5 Ivory Production: Commerce, Culture and Power

Abstract

Since the 19th century scholars have claimed the existence of a school of ivory craftsmanship in late antique Ravenna. Following such theories, with the settlement of the western court in Ravenna in 402 a school of ivory carving produced plaques and pyxides that were exported outside the western capital. Later, in the 6th century, artists with different provenance came to Ravenna and there created consular and religious diptychs. Scholars' arguments were based upon iconographic and stylistic analyses, aimed at discovering the chronology and places of origin for a number of late antique ivories. Yet there is no evidence for the existence of an ivory atelier in Ravenna based on the lack of archaeological and textual support.This paper attempts to demonstrate that Ravenna could plausibly have been a location for production of ivory objects for its centrality in the politics and commercial routes of the late antique Mediterranean. Furthermore, by analyzing the imagery of some late antique ivory carvings in relation to the visual culture of late antique Ravenna, this contribution will put forward a few hypotheses about specific ivory artifacts that may have had a major role as expressions of the culture and religion of the people leaving in late antique Ravenna.It was at the end of the 19th century that Georg Stuhlfauth first postulated the existence of a school of ivory craftsmanship in late antique Ravenna. 1 Almost a century later, Wolfgang Fritz Volbach developed the argument further. According to Volbach, after 402 the settlement of the western court in Ravenna would have resulted in the creation of a school of ivory carving producing plaques and pyxides. Later, in the 6th century, increasing ties with Constantinople brought the arrival of artists with different provenance, who may have created consular and religious diptychs and even Maximian's chair. 2 Stuhlfauth's, Volbach's, and other scholars' arguments were based upon iconographic and stylistic analyses, aimed at discovering the chronology and places of origin for a number of late antique ivories. 3 Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann applied analogous methodology and attempted to answer the same questions, yet he emphasized that there is no evidence for the existence of an ivory atelier in Ravenna