Roman Bronzes

A fibula is a brooch or pin for fastening garments, typically at the right shoulder. The fibula developed in a variety of shapes, but all were based on the safety-pin principle. Unlike most modern brooches, fibulae were not only decorative; they originally served a practical function: to fasten clothing, such as cloaks. In English, "fibula" is not a word used for modern jewellery, but by archaeologists, who also use "brooch", especially for types other than the ancient "safety pin" types, and for types from the British Isles.
This virtual conference focuses on ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine fibulae in entire Mediterranean area from the eighth century B.C. to seventh century A.D. The concentrated areas are Italy, Greece, Turkey, Near East, Spain and Portugal as well as North Africa.

This video conference took place on May 12-13, 2022 in Izmir, Turkey. All the lectures and discussions in our e-conference were in English, and were recorded for later viewing on YouTube for participants who were unable to attend the live performance.
Thematically papers were divided into 11 sessions, dealing with different aspects of Greek, Roman and Byzantine fibulae (cf. the program in the abstract booklet). Revised papers will be published in a peer-reviewed proceedings volume.
A fibula is a brooch or pin for fastening garments, typically at the right shoulder. The fibulae developed in a variety of shapes and are usually divided into families that are based upon historical periods, geography, and/or cultures. They are also divided into classes that are based upon their general forms. Fibulae were found in relatively large quantities in the Mediterranean and Black Sea area, where they were in use and produced frequently between the Bronze Age and Medieval periods. So far the study of these multifunctional objects has been overlooked in the Mediterranean whereas there is still a huge amount of unpublished material from excavations and museums in an area from Portugal down to Egypt.
Fibulae can be categorized based on different criteria, including genres of material, production, use and distribution. The purpose of this video conference was to create an analytical framework for understanding the fibulae in their social and material contexts. This conference considered in depth the role played by fibulas – whose uses ranged from clothes pins to status symbols to military badges of rank – in ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine societies. In recent decades, major excavation projects have produced vast quantities of material data that have reshaped our understanding of the fibulae, while also raising new questions about their use and production over the long term. We focused on a study of brooches in general and fibulas in particular. Along the way we looked at the intersection between material culture and ethnicity, dealing with the contentious issue of how much that a people’s material culture can tell us about their ethnicity – or not! In this online conference we only focused on Greek, Roman and Byzantine fibulae from the Mediterranean and Black Sea area between c. early sixth century B.C. and early seventh century A.D., and attempted to set out a comprehensive model for the study of fibulae, including their definition, typology, chronology, contexts, function, regional characteristics and distribution patterns in the whole Mediterranean and Black Sea geographies.
This conference on ancient material culture and instrumenta is dedicated to the 75th birthday of Dr Maurizio Buora, the former director of the Civici Musei Castello di Udine in Italy and an international authority on fibulae.
Such papers that engage the following themes and topics are invited:

- Fibulae from archaeological field projects (especially well-dated finds), museums and private collections,
- Identification of different kinds of fibulas,
- Ancient Greek and Latin textual sources on fibulae,
- Evolution of fibulae in the Mediterranean and Black Sea area during the Etruscan, Lydian, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods,
- The construction of fibula taxonomies,
- Similar instrumenta in the ancient Near East and their relations to ancient Graeco-Roman fibulae, - The nature of different types of surviving material culture,
- What ancient Greeks and Romans thought about afterlife? Fibulae in funerary and votive contexts,
- Comparative studies and issues related to the adoption of Greek and/or Roman fibula models in indigenous contexts: fibulae as major indicators of the relationship between these two communities (indigenous and Greek or Roman),
- Fibula as an indicator of rank and prestige in the ancient world,
- Domestic and commercial use of fibulae,
- Early Christian fibulae,
- Byzantine fibulae,
- Post-Byzantine or modern replicas of Classical fibulae,
- Eastern fibulae in the ancient western world,
- Major production centres of fibulae in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea area,
- Related instrumenta to fibulae in the regards of their function,
- Documentation and analysis of fibulae,
- The creation of a fully annotated and organized corpus,
- Publication of fibulae in the Mediterranean in possible corpara,
- Miscellanea.

