Modern constructions of beauty and biological race were heavily influenced by the study, replication, and measurement of classical sculpture in eighteenth century Europe.
Sarah E. Bond
Sarah E. Bond is associate professor of history at the University of Iowa. She blogs on antiquity and digital humanities, and is the author of Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean.
Posted inArt
What Can Fingerprints Tell Us About Ancient Artisans?
Thousands of fingerprints and footprints survive from the ancient world, while the modern science of fingerprints to identify criminals has relatively recent and racist origins.
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A Virtual Reality App that Reconstructs Ancient Rome May Have Exploited Its Developers
The virtual reality tour of Rome at the heart of Rome Reborn started as a digital humanities project collaboratively developed by dozens of artists, classicists, archaeologists, and 3D modelers.
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Stories of an Assyrian King and What Became of His Empire
A new exhibition at the British Museum underscores the material remains associated with the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, and their display alludes to Britain’s long and fraught history with Iraq.
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Pseudoarchaeology and the Racism Behind Ancient Aliens
Where, exactly, the idea of ancient aliens building the pyramids began — and why some academics think racism lies at the heart of many extraterrestrial theories.
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You Gotta Fight for Your Rhyta to Party
A newly opened exhibition at the Harvard Art Museums features animal-shaped drinking vessels from across the ancient Mediterranean called Rhyta.
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Seeing Ourselves in Animals Throughout Art History
The exhibition Stampede prods the viewer to consider how artists use animals to represent human traits and critique the world we humans live within.
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Fasces, Fascism, and How the Alt-Right Continues to Appropriate Ancient Roman Symbols
The use of fasces by alt-right groups is another attempt to commandeer the insignia of ancient Rome to connect their movements to the bygone power and legitimacy of the Roman empire.
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The Misuse of an Ancient Roman Acronym by White Nationalist Groups
SPQR initially stood for Senatus Populusque Romanus (the Senate and Roman people), but a growing number of white supremacists have adopted the acronym to symbolize their movement.
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Archaeologists May Have Discovered a Church Built on the Site of Constantine the Great’s Conversion to Christianity
During work along the right bank of the Tiber this summer, the archaeological group Cooperativa Archeologia uncovered what was first thought to be a villa, but later considered to be a church.
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Discovery of Jewish Mosaics in Israel Bring Color to Biblical Accounts
A site in Israel continues to turn up stunning polychromatic mosaics from the late Roman empire that challenge current notions of ancient Jewish aesthetics and the art of depicting scripture.
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AP World History Makes a Turn Toward Eurocentrism
The College Board’s recent decision to begin their curriculum for Advanced Placement (AP) World History at the year 1450 CE will omit millennia of global human history and may further support a Eurocentric view of the world within US high schools.