“Colours in Antiquity: Colour and Hue from Egypt to Byzantium”, University of Edinburgh, 10th -13th September 2001

Abstract

st century there is no lack of conferences, symposia, workshops and congresses, even for relatively small fields such as archaeology, Classics and art history. Was it, therefore, sensible to participate in another conference on colour after the “Colour in Ancient Greece” conference held at Thessaloniki in 2000? I felt it certainly was. As much as the conference at Thessaloniki was overdue because of its overall theme (Brysbaert and Lindenlauf 2000: 114-115), so too was the Edinburgh conference, since it succeeded in covering a wide range of issues, geographical areas, periods of interest and methodological approaches in only four days. The conference was divided into eight sessions: Egypt, The Aegean World, Dyes and Pigments, Textiles and Cosmetics, Literature and Philosophy, Classical Art and Archaeology, Symbolism and Culture in the Greek World, and Symbolism and Culture in the Roman and Byzantine Worlds. Each session covered a variety of methodological issues and approaches and provided thorough insights into many different aspects of colour. The very accessible conference website promised an intense and interesting programme and included all abstracts. Thanks to the excellent organisation and good time keeping of all participants, the entire conference went smoothly, only brutally disrupted by the events of September 11. To give a flavour of the conference without providing a discussion of each paper, specific strands woven throughout the conference are outlined here, referring to specific papers to illustrate them. Participants shared their expertise in a variety of different ways: presentations with traditional visual aids, experimental demonstrations showing the production of different colours (and smells!) (Burke on Ruscillo’s experimental work; Greenspan) and colour schemes of Roman cookery (Grigorieva). A range of informative posters were also available for discussion during the coffee breaks (Chryssikopoulou et al.; Clarke; Cleland; Devlin et al.; Fountolakis). Across geographical and chronological boundaries we could observe that colour had a vital role to play in a variety of conceptual schemes within each society. That the meaning of colour was culture specific, and cannot just be transferred and accepted with the same meaning within another cultural context (even if contemporary), was exemplified by Harlow’s paper on the meaning of the colour white both in the Roman and in the early Christian context. Colour expressed directly or indirectly the concept of power through its meaning, whether or not it was associated with economic value. Gold as a colour and a material was the flesh of the gods and of the rulers in their afterlife in Egypt (Cashman).