Apparu entre le IIIe et le début du Ier siècle avant notre ère, un pouvoir royal établi à Armazi-Mc’xet’a exerça jusqu’au VIe siècle de notre ère un rôle pivot dans l’histoire de l’ancienne Caucasie, à la charnière de l’Empire romain, de l’Iran et des terres sarmates. Le pays où s’exerçait leur pouvoir, l’Ibérie, amalgamait divers peuples et communautés autour du cours moyen du fleuve Koura, au débouché de la passe du Darial. Composant avec les rivalités dynastiques, le morcellement ethnique, la pluralité des langues et la diversité des cultures, les rois d’Ibérie firent preuve d’une remarquable capacité d’adaptation pour assurer leur emprise territoriale, affirmer leur légitimité et trouver une place de choix dans les réseaux d’alliances transnationaux. Le système politique ibère établit une relation d’équilibre entre l’aristocratie et la cour à travers une diarchie associant le roi et son pitiaxe. Entrée dans l’orbite de Rome après l’invasion de Pompée en 65 avant notre ère, la royauté ibère construisit durant trois siècles un partenariat avec les dirigeants romains qui n’était cependant pas exempt d’ambivalence. Les années 260 de notre ère marquèrent un tournant capital dans l’évolution du pouvoir royal ibère, lorsque l’emprise grandissante des Sassanides instigua un changement dynastique au profit des Mihranides. Dans un contexte d’effervescence spirituelle mettant en concurrence divers courants religieux, les rois ibères décidèrent progressivement de confessionnaliser leur pouvoir. Au début du Ve siècle, l’invention d’une première forme officielle d’écriture géorgienne illustra ce nouveau consensus politique et religieux voulu par une royauté devenue chrétienne. / Since its appearance between the third and the beginning of the first century BCE, a royal power established in Armazi-Mc‘xet‘a exercised until the sixth century CE a pivotal role in the history of Ancient Caucasia, at the hinge of Roman Empire, Iran and Sarmatian lands. The country where their rule was exercised, Iberia, amalgamated various peoples and communities around the middle course of Kura River, near the Darial pass. Composing with ethnic division, linguistic plurality and cultural diversity, the kings of Iberia developed a remarkable capacity of adaptation to ensure their domination, assert their legitimacy and find their place in the transnational networks of alliances. The Iberian political system established a balanced relationship between aristocracy and the royal court through a diarchy associating the king and his pitiaxēs. Entering the orbit of Rome after the invasion of Pompey in 65 BC, Iberian kings shaped during three centuries a partnership with Roman leaders, however not without ambivalence. The decade 260s CE constituted a major turning point in the evolution of royal power in Caucasian Iberia, insofar as the growing grip of Sasanians instigated a dynastic change in favour of the House of Mihranids. In a context of spiritual effervescence putting in competition several religious currents, the Iberian kings gradually opted for a confessionalization of their rule. At the beginning of the fifth century, the invention of a first official form of Georgian writing illustrated this new political and religious consensus established by a kingship converted to Christianism.

La présente recherche s'intéresse à la compréhension de quelques aspects particuliers de la poliorcétique romaine et aux moyens de transmettre ces résultats à un public, qu’il soit spécialisé ou non. Nombreuses sont les sources qui n’ont pas été exploitées dans l’historiographie ancienne et récente, qu’il s’agisse de récits, de poèmes, et même de certaines informations présentes dans les textes techniques. L’analyse exhaustive de ces sources anciennes entre le Ier siècle a.C. et le IVe siècle p.C. permet de considérer chaque problématique liée aux machines de siège romaines afin d’en obtenir une compréhension qui soit la plus complète possible. La restitution virtuelle de plusieurs machinae décrites avec précision permet d’obtenir des hypothèses expérimentales des principaux engins de siège et d’en déduire des corollaires sur les plans physiques, logistiques et stratégiques. La prise en compte du contexte de fonctionnement des machines s’inscrit dans une approche globale, méthode inhérente à l’Histoire des techniques. Cette méthodologie scientifique contribue à un développement parallèle des solutions de médiation scientifique permettant à tous d’accéder et de réfléchir aux problématiques abordées. / This research focuses on some particular aspects of Roman Siege Warfare and on solutions to transmit these results to an expert or non-expert public. There are many unstudied historical sources in the ancient and recent historiography, either narrative sources, poems or even some details from technical texts. An exhaustive analysis of those sources, dated between the first century BC to the fourth century AD, allows us to consider each problematic related to Roman siege machines in order to acquire an understanding as complete as possible. The virtual restitution of several well described machinae allows us to formulate experimental hypotheses of the main siege engines and to infer physical, logistical and strategic corollaries. By taking into account the operating context of the machines, we subscribe to an overall approach, the specific method of Technical history. This scientific methodology enables a parallel reflection about scientific mediation solutions, allowing everyone to access and give thought to the developed problematic.

