Book

Visual Style and Constructing Identity in the Hellenistic World

Located in the small Kingdom of Commagene at the upper Euphrates, the late Hellenistic monument of Nemrud Daǧ (c. 50 BC) has been undeservedly neglected by scholars

Author

Miguel John Versluys

Date

12 September 2017

Links

Website of the publisher

Qualified as a Greco-Persian hybrid instigated by a lunatic king, this fascinating project of bricolage has been written out of history. This volume redresses that imbalance, interpreting Nemrud Daǧ as an attempt at canon building by Antiochos I in order to construct dynastic ideology and social order, and providing the monument’s importance for our understanding of a crucial transitional phase from Hellenistic to Roman. Hellenistic Commagene therefore holds a profound significance for a number of discussions, such as the functioning of Hellenistic koine and the genesis of Roman ‘art’, Hellenism and Persianism in antiquity, dynastic propaganda and the power of images, Romanisation in the East, the contextualising of the Augustan cultural revolution, and the role of Greek culture in the Roman world.

This volume is the outcome of substantial fieldwork conducted in Commagene between 2001 and 2004. The work is presently continued and further developed in the framework of the VICI project Innovating objects in close collaboration with the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor in Münster