Publication details
Silver as Social Alchemy: Saints, Symbolic Exchange, and Religious Mutations in Late Antiquity
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Citation | |
| Description | Silver occupies a central role within the changing ‘alchemy of wealth’ from the fourth to sixth century, a time of intense religious mutation and cultural negotiation between the structures upholding Roman religions and Christianity. Representative of imperial and aristocratic wealth, prestige, ownership and authority, the use of silver for crafting Christian objects constitutes what I call a ‘material subversion’. Consciously removed from its previous system of exchange and ostentation, silver was associated with the altar and with the cult of Christian saints. At Pula and Novalja, on the Adriatic, we thus find objects which borrow, materially and in shape, from the world of late antique silver perfume boxes, but to hold (miraculously) scented relics. Similarly, silver altar objects recall the shining imperial gifts, but offered to the new space of Christian sacrifice. This contribution connects the intellectual foundations to the material realizations of this ‘material subversion’ – intended here as a conscious resemanticization of material and form. It explores a time when bishops who conceived of the memorial abodes of the saints became alchemists who transmuted the value of materials through a system of symbolic exchange, subverting and converting the material to solidify a newly legible cult in Roman society. |