Archäologie

Zu der Gruppe der Gürtelbeschläge mit einzelnen Buchstaben (Typ Lyon) kann nun auch ein silberner Gürtelbeschlag aus dem Kunsthandel gerechnet werden. Dieser Gürtel ist wegen seines Materials, der griechichen Buchstaben und des ausgesprochenen Wunsches eine Besonderheit. Bekannt waren bisher bronzene Gürtelbeschläge, deren teilweise in Ligatur geformte Buchstaben den Wunsch “VTERE FELIX” formten. Der einzige vollständige Fund aus einem Grab bei Lyon wird wegen seiner Begleitfunde in das Jahr 197 n. Chr. datiert. Allerdings wurden auch einzelne Buchstaben bekannt, die nicht in diesem Wunsch vorkommen. Auch das neue Stück, dessen Buchstaben sich zu “MNHMNWN” (=”Gedenke”) fügen lassen, kann (u. a. anhand der Schnalle) an das Ende des 2. Jh. n. Chr. bis an den Anfang des 3. Jh. n. Chr. datiert werden. Es handelt es sich um das einzige bisher bekannte Stück in griechischer Schrift und mit diesem Wunsch.

At the heart of this study of ancient bathing and bathhouses is an analysis of the culture of bathing in Roman Palestine and what this reveals about the Romanisation of the Jewish population. The book, a 2002 PhD thesis, includes a discussion of of the origins of public baths and the development of bath building types in Hellenistic Palestine, but focuses on how Jews reconciled (or not) the Roman taste for public bathing and their own distaste for Roman displays of nudity and communal bathing. The study combines documentary evidence with archaeological evidence with much of the book comprising an illustrated catalogue of the large number of bathhouses and baths that have been excavated in the region. The appendix focuses on miqva'ot, or Jewish ritual baths.

The Roman military belt was the distinguishing symbolic object visually setting the soldier apart from civilian men in Roman society and marking him as milites even when not wearing arms and armour. It kept this important function even after the sword was carried on the baldric from the 2nd century onwards. During the 3rd century, belt fashions suddenly introduced a different system of fasting the belt: the ring buckle. This fashion quickly spread to soldiers in all the regions of the Roman Empire and is depicted on a vast number of funerary monuments. 
The origin of this belt fashion has previously been assumed to lie in the German, Danubian or Sarmatian regions, but some evidence from reliefs in Iran now point towards the a different origin, namely the Persian armies. The emergence of this belt fashion in the 3rd century coincides with the commencement of large armed conflicts between Rome and the Persian Empire. This region was an almost constant theatre of war during the 3rd century, with large Roman armies gathering and coming into contact with the enemy, facilitating the transfer and exchange of belt fashions from the latter and among each other.
In my paper, I would like to explore this connection and use it to try and refine the dating of the belt fashion. Another aim is to attempt a theoretical explanation of the process by which belt fashions were introduced and passed on in the Roman army.

In my paper I address the question of how we can define a set of decorated belt mounts as having originally belonged to a military belt. In Roman archaeology, the term military belt is often used for any belt decorated with elaborate metal mounts. But many finds of belt mounts are found without a military connection, e. g. in graves. How do we know if these are really military belts?

In the paper, I attempt to define a theoretical model, which will function as a guideline for the allocation of belt mounts to the military.