Antiquaire nîmois de la première moitié du XVIIe siècle, Anne de Rulman a laissé un ensemble manuscrits imposants, parmi lesquels figure le Récit des anciens monuments qui paroissent encore dans le département de la première et seconde Gaule Narbonnoise (…). Cet ensemble, daté de 1626, s'articule en quatre volumes qui comprennent les observations de Rulman sur les sites antiques d'une vaste région allant de Toulouse à Nice ou encore un volume de dessins de monuments et fragments essentiellement nîmois et biterrois. À cela s'ajoutent des dessins d'objets antiques conservés dans les grands cabinets de collectionneurs du Sud de la France et un Inventaire particulier (…) des antiquités de Nîmes. Peu connus et reconnus, ces manuscrits représentent une source considérable pour la compréhension de la démarche antiquaire à travers laquelle l'objet du passé a peu à peu acquis le statut de témoignage historique et archéologique, mais aussi d'œuvre d'art. Ils contribuent également à une meilleure connaissance du milieu savant du Sud de la France qui gravitait alors autour de l'emblématique Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637). Cette étude participe ainsi à des questionnements d'envergure qui touchent aussi bien à l'histoire de l'art et du goût, qu'à l'histoire et à l'archéologie. / Nimois antiquariam of the...

In the ancient religious imagination, catastrophic events – plagues, droughts, natural disasters – were frequently seen as manifestations of divine wrath that necessitated extraordinary ritual responses to quell. These responses frequently consisted in intensified forms of sacred violence, the most extreme of which was human sacrifice. The corpus of Greek literature is rife with myths of human sacrifice. In spite of this rich mythic repertoire, Greek artists produced scenes of human sacrifice rather infrequently and drew upon an extremely restricted range of subjects. The extant corpus of human sacrificial images totals fewer than 50 specimens and almost all of them feature the maidens Polyxena or Iphigeneia as the victim. In the Archaic era (700-480 BCE), painters and sculptors were almost exclusively interested in the sacrificial fate of Polyxena. Archaic representations of Polyxena’s sacrifice are remarkable for their overt treatment of the physical violence to which the maiden was subjected, in some cases going so far as to visualize the blood gushing forth from her perforated neck. Interest in the violent and gory aspect of the sacrificial ritual diminishes in the closing decades of the Archaic period. The title of the proposed talk, bad blood, has a twofold sense; both senses refer to the underlying subject of belief and to the main arguments of this paper: The first sense is idiomatic and indicative: Polyxena’s sacrifice was a matter of bad blood, since it resulted from the need to placate the wroth and aggrieved ghost of Achilles, who denied the Greeks safe passage home until he was granted the spoils due to him (cf. Eur. Hek. 35-44; Quint. Smyr 14.324-338). The second, more literal sense is interrogative: To wit, was the shedding of Polyxena’s blood bad per se? While Greek authors of the Classical period and beyond suggest that human sacrifice was universally condemned as an unthinkably barbaric offense and a violation of ritual norms, earlier extant literary sources offer no such clear ruling. However, this situation changes when the small yet iconographically remarkable group of pre-Classical visual representations of human sacrifice are considered. In these images, one may detect a diversity of attitudes or positions on the ritual of human sacrifice, individual as well as collective, that range from acceptance to outright repudiation. This range of attitudes is not, however, neatly confined to the proverbial frame of the image or the mythical context of the event. Like the mythic cast of characters, contemporary ancient viewers were meant to participate in the discursive dynamic, bringing their individual beliefs and attitudes to bear on the scene and its significance. In other words, these representations imply a multiplicity of attitudes (and the beliefs that inform them) among the implied viewers of these artworks.

