A Cultural History of Color in Antiquity

Book excerpt: A Cultural History of Color in Antiquity covers the period 3000 BCE to 500 CE. Although the smooth, white marbles of Classical sculpture and architecture lull us into thinking that the color world of the ancient Greeks and Romans was restrained and monochromatic, nothing could be further from the truth. Classical archaeologists are rapidly uncovering and restoring the vivid, polychrome nature of the ancient built environment. At the same time, new understandings of ancient color cognition and language have unlocked insights into the ways – often unfamiliar and strange to us – that ancient peoples thought and spoke about color. Color shapes an individual's experience of the world and also how society gives particular spaces, objects, and moments meaning. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Color examines how color has been created, traded, used, and interpreted over the last 5000 years. The themes covered in each volume are color philosophy and science; color technology and trade; power and identity; religion and ritual; body and clothing; language and psychology; literature and the performing arts; art; architecture and interiors; and artefacts. David Wharton is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA. Volume 1 in the Cultural History of Color set. General Editors: Carole P. Biggam and Kirsten Wolf