Classical Studies electronic theses and dissertations (MU)
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The items in this collection are the theses and dissertations written by students of the Department of Classical Studies. Some items may be viewed only by members of the University of Missouri System and/or University of Missouri-Columbia. Click on one of the browse buttons above for a complete listing of the works.
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Item Archaeometric approaches to Aegean-style pottery : three case studies from Late Bronze Age Cyprus and the southern Levant(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2024) Czujko, Stephen; Langdon, Susan; Mogetta, MarcelloThis project offers a technological and analytical study of Aegean-style pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean from the terminal phase of the Late Bronze Age (13th-12th centuries BCE), a tumultuous archaeological phase marked by the appearance and disappearance of myriad cultural groups (e.g., the Mycenaeans, Hittites, and Philistines, among others). It identifies varied technological signatures and links these to artisans of different cultural and geographical backgrounds, in two key zones of interaction from this phase: Eastern Cyprus and the Central Jordan Valley. Assemblages of Aegean-style pottery from the sites of Enkomi along with Beth Shean and Tell es-Sa'idiyeh have been chosen for targeted study representative of these two zones. In practical terms, this project takes a multiscalar view towards these assemblages, sites, and regions, in effect, offering a cross-comparison. The goal is to enrich understanding of each of these regions by exploring the role played by Aegean pottery and the craftspeople who adopted and imitated it. The method used here differs from past approaches by applying archaeometric and quantification-based methods, specifically neutron activation analysis (NAA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and thin-section petrography, in order to describe the decisions made by the potter(s) out of a range of choices available to them. This project uses these techniques to gather information on three specific technical decisions: raw materials selection; processes of producing ceramic fabrics; pyrotechnology. The decisions reflected by these learned skillsets are useful for identifying the origin of the craftspeople and/or the craft.Item Amicitia sola : a reading and analysis of friendship in Ovid's exile letters(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2024) Bohan, Michael Taylor; Marks, Raymond"This dissertation focuses on and analyzes Ovid's depiction of friendship in real- life situations in his exile poetry. His similarities to philosophers, who wrote on friendship, are important to note. While Ovid himself was not a philosopher, he is clearly engaged with philosophical thought in his poetry. The experiences that he depicts in his exile, through his correspondence to his friends from his relegated position, show friendship through a less theoretical lens than has been shown in philosophical works done by people like Aristotle, Cicero, and Plato. These letters also reveal his relationship with Augustus, who, given their familial ties through marriage and their social ties through mutual friends, were amici by Roman definition. Ovid's friendship with Augustus is then discussed and analyzed, not just to provide context for Ovid's banishment to the Black Sea region, but also to understand the workings of friendship in the Empire as opposed to those in the Republic. Thus, the changing social situation in Rome during Ovid's life needs to be considered, and it is shown to have weighed heavily on Ovid while he was away from Rome. Additionally, Ovid writes to his friends, including Augustus, in exile as a way to demonstrate friendship and as a way to bring about his return home."--Page ivItem Use wear as an archaeological landscape(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2024) Rector, Stephen Kerry; Mogetta, MarcelloIn 2014 in an unprecedented collaboration between the Capitoline Museum in Rome, Italy, and the University of Missouri Museum of Art and Archaeology known as the Hidden Treasures of Rome project, 249 Roman black gloss pottery objects were provided for chemical and morphological study over the course of two years. During the Hidden Treasures of Rome: Capturing the Life Cycle of Roman Pottery project, Reflectance Transformation Images (RTI) were taken to enhance details on the objects not visible to the human eye, and undertook high-precision, high-resolution 3D scans of sixty-three objects, mostly plates and bowls, for more detailed analysis. This thesis asked the question whether treating use wear on black gloss Roman pottery as an archaeological landscape can aid in the identification and analysis of use wear. It also suggested that novel methods based on the use of blend modes and multiscale image fusion are superior to the use of profile and tangential curvature, and openness. A methodology using heterogeneous data and based on open source software was developed to reorient the 3D meshes, resect areas of use wear, convert them to a format suitable for import in QGIS, and to generate derived data based on the Relief Visualization Toolbox. It was demonstrated that treating use wear as an archaeological landscape and applying techniques of geomorphometrics and terrain analysis based on blend modes and image fusion using the Relief Visualization Toolbox enhanced and emphasized interior use wear on black gloss Roman pottery. Moreover, the method is general in nature and not restricted to vessel interiors nor to Roman pottery specifically. The method also demonstrated it is superior to previous methods based on profile and tangential curvature, and openness.Item Pottery production and social complexity in Archaic Rome and Latium(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2024) D'Acri, Mattia; Mogetta, MarcelloThis dissertation explores the development of socio-economic complexity in Rome and Latium between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE through the lens of pottery production, combining traditional archaeological methods and archaeometry. In particular, I analyze the ceramic productions of the period under examination, many of which come from recently excavated stratigraphies, with a focus on the results provided by the application of Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) to 274 pottery samples from sites in Rome (Sant'Omobono, Regia, Forum of Caesar, Quirinal), Gabii, and San Giovenale. The samples include both Coarse Ware, the so-called Impasti (e.g., Impasto Bruno, Impasto Chiaro-Sabbioso), and Fine Wares (e.g., Bucchero, Opaque Red Ware), which were carefully selected to incorporate similar shapes and types attested across all sites. Overall, the study provides an opportunity to reconsider previous scholarship on the relationship between society and craftsmanship in Archaic Latium and Etruria. The data elucidate issues of wealth accumulation, exploitation of natural resources, technological innovation, craft specialization, and exchange networks, thus offering insight into broader transformations in both social structures and economic performance in those regions. Based on the study, I argue that the specialization of potters linked to a solid political structure is evident at the beginning of the 6th century BCE, but some indicators suggest that the phenomenon originated a few generations earlier.Item Parataxis in Latin colloquial and poetic texts : a treebank-based analysis(University of Missouri--Columbia, 2024) DeHass, Matthew Timothy; Marks, RayParatactic is a label applied to texts which are more informal and spontaneous in their construction. The conventional cause of this difference is that there is a natural preference for parataxis in spoken Latin which is adopted in registers similar to the spoken language in their context and style. A text is paratactic if it uses fewer finite subordinate clauses and instead constructs discourse out of disconnected main clauses. I argue here that this definition of parataxis is a poor descriptor of informal Latin, and that, defined this way, it rather characterizes stylized speech such as that found in poetry and forensic speeches. If we define simplicity as fewer components which in turn have fewer embedded components, and complexity as instead an increase in said components, then texts which are traditionally considered informal are not simpler at the level of the finite clause. I argue here that it is actually at the level of the noun phrase and specifically in participial phrases that informal texts are simpler. I use a medium-sized corpus of manually annotated dependency treebanks to operationalize this study and describe the differences between informal Latin texts, poetry, and other prose works.