IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 707: Erasure in Late Antiquity, I: Damnatio Memoriae

Tuesday 7 July 2020, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:	Postgraduate & Early-Career Late Antiquity Network
Organisers:	Rebecca Usherwood, School of Classics, University of St Andrews Guy Walker, Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin
Moderator/Chair:	Michele R. Salzman, Department of History, University of California, Riverside
Paper 707-a	Erasing Antiquity: Spolia as a Form of Damnatio Memoriae in the Church of Mary in Ephesus (Language: English) Mali Skotheim, Warburg Institute University of London Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Byzantine Studies, Epigraphy, Mentalities
Paper 707-b	Nomen de diptychis ecclesiasticis erasum: A Damnatio Memoriae for Emperors in Late Antique Christianity (Language: English) Francesco Bono, Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza, Università degli studi di Pavia Index terms: Canon Law, Law, Liturgy, Political Thought
Paper 707-c	Unintentional Damnatio Memoriae in Late Antique Rome: To the History of Lampadius's Inscriptions (Language: English) Evgeniya Zaĭtseva, Department of History of Ancient World & Middle Ages Ural Federal University Index terms: Art History - Sculpture, Epigraphy, Mentalities
Abstract	When discussing physical and social erasure in Late Antiquity, most scholars will think of damnatio memoriae. But this term and its meanings have come under increasing debate, to which this panel contributes. Our first speaker (Skotheim) questions whether the use, erasures and inverted positioning of spolia in the paving of St Mary in Ephesus operated as a form of ecclesiastical damnatio memoriae. Our second speaker (Bono) addresses the erasure of emperors' names from ecclesiastical diptychs and how this erasure functions within liturgical space. Our final speaker (Zaitseva) approaches the erasure of previous dedicatees during systematic renovations and rededications of statues as damnatio memoriae.