Miguel John Versluys (1971) is professor of Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology at Leiden University and was on the advisory committee for the Ammodo Science Award for groundbreaking research 2022. His research on the cultural diversity of the Roman Empire combines insights and methods from the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences. 'Specialised researchers need to get off their islands,' he says.
How has classical archaeology developed in recent decades?
For a long time, classical archaeology was the study by an elite of an elite where everything from antiquity was considered art. According to the thinking prevailing at the time, the classical world had nothing to do with evil or banal things like slaves or toilets. In the 1960s and 1970s, movements such as Marxism and postcolonialism emerged within the university. They criticised the fact that the ancient world was mainly presented as the history of Greeks and Romans, while there were vastly different peoples and cultures.
How has that narrow view widened?
A paradigmatic shift emerged. Archaeologists, for instance, began to investigate all kinds of 'peripheral' areas in Italy and beyond, and also began to study everyday life. This produced a very different picture of the Romans: there was imperialism and widespread conquest and plunder. In a sense, the choice of a specific subject of study is always ideologically coloured. That is why that correction by the generation of archaeologists before me was so 546timportant; they showed that our understanding of classical antiquity benefits from a diversity of perspectives. With my research, I try to take the next step by understanding the success of the Roman world from a whole new angle, using globalisation as a starting point.
Why globalisation?
My contention is that globalisation is not specific to the 21e century but goes back millennia. The Persian empire was the first in world history to describe itself as a universal empire. The idea of being cosmopolitan and of being a global citizen first arises then. From 200 BC, the Romans appear on the world stage. At that time, Rome was outlying and had little to do with the important developments of the period. But from the periphery, they began to conquer large parts of the Hellenistic world - areas we today call North Africa, the Middle East and Turkey - and with that they suddenly become part of a global network. With Roman imperialism, one of the most interesting periods in world history emerges where enormous cultural exchange takes place. This is also because on the other side of Afro-Eurasia, exactly the same thing happens with the rise of the Han Chinese empire.
Why is that period so interesting?
What fascinates me is the way the developing Roman empire appropriated the cultures of conquered territories. The Romans were relative newcomers without a strong past of their own. As a developing world power, they lacked a distinct identity that transcended the local and regional. Precisely because they were globalising on an unprecedented scale, and thus becoming globalised themselves, they were in dire need of a compelling, new story about themselves. And so they drew on the culture and history of conquered territories to shape their own identity.
Are the Romans the inventors of cultural appropriation?
In my opinion, cultures always and by definition influence each other. Culturally, there was an insane amount of freedom that helped the Romans further shape their newly acquired identity. The plurality of cultures within their growing empire forced the Romans to self-reflect and stimulated their imagination. Over the centuries, a process of Romanisation took place as 'typically Roman' influences such as bath buildings and amphitheatres spread across the empire. But we now know that none of these influences were 'typically Roman' and, in the process, these changes were often shaped by the locals themselves. Romanisation is thus a bad concept because it primarily makes Rome responsible for all changes. In this way, it creates an opposition between Roman and indigenous, and often that image is not correct. My research shows that Roman innovativeness arose precisely thanks to interaction with foreign cultures; which became Roman and vice versa. That insight remains relevant since such innovation processes are of all times.
What is the next step within archaeological theorising?
Archaeologists are often studying one very small piece of history from a very local perspective. A lot of crucial archaeological research is done from specialisms: excavating, describing stylistic elements, dating and classifying pottery. This is important work but now it is time to take the next step as well. If we are interested in the question of how it all connects, and we should be at this stage of our profession's life, we need to develop a form of archaeology where specialised researchers come off their islands. That is incredibly difficult but I do believe we should take the intellectual responsibility to try. Because even in antiquity, everything developed in interconnection: events in Italy and North Africa were intertwined with those in Asia and Greece. So whatever cultural phenomenon you look at - be it Egyptian, Roman or Greek - you will always see that it is both locally and globally connected. This intense interconnectedness is the starting point of my research. Daring to let go of the topographical frameworks we have been brought up with as archaeologists yields a more complex and therefore much more interesting picture of world history.
How does that translate into your research?
Currently, my research focuses on Alexandria and Commagene. These are two areas right on the border of the Mediterranean world and Central Asia, which were long dismissed as intermediate, peripheral regions. But I actually see those places as cosmopolitan places where there was plenty of cultural exchange. Alexandria was the New York of antiquity where all kinds of influences from the Asian network came in. Rome itself had relatively little cultural individuality when it began to conquer the centre of the world and it was then flooded - almost literally - by new people, ideas, and objects. The excavations in that in-between area show very clearly that the Roman empire was not only an imperialist project but was itself influenced by the cultures it conquered. To really understand that exciting piece of world history, you have to let the role of objects play into the globalisation story as well.
