, The study demonstrates that Roman cities in late antique Asia Minor actively used pagan material culture to shape Christian presents and futures. Memory manipulation strategies were not restricted to temple buildings and sanctuaries, but were performed in the entirety of public space. Material culture from sanctuaries were moved into the cityscapes, and into Christian buildings. As a result, memory manipulation reached a larger audience than if manipulation had been restricted to the confines of the sanctuary temenos. Imagery, smaller monuments, and gates in public spaces were subject to Christian manipulation alongside the material culture in the sanctuaries. Streetscapes, thoroughfares, and necropoleis were likewise important arenas for memory manipulation. The aim of the religious transformation in Late Antiquity was to establish Christianity as the only religion, through making paganism and pagan cult practice a thing of the past. In social memory, the purpose of the past is to identify a group, define their past, and their aspirations for the future. An important issue during Christianisation was therefore to establish how paganism and pagan cult practice should be remembered, and how it could be used to define and realise a Christian future. Individual images, monuments, and environments played different roles in the social memory of the three cities Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and Hierapolis, and the same was true for the pagan cults and pagan practices they were associated with. Therefore, the social memory of each of the three cities differed from the others. The present study provides a foundation for the continued analysis of how material culture affected and shaped societal change in Late Antiquity. The concept ‘memory manipulation’ is a fruitful and stimulating concept that highlights the complex and changeable relationship between humans and material culture in the past. The study has shown that the entirety of our material surroundings is imbued with meaning, and that they are vital to our understanding of late antique attitudes towards the pas

Remember the fallen : a comparative study of memory sanctions in political and religious contexts in the Roman Empire

The Roman cult of Mithras has since Antiquity been shrouded in mystery, and there are still many unanswered questions regarding Mithraism. Amongst them is the questions of who are the culprits behind the many damaged and destroyed cult images, and why they were damaged. These are questions which are still hotly debated by scholars investigating them. In my opinion, the focus must be led back to the material to be able to identify the culprits. After comparing a selection of damaged Mithraic images to a better documented tradition of damaging images, namely that of damnatio memoriae - memory sanctions in a political context, it is my conclusion that they are part of the same tradition of damaging images, a tradition shared between the political and religious spheres of Roman society

Metaforar i omsorgskommunikasjonen: Ei kvalitativ metasyntese

Hensikt: Hensikta i denne studien var å skaffa meir kunnskap om omsorgskommunikasjonen, ved å belysa korleis ein gjennom metaforane i omsorgskommunikasjonen kan forstå og lindra liding. Studien skal vera med å bidra til å gje ein breiare forståing av språkbruk, symbolikk og tankegong hjå pasientane, slik at ein som omsorgsgjevar skal vera tryggare og betre rusta til å møta pasienten i omsorgsgjevande kommunikasjon. Studien ser også på korleis lidinga kjem til uttrykk, og korleis metaforisk uttrykk og tankegong kan bidra til å lindra liding. Teoretisk forankring: Studien er forankra i helse- og omsorgsvitskap, som byggjer på Eriksson sin caritativ omsorgsteori. Metode: Denne studien er ein kvalitativ metasyntese. Det er utført omfattande og systematiske litteratursøk, relevante studiar vart identifisert gjennom sjekklister, spesielle kriterier og kvalitetsvurderingar. Det resulterte til slutt i at ni primærstudiar vart inkludert i syntesen. Resultat: Metasyntesen identifiserte tre hovudfunn; 1) Den uuthaldelege lidinga, 2) Lindring og 3) Meiningsskapande i fellesskap. Resultatet visa at pasientane uttrykker seg nesten utelukkande med eit metaforisk språk, og det er gjennom å forstå det språket ein kan skjøna kva dei eigentleg meinar. Gjennom å tolka språket til pasienten og dei metaforiske konsepta som vert nytta, kan ein klara å forstå den uuthaldelege lidinga, som gjerne kan ligga skjult. Ein kan nytta metaforisk språk for å bidra til lindring av liding, då metaforisk uttrykk og tankegong ofte er lett å overføra til andre, kjenna seg att i og relatera seg til. Gjennom språket til pasienten ser ein at dei søker medlidande og søker eit fellesskap i liding si

Metaforar i omsorgskommunikasjonen: Ei kvalitativ metasyntese

Hensikt: Hensikta i denne studien var å skaffa meir kunnskap om omsorgskommunikasjonen, ved å belysa korleis ein gjennom metaforane i omsorgskommunikasjonen kan forstå og lindra liding. Studien skal vera med å bidra til å gje ein breiare forståing av språkbruk, symbolikk og tankegong hjå pasientane, slik at ein som omsorgsgjevar skal vera tryggare og betre rusta til å møta pasienten i omsorgsgjevande kommunikasjon. Studien ser også på korleis lidinga kjem til uttrykk, og korleis metaforisk uttrykk og tankegong kan bidra til å lindra liding. Teoretisk forankring: Studien er forankra i helse- og omsorgsvitskap, som byggjer på Eriksson sin caritativ omsorgsteori. Metode: Denne studien er ein kvalitativ metasyntese. Det er utført omfattande og systematiske litteratursøk, relevante studiar vart identifisert gjennom sjekklister, spesielle kriterier og kvalitetsvurderingar. Det resulterte til slutt i at ni primærstudiar vart inkludert i syntesen. Resultat: Metasyntesen identifiserte tre hovudfunn; 1) Den uuthaldelege lidinga, 2) Lindring og 3) Meiningsskapande i fellesskap. Resultatet visa at pasientane uttrykker seg nesten utelukkande med eit metaforisk språk, og det er gjennom å forstå det språket ein kan skjøna kva dei eigentleg meinar. Gjennom å tolka språket til pasienten og dei metaforiske konsepta som vert nytta, kan ein klara å forstå den uuthaldelege lidinga, som gjerne kan ligga skjult. Ein kan nytta metaforisk språk for å bidra til lindring av liding, då metaforisk uttrykk og tankegong ofte er lett å overføra til andre, kjenna seg att i og relatera seg til. Gjennom språket til pasienten ser ein at dei søker medlidande og søker eit fellesskap i liding si.HELS-OPP

Liv og død i Hierapolis Norske utgravninger i en hellenistisk–romersk–bysantinsk by i Lilleasia

Life and Death at Hierapolis. Norwegian excavations in a Hellenistic–Roman–Byzantine town in Asia Minor From 2007 to 2015 the University of Oslo, invited by The Italian Archaeological Mission at Hierapolis in Phrygia, conducted archaeological research in the North-East Necropolis at Hierapolis. The aim of the project was to document all visible tombs and sarcophagi of the necropolis and excavate selected tomb areas and tombs. The research, including osteological, DNA- and isotope-analyses, investigated the life of the inhabitants over a long period of time (ca. 100–1300 A.C.) with reference to tomb architecture, landscape perception, organization, entrepreneurship, ritual practices, genetic relations and origins, demography, health, sickness, diets, and individual movement patterns. Many of the aims are answered in the article, here shall only be mentioned two important discoveries: cremation has been documented as late as the 5th/6th centuries A.C., in periods of crisis perhaps used to signal pagan opposition to imposed Christian practices; the life conditions in the Roman/Early Byzantine period were much better than in that of the Middle Byzantine period.