Overview
The study of dress in antiquity has expanded in the last 20 years, evolving from investigations of costume and ethnicity in ancient art and texts and analyses of terms relating to textiles and their production, to broader studies of the social roles of dressed bodies in ancient contexts, texts, and images. This volume emerges from Approaches to Dress and the Body sessions at the Annual Meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research in 2016 and 2017, as well as sessions relating to ancient dress and personal adornment at the Annual Meetings of the Archaeological Institute of America in 2018. Following the broad notion of dress first presented in Eicher and Roach-Higgins in 1992 as the ""assemblage of modifications of the body and/or supplements to the body,"" the contributions to this volume study varied materials, including physical markings on the body, durable goods related to dressed bodies in archaeological contexts, dress as represented in the visual arts as well as in texts, most bringing overlapping bodies of evidence into play. Examining materials from a range of geographic and chronological contexts including the prehistoric Caucasus, Iran, Mesopotamia, Syria and the Levant, the Aegean, Greece, the Roman world and Late Antique Central Asia, this volume takes as its starting point that dress does not simply function as a static expression of identity or status, inscribed on the body to be ""read"" by others, but is a dynamic component in the construction, embodiment, performance and transformation of identity.
Full Product Details
Author: Megan Cifarelli
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Imprint: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 9781789252545
ISBN 10: 1789252547
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 15 May 2019
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
It is an extremely useful source for dress historians, students and researchers who wish to deepen their knowledge of the complex relationship between dress and identity. * Journal of Dress History * ...an important contribution to the study of dress and body ornamentation. The diversity of cultures, cases and aspects render it a thought-provoking read. * Ancient West & East *
...a challenging but thoughtful read. --Ornament Magazine
…an important contribution to the study of dress and body ornamentation. The diversity of cultures, cases and aspects render it a thought-provoking read. * Ancient West & East * It is an extremely useful source for dress historians, students and researchers who wish to deepen their knowledge of the complex relationship between dress and identity. * Journal of Dress History *
...a challenging but thoughtful read. -- Ornament Magazine
Author Information
Megan Cifarelli (PhD, Columbia University) is a Professor of Art History at Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY. Her research focuses on the visual and material cultures of ancient Iran and Iraq in the first millennium BCE, from expressions of Assyrian imperial ideology in large scale relief sculptures to the cultural effects of powerful empires on societies at their margins.
