Archaia, the Yale Program for the Study of Ancient and Premodern Cultures and Societies, offers grants to graduate students in support of projects to be taken up in the summer. All Yale graduate students are eligible to apply; preference will be given to proposals from doctoral students in the pre-candidacy stage and to students in master’s programs who will be continuing their studies at Yale beyond the current term. Past projects have ranged from close intertextual readings of Egyptian papyri to a study of Gandharan schist palettes in the context of Mediterranean Hercules cults. Read about three projects from previous summers here.
CHRISTOPHER WEST travelled to Rome to study the religious iconography of frescoes and mosaics in churches built with papal patronage in late antiquity in the hopes of shedding some new light on the Monothelite Controversy of the seventh-century Mediterranean. West writes, “The theological issues at stake during the Monothelite Controversy centered on heated doctrinal disputes that aimed to define the precise relationship of Christ’s humanity and divinity in intricate metaphysical and dogmatic terms. Alongside these complex theological discourses, however, tense historical negotiations of religious, political, and social authority also correspondingly erupted between the popes of Rome and the emperors of Constantinople, since prominent representatives of these powerful ancient institutions regularly found themselves staring at one another from opposing sides of the doctrinal debates … Examining the iconographical programs at each of these churches allowed me to consider ways in which papal sponsors constructed discourses of political and spiritual authority via artistic means which allowed for the public articulation and dissemination of papa ideology during the Monothelite Controversy.
“For example, the walls of the church of Santa Maria Antiqua inside the Roman Forum contain a unique iconographical program that must be studied in light of contemporary upheavals in East-West relations during the 600s. A crucial portion of the frescoes in this church were commissioned by Pope Martin, who, on account of his zealous hostility to the theological positions favored by the eastern emperors, was seized from Rome by imperial authorities and imprisoned in Constantinople, where he ultimately died as a result of his harsh captivity. A Greek inscription in Santa Maria Antiqua indicates that the frescoes in this church sponsored by Pope Martin (which depict portraits of various Church Fathers, among other scenes) were in fact commissioned in relation to a largescale church council which he summoned in 649, where the doctrinal positions advocated by the eastern emperors were harshly condemned. In turn, later frescoes in Santa Maria Antiqua completed a few decades after Pope Martin’s death by his subsequent papal successors now defiantly depict him as a saintly figure standing in a sacred procession alongside other revered popes and famous Christian holy men of blessed memory.”
LILLIAN SELLATI conducted research at the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum towards her dissertation. She studied iconographic depictions of Herakles/Hercules from sites along the silk routes between Syria and Gandhara between the fourth century BCE and the third century CE, especially Hellenistic and Kushan era Central Asia. Sellati reports:
“One particularly interesting object that I sketched, photographed, and researched this summer was a Gandharan schist palette showing a muscular nude male figure supported by two female attendants in Hellenistic dress (IM.109-1939; figure 1). Since the male figure in variations of this motif may range in characterization from Hercules in his lion skin to a turbaned Indian prince, it is unclear whether the image on the schist palette derives from a Greco-Roman or an Indian motif. Specifically, the image may be related to the drunken Hercules supported by a satyr in the Indian Triumph of Bacchus scene popular on Roman sarcophagi. Alternatively, it may be seen as reflecting local spirit-deity worship (eg. yaksas, nagas, Kubera, Hariti) or elite banqueting.
Following careful consideration, I do not believe that this palette depicts a drunken Hercules nor that it derives from the Indian Triumph motif in Roman art. It instead employs a figural type inspired by Hellenistic Bactrian images of Herakles that has been recontextualized within a local religious or elite milieu. The fully nude, hyper-muscular form common to images of Herakles from Hellenistic Bactria is an attribute unassociated with any other mythological or historic figure in Gandharan art. However, identifying attributes of Herakles/Hercules (eg. muscularity, nudity, lion skin, lion, club) are employed in only one other example of this motif (Met 1987.142.105). His presence is exceptional, not foundational to this motif. Furthermore, the composition does not match that of the Indian Triumph, in which Hercules is supported by one satyr rather than two female attendants. For these reasons, it is unlikely that this particular motif developed from the proposed Roman prototype.
It is more probable that the motif was locally derived since its content is similar to many reliefs commissioned by Kushan elites for the decoration of Buddhist monastic complexes. Stair risers leading up to Buddhist stupas often depicted scenes of musicians, dancers, garland bearers, and finely dressed individuals holding cups. Within a Gandharan Buddhist context the imagery of this sort might be understood as offerings of wine, music, and garlands to spirit-deities or the Buddha. Since we lack any archaeological record for the schist palette it is unclear whether it was originally made for secular use (perhaps as a cosmetics tray) or religious dedication. There are at least two schist trays with a compositionally similar motif (closest to Met 1987.142.40) where a male figure and two attendants all hold cups, possibly in preparation for pouring libations. The scene on the palette I examined could be secular as well, in which case it would be understood as a princely figure drinking in the company of women in an elite setting. This interpretation is supported by the elite dress of the figures in other renditions of this motif. There also are schist palettes depicting drinking couples (an Indian motif called kimnara) and recumbent elites drinking while fanned by attendants.”
JOSEPH MORGAN visited the Center for Tebtunis Papyri at UC Berkeley and worked to identify links between fragmentary documents, in particular two from Egypt in the final decades of the second century BCE. He writes, “[The documents’] archaeological context (final/tertiary use as mummy wrappings of the sacred crocodiles of Sobek/Souchos at the necropolis of Tebtunis) was fortunate for me in two respects. First, a dark mixture of gesso and desiccated crocodilian tissue foils inspection by the naked eye. Therefore these texts defied attempts at translation by generations of skilled editors, leaving them still untouched and available for my inspection with the aid of a high-resolution infrared camera. Second, the find context narrowed down the temporal and geographical range of potentially associated texts from several thousand to a few hundred, many stemming from a single ancient archival context: the official papers of the village scribes of Kerkeosiris. Among the texts now able to be linked to the archive of the village scribes is a letter reporting an event that transpired on the 17th day of the month Phaophi in the fifth year of the joint rule of Kleopatra III and Ptolemy IX (November 5, 113 BC) involving an assault upon a royal farmer (a privileged class of Egyptian peasants) by an unnamed assailant/assailants and the possible theft of his (read: the monarchs’) oxen. What is especially exciting about this text is that it brings together several individuals known from previously published texts (especially lists of royal cultivators with enumerations of crops planted and rents owed) who were not otherwise linked. We see in this text a snapshot of village life: our point of entry, the farmer Tothoes son of Agonnouphis, whose agricultural responsibilities are enumerated in multiple crop surveys from the years 116-113 BCE, set upon by bandits, seeks recourse (and perhaps protection from suspicion on the part of royal agents) via the official channels of the local bureaucracy, namely the village headman and police chief named Ptolemaios. He is not the only resident of Kerkeosiris who survived such a raid at this time: other petitions to village officials (though not addressed to Ptolemaios) attest to a raid by a gang allegedly headed by a local reserve cavalryman in the Ptolemaic army. Together these documents provide a fascinating perspective on the breakdown of local social norms during a period of protracted political unrest, economic stagnation, and environmental catastrophe.”
