Curating history: Roman approaches to the material past, c. 100 BC - AD 200
This thesis explores how the Romans constructed their past and what it looked like by using its material remains in the period from the first century BC to the second century AD. Using a combination of texts, objects, and images, I explore themes relevant to the modern fields of heritage studies and museology and push their histories back to the ancient world. After examining how one might define what we mean by ‘the past’ and its relationship to material things in my introduction, my first chapter provides a literature review of previous studies of similar topics and introduces some of the many examples we have in ancient texts and images of Roman engagements with things and buildings made by previous generations. In my second chapter I address architectural fragments and ruins and how they were used by authors and artists to create meaning about time and space. My third chapter deals with architectural reconstruction and how its documentation has affected how people imagine past versions of Rome to have looked and my final chapter focuses on Roman funerals and the objects used in them as situations where past and present versions of Rome were brought into play. Broadly, this thesis historicises how material remains have been used to construct and curate Roman history and in its conclusion offers suggestions for how modern curations might engage with the Romans’ own constructions of their past.
archaeology, ancient history, ancient Rome, museums, curation, heritage, spolia, architectural reconstruction, roman art, pompeii, pantheon, res gestae, ruins, memory, ancient architecture, city of rome, roman topography, fragments, augustus
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