En cherchant à renouveler la vision du rôle joué par les fortifications et les premiers lieux de culte chrétiens dans la structuration et l’évolution des peuplements médiévaux, cette étude offre une nouvelle synthèse sur l’histoire du peuplement de l’ancienne cité de Clermont durant l’Antiquité tardive et le haut Moyen Age. Si les connaissances acquises sur le sujet font l’objet d’une nécessaire analyse critique, la documentation est renouvelée par une approche résolument interdisciplinaire puisant dans les apports confrontés des données textuelles, archéologiques et monumentales (formes architecturales, techniques, décors, etc.). Cette recherche s’articule autour d’une monographie qui offre aujourd’hui de nouveaux horizons de recherches sur la question des habitats fortifiés de hauteur, et met en évidence la relation étroite qui unit fortifications et églises dès les Ve-VIe siècles. L’enquête peut dès lors être élargie aux problématiques relatives à la topographie ecclésiale de l’ensemble du territoire arverne ; notamment par l’examen documenté du glissement des cadres de la cité romaine vers les nouveaux cadres diocésains. Il s’agit alors d’analyser les permanences, les ruptures et les transformations qui ont conditionné les modalités d’occupation du sol entre le Ve et le Xe siècle, en scrutant le rôle des églises et des « châteaux » dans la formation de nouveaux noyaux de peuplement. L’enjeu est enfin de saisir les réalités d’un paysage monumental progressivement transformé et adapté en abordant la question de la persistance formelle ou de l’innovation, des continuités et des ruptures techniques, à travers l’analyse des plans, des élévations et des répertoires ornementaux choisis, tout en confrontant les données disponibles aux témoignages apportés par les sources textuelles / This study proposes to shed new light on the evolution of settlement in the former territory of Clermont during the late Antiquity and early Middle Ages, by looking at the fortifications and first Christian places of worship, which are believed to polarize the medieval settlement. The main purpose of this work, beyond a necessary compilation of previous studies, is to renew the existing documentation through a vast archaeological investigation. The starting point of this research is a monographic study that widens the research on the topic of hillforts and highlights the close relation between fortifications and churches from the 5th to the 10th century. The study extends to questions relating to the ecclesial topography of the whole Arvern territory, thus showing clearly the shift in the framework of the Roman city towards the diocesan structure. The purpose here is indeed to study the continuity, or discontinuity as well as the transformations in land-use between the 5th and the 10th century, through the role of churches and "castles" in the creation of new settlements. It is also important to show the many forms of the monumental architecture in Auvergne between Antiquity and Middle Ages, raising the question of formal persistence or innovation, technical continuity or discontinuity, through the analysis of plans, upstanding architecture and the choice of decorative repertoires, while confronting the data to textual sources.

Ce travail de recherches, qui n’a pas pour objectif de résoudre le problème de terminologie actuel lié à la désignation de cette roche que les Anciens Égyptiens appelaient bjt ou Ss, se propose d’étudier la production des objets réalisés dans cette pierre composée de calcite. Elle se caractérise par une teinte blanche ou jaune pâle, parfois ornée de rubans colorés, un éclat gras et une relative translucidité. Étant donné qu’une étude de la production sur l’ensemble de la période pharaonique n’était pas envisageable dans le cadre d’une thèse, une limitation chronologique a permis de restreindre le corpus aux objets fabriqués entre le début de l’Ancien à la fin du Moyen Empire, soit de 2700 à 1700 av. J.-C. environ. Ce corpus de documents (volume 2) regroupe l’analyse des objets qui ont été classés de manière typologique, puis chronologique au sein de chaque catégorie : statuaire, tables d’offrandes, plaquettes « aux sept huiles saintes », chevets, sarcophages, réceptacles à viscères, vases, figurines du Moyen Empire et « autres ». La synthèse (volume 1) est, quant à elle, composée de trois chapitres, le premier étant consacré à l’étude de la chaîne de production de l’albâtre. Il comprend une description des carrières connues, des outils et des techniques d’extraction de la pierre, ainsi qu’une étude des ateliers de sculpteurs et des principales techniques de fabrication des objets. Les deux chapitres suivants explorent les différentes utilisations de l’albâtre, envisagées d’un point de vue typologique et chronologique. / This research work, which isn’t aimed at solving the current problem of terminology linked to the designation of this rock called bjt or Ss by Ancient Egyptians, intends to study the production of artefacts made in this stone composed of calcite. It is characterized by its white or yellow pale hue and it is shiny, almost translucent and sometimes color-banded. Given that a study on the entire production through the Pharaonic period wasn’t conceivable within a thesis, a chronological limitation helped to narrow the corpus to the artefacts made between the beginning of the Old Kingdom to the end of the Middle Kingdom, that is to say from around 2700 to 1700 B. C. This corpus (volume 2) gathers the analysis of the objects classified typologically then chronologically within each category: statues, offering tables, tablets for the seven sacred oils, headrests, sarcophagi, canopic equipment, vessels, Middle Kingdom figurines and “others”. As for the synthesis, it is composed of three chapters, the first one being centered on the study of the manufacturing process of calcite. It includes a description of the attested quarries, tools and quarrying techniques, as well as a study of the sculpturing workshops and the main manufacturing techniques. The following two chapters focused on the different uses of calcite, taken from a typological and chronological point of view.

