Jun. Prof. Dr. Katharina Meinecke
Oct 2023 - March 2024
Research Project: The Caliph as a Late Antique Sovereign. Visualizing Umayyad Political Rule in Objects of Prestige
The Umayyads, Islam's first dynasty (r. AD 661-750), were a global player at the crossroads: geographically and culturally between east and west, historically between antiquity and the Middle Ages. How does a new government represent its political rule in such an age of transition? At the RomanIslam Center, I wish to finalize a book project which will explore Umayyad royal representation in visual and material culture from their heartland in the Middle East. While the first part of the book explores the representation of Umayyad rule, the second part discusses possible modes of transfer that led to the integration of pre-Islamic elements into Umayyad material and visual culture. Umayyad representation in objects of prestige – representative architecture and precious artifacts – is characterized by the appropriation of pre-Islamic elements from the Greco-Roman-Byzantine Mediterranean and the Sasanian east, reflecting the extent of their caliphate. A detailed comparison between the Umayyad images and their possible models reveals how the Umayyads used the appropriation of pre-Islamic iconographic motifs to express their "royal identity" (Matthew Canepa) as well as the Islamication of their empire. In Hamburg, I will work on the final chapter of the book in which I want to put the Umayyad appropriation of pre-Islamic motifs into a wider perspective by using globalization theory. Therefore, a strong focus of my work will be on comparing the representation of political rule in various empires of Afro-Eurasia in the 'long Late Antiquity'.
Profile
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Katharina Meinecke is Juniorprofessor of Mediterranean Archaeology at Leipzig University. As a classical archaeologist, she has a wide range of research interests including Hellenistic sculpture, Roman funerary culture, digital visual culture studies, as well as visual and material cultures of the 'long Late Antiquity' from a global perspective. For her PhD thesis on Roman sarcophagi in their original context, completed at the Humboldt-University of Berlin in 2009, she was awarded a one-year travelling fellowship ('Reisestipendium') of the German Archaeological Institute. As a post-doc, she began investigating the pre-Islamic tradition in Umayyad visual culture. She has worked on the architectural decoration of Qasr al-Mshatta in Jordan, while in her habilitation thesis, completed at the University of Vienna in 2018, she focused on appropriation and transfer processes of pre-Islamic iconographies in Umayyad royal representation. She explores the potentials of globalization theory as a concept for studying ancient visual cultures and has organized conferences in Durham and Leipzig on this topic. She is currently director of two projects concerned with digital reconstructions of Hellenistic sculpture, the so-called Biter Group in the British Museum and the historical plaster cast of the Farnese Bull in the Antikenmuseum Leipzig. Before joining Leipzig University, Katharina has held positions at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, the Technical University in Berlin, the University of Vienna, as well as a guest professorship at Masaryk University in Brno.
CV
Selected Publications
Meinecke, K. (2023), "Ornamental Surfaces: A 'Global Trend' in Late Antique Afro-Eurasia", in: Foletti, Ivan / Okáčová, Marie/ Palladino, Adrien, eds., A Radical Turn? Reappropriation, Fragmentation, and Variety in the Postclassical World (3rd–8th Centuries) (Convivium Supplementum), Brno: Brepols, 98–117.
Foletti, Ivan / Meinecke, Katharina (2021), "From Sarapis to Christ to the Caliph. Faces as Re-Appropriation of the Past", in: Elsner, Jaś / Wood, Rachel, eds., Imagining the Divine: Exploring Art in Religions of Late Antiquity across Eurasia, London: The British Museum, 111–132.
Meinecke, Katharina (2020a), "Circulating Images: Late Antiquity's Cross-Cultural Visual koiné", in: Guidetti, Fabio / Meinecke Katharina, eds., A Globalised Visual Culture? Towards a Geography of Late Antique Art, Oxford: Oxbow, 321-339.
Meinecke, Katharina (2020b), "Umayyad Visual Culture and its Models", in: Marsham, Andrew, ed., The Umayyad World, London: Routledge, 103-139.
Meinecke, Katharina (2020c), "A Sacred Sovereign in the Late Antique Kosmos of Power? Continuity and Change in Umayyad Images of Rulers", in: Korn, Lorenz / İvren, Çiğdem, eds., Encompassing the Sacred in Islamic Art (Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie 6), Wiesbaden: Reichert, 43-61.
Meinecke, Katharina (2018), "Tigerjagd in Tulln. Zu einer Jagdszene im Sepulkralbereich", in: Schörner, Günther / Meinecke, Katharina, eds., Akten des 16. Österreichischen Archäologentages am Institut für Klassische Archäologie der Universität Wien vom 25. bis 27. Februar 2016 (Wiener Forschungen zur Archäologie 17), Wien: Phoibos, 325-335.
Meinecke, Katharina (2016a), "Die Bauornamentik von Mschatta", in: Cramer, Johannes / Perlich, Barbara / Schauerte, Günther, eds., Qasr al-Mschatta: Ein frühislamischer Palast in Jordanien und Berlin Vol. 1 (Berliner Beiträge zur Bauforschung und Denkmalpflege 16), Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 161-187.
Meinecke, Katharina (2016b), "Katalog der Bauornamentik", in: Cramer, Johannes / Perlich, Barbara / Schauerte, Günther, eds., Qasr al-Mschatta: Ein frühislamischer Palast in Jordanien und Berlin Vol. 2 (Berliner Beiträge zur Bauforschung und Denkmalpflege 16), Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 59-195.
Meinecke, Katharina (2014a), Sarcophagum posuit: Römische Steinsarkophage im Kontext (Sarkophag-Studien 7), Ruhpolding: Rutzen.
Meinecke, Katharina (2014b), "The Encyclopaedic Illustration of a New Empire: Graeco-Roman-Byzantine and Sasanian Models on the Facade of Qasr al-Mshatta", in: Birk, Stine / Myrup Kristensen, Troels / Poulsen, Birte, eds., Using Images in Late Antiquity, Oxford: Oxbow, 283-300.