Refiguring the Post-Classical City: Dura Europos, Jerash, Jerusalem and Ravenna

by Annabel Jane Wharton

This is a study of the "Christianization" of the city between the third and sixth centuries. The text traces changes in the meaning of urban space and in the ritual practices of Jewish, Christian and Graeco-Roman cults through an investigation of the art and archaeology of four important late antique sites: Dura Europos (mid third century), Jerash and Jerusalem (fourth and fifth centuries) and Ravenna (sixth century). Interwoven in the discussion of the monuments is an assessment of the political circumstances that controlled the writing of their history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 26, 1996

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

The chapter on Ravenna is probably the best example of
1. the linking of material and literary evidence
2. application of theories about movement of bodies in space
3. meaning and message in image & space