You introduced the term "objectscape" within archaeology. Why?
With that understanding, I want to draw more attention to the active role objects have played in world history. Within archaeology, the idea that you need to study classical texts to understand past societies prevailed for a long time. Human emotions have probably never been better described than in Greek tragedies, so they do indeed offer us a valuable window into the past. But by studying only products of the human mind you risk losing sight of an important part of material reality. I find it much more interesting to also look at what the concrete impact of particular objects has been. Since the enlightenment, subject and object have been separated: people are seen as active while objects are said to be merely a passive product of human intentions. I now want to move away from that dichotomy by using the concept of objectscape to focus on what objects do.
As an archaeologist, you also work with beta scientists. What is the added value of this?
Archaeologists used to be mainly concerned with the meaning of objects: what is depicted and why? If you classified that then you were done. Little attention was paid to material types. Therefore minerals and rocks were often incorrectly identified in the descriptions of objects and archaeologists simply accepted the given description and passed it on, repeating the same thing for hundreds of years. It is now possible to reliably determine the provenance of material from archaeological finds using chemical analysis. A salient example: although it was assumed for centuries that The Rosetta Stone was made of basalt, recent analysis showed that it was cut from granodiorite. On the basis of such a material type, you can determine dating and provenance more specifically. Thus, chemical analysis allows us to better map the exchange networks of objects.
So you think from the object, so to speak?
More precisely, we think from the network within which people and things construct each other. Once we started making objects, or in other words from the beginning of humanity, objects hold us in their grip, and vice versa. To give a contemporary example: although smartphones are not living beings, they do have a huge impact. Their intensive use changes our motor skills and ability to concentrate, but also our social practices and ideas about privacy, for example. The smartphone is also a great example of globalisation because the average phone brings together production factors from dozens of countries. This is all the result of changes in the 21st century objectscape. It was no different in ancient times: back then, people were also shaped by the objects in their environment that were connected to a global network.
How does Roman object perception differ from ours?
We have come to take the presence of countless objects for granted. But in ancient times, there were simply far fewer objects in existence. The successes of Roman imperialism ensured the introduction of new objects. During triumphal expeditions, carts of statues, paintings and all sorts of other captured objects were carried through the streets of Rome. But also on a daily basis, there was a continuous influx of foreign objects that could evoke strong experiences. It is interesting to explore the impact this had on society. Roman history was not only made by conquering generals and emperors, but also by things.
Can you give an example of such impact?
In the late Republic, from 200 BC onwards, statues of Greek goddesses in Hellenistic style, sometimes nude, were introduced in Rome for the first time. Such lifelike sculptures must have changed ideas about religion. In addition, places arose where those marble statues were displayed; in this way, they also changed the architecture of the city. Moreover, seeing such life-size and tangible figures must also have influenced perceptions about spectators' own bodies. This is what has been called the shock of the new: confronting something you have never seen before creates a tension that enables all kinds of new ideas, experiences and changes. It thus becomes possible to step outside cultural frameworks, which creates new thinking space.
So our love of innovation goes back to our ancestors. Can we actually still experience that shock of the new?
It's paradoxical: amid an overabundance of stuff and experiences, even now we are still desperate for that shock of the new. It has taken on a very different meaning but the need for innovation is, I think, inherently human. That desire for the unknown also has a downside and partly explains why consumer society keeps on going. People buy stuff, travel far afield or watch science fiction just to be overwhelmed with new impressions. The corona pandemic made this global material connectedness very tangible and also demonstrated its vulnerability. This power and powerlessness of being connected runs like a thread through world history.
As a committee member for the Ammodo Science Award 2022, what did you look out for?
To do groundbreaking research, you have to lay claim to different fields of expertise and thus work in a truly interdisciplinary way. The Award was given to iHub at Radboud University: a multidisciplinary team doing groundbreaking research into digitisation processes. Humanities scholars such as philosophers, linguists, and historians form the basis and they collaborate with social scientists, legal scholars, computer scientists, and educationalists, among others. The bundling of all these perspectives and disciplines makes all the difference. I also notice this in my own research. The fact that I can work on chemical analysis one day and on Horace the next is of enormous added value.
In my opinion, we are all deeply interested in the questions: where did we come from, what are we on earth for, where are we going? These existential questions are part of the condition humaine and are needed to understand world history, including today's digitalisation. The humanities are ideally equipped to conduct research on those important fundamental questions. But then researchers must continue to leave their islands.
Published on 7 March 2022.
Photos: Florian Braakman
