Notlösung oder Mehrwert? Wiederverwendete Statuen in der Spätantike

There were certainly many good reasons for the increased reuse of ancient statues in Late Antiquity. Primarily, we think in terms of economy as the scarcity of material and the deterioration of the transportation infrastructure throughout the Mediterranean became an ever-growing difficulty regarding the purchase of new sculptures. Yet, apart from these economic reasons, there may as well have been some socio-cultural reasons that prompted the reuse of sculpture in Late Antiquity. Indeed, literary and archaeological sources do point to the fact that age, especially in the case of three-dimensional sculpture, is to be regarded as a semantic category in its own right.

Throughout the Roman Imperial Period ancient statues were highly esteemed in the décor of private and public spaces. Through the accumulation of various levels of meaning in the course of time, such statues gained a complex significance which could not be achieved through newly produced works of art. Selected examples aptly illustrate this phenomenon, referred to as hyper-codification in linguistics. They give evidence that the reuse of older monuments particularly in the case of portrait statues was by no means just a cheap stopgap solution. On the contrary, the recirculation of intentionally selected antiques was quite suitable for heightening the effect and the distinction of honorary statues.