A conversation with Anna Sitz (Universität Heidelberg) on how Byzantines read ancient inscriptions - or modified, re-used, and defaced them. Ancient cities were full of inscribed texts, many on temple walls or referring to the gods in prominent ways. How did Christians cope with these monuments when they took over the cities of Greece and Asia Minor? We talk about a number of cases, including the massive inscription of Augustus' Res Gestae in Ankara. The conversation is based on Anna's book Pagan Inscriptions, Christian Viewers: The Afterlives of Temples and Their Texts in the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean (Oxford University Press 2023).
Byzantium & Friends