Spokespersons:

Maureen Carroll P.M.Carroll@sheffield.ac.uk

Ursula Rothe ursula.rothe@ed.ac.uk

In sociological and anthropological literature, the role of dress in human society has often been described as a form of non-verbal language or code through which people communicate to their audience their place in society, or ‘identity’. ‘Identity’ is, however, a multi-faceted concept. People generally have many aspects to their identity, such as gender, ethnic group, age, wealth or religion. Dress has the ability to express all of these simultaneously, and the same was the case in the ancient period. In terms of its audience, dress does two antithetical things: it includes into a group identity those dressed the same way and excludes those who dress differently. Similarly, dress choice is both public and personal and as such is influenced not only by social constraints but also by individual choice. This leads to enormous diversity in dress behaviour. For example, inhabitants of Rome’s provinces often negotiated their ethnic identity by wearing a mixture of native and Roman clothes in a variety of combinations. Dressing the body can also be both a passive process and be actively used as a medium of asserting a person’s position in non-verbal social ‘dialogue’. In other words, some dress choice situations are more conscious than others, and the audience plays a part in its selection. For example, in some parts of the Roman north-west, dress chosen for portraits on grave monuments may well have been different from that worn by the same people in everyday life. Likewise, dress codes related to age and profession will have played a part in expressing belonging or distinguishing between groups in society. Gender research also is of special interest here, as it is the women who more often than the men are depicted wearing their native costume rather than Roman dress foreign to the provinces. Study Group A aims to apply theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches to the ancient evidence in order to shed light on the role of dress in the expression of people’s social, cultural and ethnic identities.

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NEWS

On February 27-28, 2009, Study Group A has held a workshop on "Self and Society", in the archaeological department of the University of Sheffield. The conference papers will be published in the "Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter", manuscripts are to be submitted by November 2009.

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The Study Group Homepage is online!

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