Monumental Reliefs Page 1 of 21 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 06 August 2018 Abstract and Keywords Monumental reliefs, also known as “historical” or “state” reliefs, adorned an unprecedented range of public buildings in the Roman empire. Introduced during the Republic, produced mainly under the Principate in Rome, and rarely used as a marker of Roman affiliation in the provinces, monumental reliefs became one of the most distinctive forms of Roman sculpture. Although scholars originally concentrated on the supposed historicity of the events depicted, recent semiotic approaches contextualize the reliefs’ imagery and explore intended messages. Scholarship also has moved beyond merely identifying historical iconography to examining broader categories of imagery across multiple reliefs. Challenges for the study of monumental reliefs include lack of archaeological context, ambiguity in dating and identification, and the reuse (both ancient and modern) of reliefs. Despite a long history of study, opportunities for innovative work remain, including database-driven quantitative approaches, re- evaluations of understudied provincial monuments, and scrutiny of polychromy and topographic contexts. Keywords: historical reliefs, state reliefs, reuse, representations of architecture, methodology, style, iconography, Ara Pacis Augustae, Valle-Medici, Ara Pietatis, Arch of Titus, Trajan’s Column Monumental Reliefs Melanie Grunow Sobocinski and Elizabeth Wolfram Thill The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture Edited by Elise A. Friedland, Melanie Grunow Sobocinski, and Elaine K. Gazda Print Publication Date: Mar 2015 Subject: Classical Studies, Classical Art and Architecture Online Publication Date: Mar 2015 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199921829.013.0022 Oxford Handbooks Online brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by IUPUIScholarWorks