Zwischen Dionysos und Christus : Bild und Tafelgeschirr im römischen Nordafrika

Abstract

The province of Africa Proconsularis and especially the area of present-day Tunisia developed into the boom province of the Roman Empire during the Roman imperial period. The region experienced a tremendous economic boom from the 2nd century AD onwards. As the ›granary of Rome‹, the province supplied Rome with grain and olive oil. No other region in the empire was as densely urbanised as Roman Tunisia. Part of this boom was the production of extremely high-quality tableware, which was traded to all parts of the Mediterranean. With loans from Augsburg, Munich and Cologne, the exhibition is focusing on the manifold imagery of this tableware, which only developed as a result of the economic upswing. Unusual mythical images can be found alongside images of political representation and everyday life. The workshops in Roman Tunisia withstood all political, social, and cultural upheavals and produced elaborately decorated tableware until the 6th century AD. From the 4th century onwards, they also mediated between pagan and Christian imagery. North African tableware thus belongs to a central source of imagery for Late Antiquity and early Christianity.