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Iconoclasm in Roman Britain?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Ben Croxford
Ben Croxford
Affiliation:
University of Durham, bc256@cam.ac.uk
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Extract

Studies of the presence of Christianity in Roman Britain occasionally utilise a form of ‘negative evidence’: the destruction of pagan images. That this destruction is iconoclasm carried out by Christians is too readily assumed. Christian iconoclastic attacks did occur elsewhere in the Roman Empire, the question is whether we have been uncritical in automatically applying such evidence to the damaged Romano-British images. The apparent preference for certain parts of statuary, coupled with the occurrence of pieces in deposits that would, under any other circumstances, be regarded as ‘votive’ or ‘ritual’, suggests that these images may have been broken for reasons other than that of straightforward ‘destruction’. It is possible that some of these images may instead have been deliberately fragmented, with the resulting pieces retaining meaning and receiving special treatment and deposition. The aim of this paper is to question the validity of interpretations that suggest iconoclasm and to put forward an explanation based upon the theories of fragmentation as an alternative explanatory framework. By examining the high proportion of certain ‘body parts’ in the archaeological record, the contexts in which these occur, and the possible differing treatment of statuary of different materials and sizes, it is hoped to demonstrate that iconoclasm cannot account for all of the instances of image ‘destruction’ in Roman Britain.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 34 , November 2003 , pp. 81 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Ben Croxford 2003. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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