Re-Writing Cityscapes in Late Antique Asia Minor: Religious, Civic, and Imperial Agencies in Public Epigraphies of Ephesos and Aphrodisias

In the project "Re-Writing Cityscapes in Late Antique Asia Minor: Religious, Civic, and Imperial Agencies in Public Epigraphies of Ephesos and Aphrodisias" (RCLA), I will study inscriptions in public spaces in Aphrodisias and Ephesos-two major cities of late antique (3rd-7th c. AD) Asia Minor from a new perspective not attempted so far. These inscriptions were among the key elements of urban spaces, and at the forefront of social and religious changes engendered by the arrival of Christianity as the socially dominant, imperially-sponsored faith. They were located in central urban areas such as porticoed streets, agoras, civic and, increasingly, cultic Christian basilicas, or covered enclosed religious spaces in devotional graffiti. A variety of genres existed-from inscribed imperial pronouncements to honorific and to funerary epigraphy. These inscriptions (predominantly in Greek, but also in Latin) gave voice to an impressive range of social actors within the two cities, and powerfully contributed to the lived experience of city dwellers within urban spaces.