We are glad to inform you that an international virtual conference on fibulae in the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Mediterranean and Black Sea area will take place on May 12-13, 2022 on Zoom.us, with each day dedicated to several thematic sesssions using the Zoom webinar platform. A fibula is a brooch or pin for fastening garments, typically at the right shoulder. The fibulae developed in a variety of shapes and are usually divided into families that are based upon historical periods, geography, and/or cultures. They are also divided into classes that are based upon their general forms. Fibulae were found in relatively large quantities in the Mediterranean and Black Sea area, where they were in use and produced frequently between the Bronze Age and Medieval periods. So far the study of these multifunctional objects has been overlooked in the Mediterranean whereas there is still a huge amount of unpublished material from excavations and museums in an area from Portugal down to Egypt. This conference is dedicated to the 75th birthday of Dr Maurizio Buora, the former director of the Civici Musei Castello di Udine in Italy and an international authority on fibulae.
We would be delighted, if you could consider contributing to our e-conference and contact us with the required information below before March 1, 2022. Our e-mail addresses are: terracottas@deu.edu.tr or alevcetingoz@gmail.com
We would be thankful, if you send us your abstract and required information only in word doc. For all your queries concerning the e-conference our phone number is: +90.539.577 07 33.
We would also be grateful if the lecturers can submit their presentations as a video until April 15, 2022 so that we can make sure to have their lectures prior to the virtual conference on May 12-13.
After the conference participants will be required to submit their revised papers by October 1. Revised papers will be published in a peer-reviewed proceedings volume.
The organizers seek to widen participation at this e-conference, and would like to encourage colleagues from all parts of the world to attend. The conference committee kindly requests that you alert any interested researches, colleagues and students within your research community who would be interested in participating at this e-conference, either by forwarding our e-mail through Academia, Researchgate, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other similar social media, or by printing this circular or our poster and displaying it in your institution. Please share it also on your ListServs. We hope that you will be able to join us on Zoom, and look forward to seeing you in May!
Required information for the participation to the e-conference

Type of Participation:
Lecturer:
Observer:
Name:
Academic title:
Institution:
Complete professional address:
Cell phone:
E-mail:
Alternating e-mail address:
Your Academia and/or Researchgate account’s address:
Any special requests:
Title of your lecture:
Would you agree that your lecture will be recorded during the e-conference which will be displayed in Youtube later?:
Your abstract:
N.B.: An illustration can be included; it should be sent by e-mail to terracottas@deu.edu.tr or alevcetingoz@gmail.com

Rubén MONTOYA GONZÁLEZ RESUMEN: A bronze sculpture of a togatus, lost for more than a century in American private collections, has been recently rediscovered. As for its origin, although it had been traditionally located in the Roman province of Gallia, recent studies have demonstrated that this sculpture emerged from the city of Pompelo in the Roman province of Hispania Citerior. In this article a stylistic analysis of the sculpture will be conducted, drawing new conclusions with regard to its typology, chronology and display.

Dear Colleague,

Between May 12 and 13, 2022 we have hosted on Zoom c. 50 participants from 16 countries and 45 papers dealing with fibulae were presented in these two days of symposium. Attached you will also find the updated abstract booklet. Please note that all the symposium documents were updated at our Academia account.

Publication of the proceedings of the fibulae e-conference

1- The language of the publication will be English; the only accepted language for the proceedings is English; we therefore ask you kindly to submit your paper only in English. We would like to use British English for the proceedings, as most of our participants were from Europe. Spelling can be either British or American, provided it is consistent in either case.

2- We have no limit for the length of the papers.

3- The deadline for the papers submission is the January 1, 2023.

4- Papers and photos should be submitted to the third editor of the proceedings (Dr Paola Puppo) electronically via e-mail. Here is her e-mail address: paolapuppo2019@gmail.com

5- The proceedings of the symposium will be published in Europe in 2023.

6- As the book will contain only papers related to fibulae, we ask you to send us your paper, if it deals with fibulae. The Editorial Board asks you kindly to provide an original, previously unpublished and scientific paper, dealing with unpublished materials from excavated or surveyed sites or from the museums with previously unpublished photos without copyright problems.

7- If you did not attend to the fibulae symposium because of a scheduling conflict or other reasons, but still have a paper about fibulae, you are also welcome to submit it to us for publication until January 1, 2023.

8- We are also seeking external peer reviewers for the proceedings. If you would like to be a peer reviewer for our symposium‘s proceedings, please let us know. As one of the member of our publication committee, your comments on all of the papers, such as their length, clearness and supported by the scientific data, will be most welcome. In the regards of papers you could also advise any improvements or submit your corrections about their jargon, language, organization of material and conclusion of each papers.

9- We are also seeking proofreaders for the whole volume in the regards of its English language style and grammar. We would be thankful, if you are interested to assist us in terms of language. Contributors whose English is not their first language are advised to have their text copy-edited by a native speaker with knowledge of the subject.

10- Images of your papers should be in colour and have at least 600 dpi. Please note that lower resolutions will result a reduction or a suppression of the publication. We will of course keep photos in colour in pdf offprints and digital version of the book.

11- Each author must hold the copyrights of all of the images. If you wish to use images that have been originated by someone else (i.e. previously published material), then you need to seek permission to reproduce each item in your paper. Please bear this in mind this when preparing the images of your manuscript. Permission from third parties could be requested by the publisher.

12- Each of the papers will be sent to anonymous peer reviewers enlisted by the Publisher before they are accepted for publication. Academic standards, originality, and a good level of English language will be the main criteria for selection.

13- We will also produce pdf offprints and each participant will receive whichever pdf offprints she/he wants for free.

14- Unfortunately, the proceedings volume cannot be donated to the authors for free.