The thesis A Reconstruction of the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth from the Archeological Evidence and Ancient Literary Sources deals in nine chapters with the crucifixion phenomenon. Due to its dual approach it is divided into two major parts - general and specific. General part firstly presents the latest scientific treatises dedicated to this phenomenon (1), afterwards introduces the only archaeological evidence of crucifixion (2), analyzes semantical span of terms related to crucifixion (3) and ultimately defines the crucifion penalty (4). Specific part deals with the events of Jesus of Nazareth's case following the pronouncement of judgement. Attention is firstly paid to the flogging penalty (5) and afterwards to the analysis of the royal mockery game (6). Further it focuses on the transition scene, mainly on search for topography of the Way of the Cross (7). The Golgota chapters initially pay attention to the psychological abuse, perception of the crucifixion punishment, resemblance of Jesus' cross (8) and afterwards to the physical abuse and the search for causes of Jesus' death from the medical point of view (9). Keywords Jesus, crucifixion, cross, capital punishment, passion narratives, archaeology, antiquity

This paper consists of a focused, formal, and iconographic analysis of a unique Late Archaic bronze hand mirror said to originate in Magna Graecia, now in the Getty Museum. Of particular interest is the way the object fuses and juxtaposes two semantically dense and interrelated devices from the ancient Greek world: the mirror and the severed head of the Medusa (gorgoneion). While gorgoneia are generally encountered as ornaments on Greek mirrors, the Getty example is the only extant case in which Medusa’s head occupies the entire backside of the mirror, effectively functioning as a Janus-faced counterpart to the user’s face reflected in the disc. Scholars tend to explain the significance of gorgoneia on objects like the Getty mirror with reference to apotropaic and/or humorous effects. Yet Fowler proposes that the mirror’s incorporation of the gorgoneion may be appreciated on deeper conceptual and phenomenological levels: as a visual “comment” on the nature of the image (representational and reflected) and of (female) beauty and ugliness, which is accomplished by, and experienced through, using the object. Close examination of the Getty mirror thus offers critical insights into the complex interplay between gender, aesthetics, image-making, and visual experience in ancient Greek culture.

Scenes involving the breaking or outright inversion of culinary and (com)mensal norms are frequent in Greek art of the Archaic and Classical periods. The most discussed group of such images involves the uncivilized act of binge drinking unmixed wine and, as a result, losing control of one’s mind and body. Far less studied from an iconographic perspective are scenes of cannibalism, the most extreme and unsettling of all Greek culinary taboos. This paper seeks to define the iconography and meaning of cannibalism in Greek art through an exploration of the individual and shared compositional features of anthropophagic scenes and their visual relationship to normative images of meat consumption. Analytical attention will also be given to the objects on which these scenes appear and the relationship between the scenes and any other decorative content. Of particular interest is the way in which the iconography reflects cannibalism’s association with other serious normative violations, for example, infanticide (e.g., Prokne slaying her son Itys) and inhospitality (e.g., the Egyptian pharaoh Bousiris attempting to sacrifice his guest-friend Herakles). [The manuscript is currently being developed into an article to be submitted for publication consideration, probably in winter 2021.]

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