Professor Bert Smith

My main research interests are in the art and visual cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world. My work is mainly directed at the historical interpretation of ancient visual representation and its relationship with contemporary social and political culture. In connection with my work at Aphrodisias I have a particular interest in the art and archaeology of the Greek cities of the Eastern Roman Empire. I have been engaged in the study and publication of the new marble finds from Aphrodisias since 1985. I had a British Academy/ Philip Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship in 2007-8 for aspects of this work, and with the historian Bryan Ward-Perkins was awarded an Art and Humanities Research Council grant for a project titled 'The Last Statues of Antiquity' (2009-2012) to investigate the distinctive character of statue use in late antiquity from AD 284 to 650: www.ocla.ox.ac.uk/statues. The results were published in a collaborative book, The Last Statues of Antiquity (eds. R.R.R. Smith and B. Ward-Perkins, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2016).

Art and visual cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world; historical interpretation of ancient representation and its relationship with social and political culture; archaeology of Greek cities of Eastern Roman Empire.

Lectures, classes, and graduate classes and seminars on Greek and Roman art and archaeology.