Caskets of Late Antiquity (CLA)

The project Caskets of Late Antiquity (CLA) represents the first comprehensive study of late antique caskets. It will undertake the first systematic reconsideration of this body of artefacts, incorporating religious and social interactions and visual exchanges, in order to enable new insights into these objects historical, sociological and ritual contexts of production and use. Within the material culture of late antiquity, caskets constitute an especially privileged type of good, whose manufacturing techniques, complex decoration schemes comprising pagan and biblical iconography, and social and ritual aspects will stand at the core this project. The aim of CLA is to carry out a thorough reassessment of late antique caskets and casket mounts including their categorization, functions and find contexts in the upper Roman Danube provinces (Noricum ripense, Pannonia prima, Pannonia secunda and Pannonia Valeria) and in selected cases in Northern Italy and Croatia. Particular attention will be given to the iconographic analysis of visual patterns in order to define the syncretic image programs and the religious and private significances of these objects in late Roman society on the Danubian frontier, as well as to provide clues as to their uses and possible reuses in different contexts. The projects methodology is based on an interdisciplinary approach that combines typochronological studies, iconographic analysis, manufacturing technology, archaeometry, historical geography, and social and religious history. A special hallmark of this reconsideration are the archaeometallurigcal studies (x-ray fluorescence analysis) to be carried out on a group of caskets and fittings, which promise to shed light on manufacturing techniques. Building on this object-based data, the project CLA will offer a careful examination of the decorations of late Roman caskets from the upper Danube provinces, revealing not only their decorative schemes and iconographic motifs, but also how they reflect the richness and variety of religious ideas, the perception of the sacred, and the rituals and social customs of the late Roman populace.