Publication rules

1- Texts should be designed in the following order: Title, author(s)‘ name(s), academic affiliation, e-mail address and postal address, key-words in English, text (introduction, presentation, conclusion and catalogue), bibliography, figure captions and credits. Texts should be submitted as word datas (please not as pdf) and figures should be submitted as JPEG (please not as pdf). All figures, tables and illustrations should be submitted as separate files and not in the text. We kindly ask you to follow up publication rules explained hereby so that publication of the proceedings will not be delayed because of unnecessary reformattings.

2- Your text should be desiged in Times New Roman 12 pt with footnotes in 10 pt., all in single-lined.

3- Please provide all lists or tables in word, not in Excel and without any footnotes.

4- For illustrations, please provide figure captions and authorizations of reproduction at the end of your paper, before the bibliography. For each illustration the authors must obtain an authorization of reproduction. The editors and the publisher have the right for not accepting illustrations that could accuse problems with copyright.

5- Please use in-text citations to reference published works [i.e. “(Smith, 1998: 67, fig. 2)”] and use footnotes for further information, clarifications and/or comments.

6- All Latin words should be quoted in italics, without quotation marks.

7- Examples for the abbreviations of books in the bibliography:

Hortsmanhoff M., King H., Zittel Cl. (eds) (2012), Blood, sweat and tears. The changing Concepts of physiology from antiquity into modern early Europe, Leiden.

Espinosa D. (2013), Plinio y los “oppida de antiguo Lacio”. El proceso de difusión del Latium en Hispania Citerior, Madrid.

Schepartz L. A., Fox S. C., Bourbou C. (2009), New directions in the skeletal biology of Greece, Hesperia suppl. 43 or Schepartz L. A., Fox S. C., Bourbou C. (2009), New directions in the skeletal biology of Greece, Athens (Hesperia suppl. 43).

8- An example for the abbreviations of proceedings in the bibliography:

Laurent J. (ed.) (2003), Les dieux de Platon, actes du colloque organisé à l'Université de Caen, Basse-Normandie, les 24, 25 et 26 janvier 2002, Caen.

Please do not forget to add (ed.) or (eds) to the name of the editors!

9- An example for the abbreviations of the journal articles in the bibliography:

Valdés Guía M. (2000), « La apertura de una zona político-religiosa en los orígenes de la
polis de Atenas », Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne, 26/1, p. 35-55.

10- An example for the abbreviations of the articles in a collective book in the bibliography:

Mehl V. (2008), « Corps iliadiques, corps héroïques », in V. Dasen, J. Wilgaux (eds), Langages et métaphores du corps, Rennes, p. 29-42.

11- References for the ancient sources should be developed separately in the bibliography under the title “Ancient sources”. For example:

Desrousseaux A. M. (1956), Athénée de Naucratis, Les Deipnosophistes, books I and II, Paris.

12- References for the ancient sources should be given in footnotes, using Roman numerals for books, and without abbreviations. Use commas rather than colons. For example: Xenophon, Anabasis, II, 3, 3.

13- In the references of the epigraphic collections, quoted corpara should be in italics. In the quotations of each inscription there should be no comma between the volume number in Roman numeral and the number of inscription in Arabic numeral, but a space between them. For example:

CIL XIII 8553; ILS II 5318; P. Lond. V 1657.

14- An example for the abbreviations of the articles in an encyclopedia in the bibliography:

Jessen O. (1913), s.u. « Helios », RE, VIII, col. 58-93.

15- As a general reference, and for all issues not mentioned here, please refer to the Chicago Manual of Style Online. Here is its website: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

This paper focuses on a bronze stamp – signaculum ex aere – discovered in 1989, at Dumbrăveni, in Southern Dobrudja, very close to the border with Bulgaria. The phrase signacula ex aere refers to the the Roman artifacts used to stamp food products, organic materials, construction materials, etc., included in the category instrumentum domesticum inscriptum Signacula are important for the inscriptions they bear, such as proper names or abbreviations of names, all in genitive case (often in the plural form). On the signaculum from Dumbrăveni there is a Greek name engraved on two lines ‒ ΕVTVXHΔOC, derived from the patronymic Εὐτύχης. Based on the analogies with other signacula discovered in Lower Moesia, respectively at Marcianopolis, it was possible to date the signaculum from Dumbrăveni to the 3rd c. AD. Whatever their primary or secondary utility, such instruments were unanimously assigned an economic and commercial function. Signacula are an important epigraphic and historical source, associated with the Roman social elite, who was directly involved in the economic activity of the colonies or provinces where the stamps were discovered.

This volume focuses on bronze and other metal finds from several ancient sites of Asia Minor and other regions in the Mediterranean. It consists of four main parts and 45 papers in total which deal with various genres of ancient bronze material. The papers include analysis of pre-Greek, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine bronzes from Anatolia, as well as studies of bronzes from Georgia, Greece, Iran, Italy, Serbia, and Slovenia. Key sites are covered, such as Allianoi, Arycanda and Olba, Roman and Early Byzantine cities in western and southern part of Turkey. The volume also contains a common bibliography for researchers interested in Asia Minor and neighbouring regions. Readers will discover numerous unpublished materials as well as new insights into the bronze archaeology of Anatolia and more broadly across the rest of the ancient eastern Mediterranean.