A conversation with Anna Sitz on how Byzantines read ancient inscriptions – or modified, re-used, and defaced them. Ancient cities were full of inscribed texts, many on temple walls or referring to the gods in prominent ways. How did Christians cope with these monuments when they took over the cities of Greece and Asia Minor? We talk about a number of cases, including the massive inscription of Augustus’ Res Gestae in Ankara.
A conversation with Anna Sitz on how Byzantines read ancient inscriptions – or modified, re-used, and defaced them. Ancient cities were full of inscribed texts, many on temple walls or referring to the gods in prominent ways. How did Christians cope with these monuments when they took over the cities of Greece and Asia Minor? We talk about a number of cases, including the massive inscription of Augustus’ Res Gestae in Ankara.
Anna Sitz is currently a Postdoc and Project Leader at the Universität Heidelberg in Germany. Click here to see Anna’s Academia.edu page.
The conversation is based on Anna’s book Pagan Inscriptions, Christian Viewers: The Afterlives of Temples and Their Texts in the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean (Oxford University Press, 2023).
Byzantium & Friends is hosted by Anthony Kaldellis, a Professor at the University of Chicago. You can follow him on his personal website.
You can listen to more episodes of Byzantium & Friends through Podbean, Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Top Image: A depiction of the Res gestae Divi Augusti
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