Claire Heseltine (KCL) - 2021-22 Students
claire.heseltine3@gmail.com

Small gods: representations of deities on personal items from 1st-century CE Campania

This PhD project will study personal items decorated with images of the gods found in 1st-century CE Campania, approaching them as religious artefacts which enable communication between divine referent and believer. Looking at jewellery, amulets, and other small items kept about the body, it will focus on how miniature representations of deities and their attributes serve the needs of individual religious agents by creating intimate and accessible divine images. By examining personal belief and ritual rather than formal civic and domestic cult, it will focus on the interaction between marginalised communities and Roman religion, inclusive of both ‘folk religion’ and magic.