Category: Database

New: LaLaLexiT, Latin Lexicon of Late Antiquity

A new initiative of Ca’ Foscari University: LaLaLexiT.

Late Latin Lexicon in Transition is a project dedicated to the Latin lexicon of late antiquity, a period of profound change that shaped subsequent cultural history. What words were used by Latin literary sources to bear witness to the ‘transition’ of late antiquity? Which expressions, in prose and poetry, were entrusted with the task of representing – and perhaps interpreting and directing – this evolution? ‘Rebirth’, ‘conversion’, ‘error’, ‘vice’, ‘reform’, ‘power’: these are just some of the nuanced concepts that find concrete form in many of the Latin terms that will be explored in the LaLaLexiT digital glossary, the first specifically dedicated to this topic.

Go to the dedicated website

Roman Imperial Portraits Database

New online, RIPD, the Roman Imperial Portraits Database

Contents: Sam Heijnen and Olivier Hekster. Technical support: Thijs Hermsen.

Funding: Ammodo Science Award (2017) for the Humanities. Supported by NWO and Radboud University.

Project

Our ideas on the physical characteristics of the Roman emperors too are changing as portraits that radically differ from the standardized image are re-examined, and new methods to recognize and identify images of Roman emperors such as facial recognition are now being tested. The field of Roman portrait studies is thus constantly in motion. In order to advance our knowledge on the functioning of imperial portraits and to gain an overview of the sources currently available, the RIPD has attempted to systematically bring together extant (i.e. published) portraits of the Roman emperors in a single dataset that can be used for further study.

Goals

To do so, the project has extracted and cross-referenced published portraits of the Roman emperors from the available record as well as (online) catalogues and recent archaeological reports. The aim of the project is not so much to provide alternative readings of the available data as it aims to allow researchers to introduce quantitative questions to the study of imperial portraiture. It is worth stressing that the dataset introduced here should not be considered as a “complete” overview. As mentioned above, new portraits are unearthed each year and the identities of existing portraits are constantly reconsidered on the basis of discussions in the field of ancient history and archaeology.