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Ivory Lists: Consular diptychs, Christian appropriation and polemics of time in Late Antiquity
Author(s) -
Bowes Kim
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8365.00269
Subject(s) - appropriation , bishops , late antiquity , interpretation (philosophy) , early christianity , chronology , history , classics , art , literature , philosophy , ancient history , law , archaeology , political science , epistemology , linguistics
This article offers a new interpretation of the function of ivory consular diptychs. An examination of ancient texts and visual sources show that consular diptychs originally held fasti consulares , or consular lists, within their leaves. This function forces us to re‐evaluate the significance of the images displayed on diptych covers, and reveals that the consular diptych and even the consulate itself were connected to Late Antiquity’s abiding obsession with time and chronology. The article also considers how this chronological function affected later Christian appropriation of the diptychs to hold lists of saints and bishops, and how the intertwining of Christian and consular chronologies may have affected the iconographic programmes of Christian diptychs, particularly that of the enigmatic Carrand diptych.