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Perspectives Spotlight

Color and Meaning in the Ancient World

How does this white marble bust color our understanding of history?

Marble portrait bust of Caligula, with a bright yellow ovular spotlight shape behind the figure in the background
Marble portrait bust of the emperor Gaius, known as Caligula

Debunking the Myth of Whiteness

Two scholars discuss misconceptions about race and polychromy in the ancient world
By Sarah Lepinski and Dan-el Padilla Peralta Jul 7, 2022
Archaeologist Ulrike Koch Brinkmann painting a copy of an ancient Greek sculpture

The Modern Invention of Ancient White Marble

Archaeologists Vinzenz and Ulrike Koch Brinkmann reflect on how reconstructing the former color of an ancient Roman bust can help us better understand history

Jul 7, 2022

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A small bronze sculpture of a seated boy pulling a thorn from the bottom of his foot appears set against a bright yellow ovular spotlight shape in the background.

Spinario’s Thorn

What can Antico’s small, bronze sculpture teach us about pain, mindfulness, and the creative process?
Brown and beige fragment of a floor mosaic with a brown-skinned woman with curly brown hair, a headpiece, and earrings set against a bright yellow ovular spotlight shape in the background.

The Personification of Ktisis

What does this mosaic reveal about representation in the Byzantine world?
Detail of a Honus Wagner baseball card, showing his face against an orange background, with a bright yellow ovular spotlight shape behind the figure in the background

Baseball Card Collecting’s “Holy Grail”

Why is the Honus Wagner card so valuable, and what can it tell us about the history of commerce, marketing, and consumerism?
A detail from Thomas Cole's landscape painting "The Oxbow" set against a bright yellow ovular spotlight shape in the background.

Questioning Cole’s Romantic Wilderness

“The perception of America as an uninhabited wilderness is, in its own way, a historical fiction.” – Alan C. Braddock, professor and ecocritic

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