Reading the Image: An Interdisciplinary Study of the Iconography of Clazomenian Sarcophagi.

The title of my research is Reading the Image: An Interdisciplinary Study of the Iconography of Clazomenian Sarcophagi. The focus of this project will be on the analysis and interpretation of the painted decoration on the so-called Clazomenian sarcophagi (7th to 5th c. BCE). Since their first comprehensive publication in 1981 around 300 more sarcophagi have been found but most scholars have viewed their imagery as arbitrary scenes devoid of specific meaning. I will challenge this interpretation by stepping away from the dominant Athenocentric narratives, specifically the assumption of a one-way influence from Athens on burial practices and artistic production in Ionia and shift the attention to a definition of the distinctive nature of Ionian religion and society.