{"id":11372,"date":"2025-12-16T17:12:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T22:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/?p=11372"},"modified":"2026-01-12T22:31:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T03:31:44","slug":"plaster-casts-of-the-portico-from-aphrodisias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/plaster-casts-of-the-portico-from-aphrodisias\/","title":{"rendered":"Plaster Casts of the Portico from Aphrodisias: Archaeology, Politics, Museology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article presents a case study that demonstrates three essential uses\u2014archaeological, political, and museological\u2014of plaster casts in Graeco-Roman studies. The case is the Portico of Tiberius at Aphrodisias, which the Italian archaeological mission in Anatolia excavated in 1937. Casts of the architectural elements of the portico (entablature, capital, and column) were made immediately, shipped to Rome, and employed to create a one-to-one plaster reconstruction (7.5 m tall, 5.8 m wide, and 1.6 m deep) for a Fascist-period exhibition in Rome, the Mostra Augustea della Romanita<\/em>. Notwithstanding its Tiberian-period inscription, there the portico was deliberately interpreted as an Augustan monument, with a clear political intent. Both the plaster fragments and the reconstruction today belong to the collection of the Museo della Civilt\u00e0 Romana in Rome. These objects are extraordinary in their versatile functions\u2014as three-dimensional documentary replicas, propagandistic tools, and a decontextualized museum exhibit\u2014and in their capacity to represent and misrepresent their sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article presents a case study that demonstrates three essential uses\u2014archaeological, political, and museological\u2014of plaster casts in Graeco-Roman studies. The case is the Portico of Tiberius at Aphrodisias, which the Italian archaeological mission in Anatolia excavated in 1937. Casts of the architectural elements of the portico (entablature, capital, and column) were made immediately, shipped to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[904],"tags":[15,41,60,961],"issues":[977],"region":[899],"class_list":["post-11372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-culturalinteraction","tag-historyofarchaeology","tag-museologymuseumstudies","tag-cultural-heritage","issues-977","region-turkey-southern-turkey"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPlaster Casts of the Portico from Aphrodisias: Archaeology, Politics, Museology | January 2026 (130.1) | American Journal of Archaeology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/article\/plaster-casts-of-the-portico-from-aphrodisias\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Plaster Casts of the Portico from Aphrodisias: Archaeology, Politics, Museology | January 2026 (130.1) | American Journal of Archaeology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This article presents a case study that demonstrates three essential uses\u2014archaeological, political, and museological\u2014of plaster casts in Graeco-Roman studies. The case is the Portico of Tiberius at Aphrodisias, which the Italian archaeological mission in Anatolia excavated in 1937. 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