GRAFO ANALÍTICO

The four subquestions posed at the beginning of this thesis have been operationalised and answered in the previous chapter. Now the focus will be on answering the central research question: What social norms, relations and values does jewellery signify regarding women in the Roman Empire?

The two types of evidence are important to separate when we talk about what jewellery indicated: in visual culture other values, social norms and relations come forward than in the jewellery finds.

Looking at types and amount of jewellery found, certain social norms come forward, for instance that in Palmyra it was more common to wear earrings, thus to lastingly damage your body for the sake of attaching adornment. Besides, the jewellery finds focus on the upper part of the body: that is the body part wished to adorn. Wearing multiple pieces of jewellery and even multiple pieces of one specific type of jewellery was common. Most importantly, in Rome jewellery as a whole and in Palmyra certain types of jewellery proved to be linked to the female gender and jewellery was a means of gender differentiation. In Palmyra the material of the jewellery formed in addition a means of age group differentiation. For both regions it appears that, despite the wealth that could have been demonstrated by precious jewellery items, in the burial context jewellery was not used as a status marker of the deceased or as a means of conspicuous consumption by the families staging the burials. Looking at the sculptural representations, a big difference between Rome and Palmyra is visible with regard to the amount and types of jewellery represented. Overall Rome is characterised by an absence or strict limitation of jewellery on sculptural representations. The most important form of jewellery that is visible, is the diadem, which turns out to be related to the religious sphere, the wearers were for instance represented as personification of a goddess. Being an attribute of the divine, this type of jewellery was accepted. The female busts of

108 Palmyra are characterised by the conscious and even abundant display of jewellery, the minimum amount of jewellery pieces on a bust is two. In some cases there are multiple pieces of one type of jewellery found, it was for example not uncommon to decorate the entire rim of an ear with earrings.

As was established in the first chapter on the basis of the investigation of the literary sources, jewellery indeed is an important element in the representation and symbolic expression of female identities. The sculptures in both regions can be established as being gender-specific. In Palmyra the jewellery attire made female busts gender-specific, going hand in hand with other feminine attributes and gestures, while men are scarcely seen wearing jewellery. In Rome the gender specific-ness can be explained in two ways. First, when a form of jewellery is present on the sculptures, i.e. the pierced earlobes and the specific type of diadems, they were clearly forms of jewellery reserved for women. Second, because the overall amount of sculptures with a form of jewellery is so small, the absence of jewellery in itself was gender- specific, in the sense that not displaying jewellery reflected the female ideal.

The difference in the statues between Rome and Palmyra, i.e. the presence versus the general absence of jewellery, is the result of different values, codes and conventions in the core and the periphery. The norm in Rome did not correspond to the norm in Palmyra: gender was expressed in a different way. In Palmyra women represented with jewellery were believed corresponding to what was seen as feminine and being in accordance with the female virtues, whereas in Rome it was the other way around.

With respect to the visual culture regarding jewellery, homogeneity among the wealthier sections of Roman and Palmyrene society is thus not visible. Overall it can be said that in the way they handled jewellery as real objects of adornment and as part of sculptural representation, Rome and Palmyra developed their own traditions and practices. The negotiation process at the heart of the core-periphery model chosen in this study (see chapter four), seems to have taken place in the exchangeability of actual jewellery found in Rome and Palmyras graves, whereas in the medium of sculpture independent traditions of representations were maintained in the core and the periphery.

This study centred specifically around the social norms, relations and values that were associated with the relationship between women and jewellery. Jewellery was a signifier in the Roman Empire: the results have shown that the way jewellery was handled in the first two centuries AD offers new insights in the social norms, relations and values in that society. These values, social norms an relations, including gender constructions, structured the jewellery finds and the sculptural representations of jewellery. In Rome sculptures of women

109 with no or a very limited amount of jewellery were in conformity with the social norm, because they coincided with the prevailing feminine ideal, and by that these sculptures expressed gender constructions and relations.

It became clear that the social norms, relations and values differed per region, and that in the case of jewellery and women the core did not impose its own norms or conventions on the peripheral region. By taking jewellery as central topic, this thesis has therefore supplied new insights into the relationship between Rome as a core and Palmyra as a peripheral region. To return to the starting point of this thesis, the response of ancient authors to the relationship between women and jewellery: after conducting this research it is no longer possible to simply speak - with them - of a ‘negative’ relationship between women and jewellery as often comes forward in ancient literary sources. To label this relationship, e.g. as Pliny did, a ‘female obsession’ overlooks all the different types of women, social norms, relations and values that could be distinguished surrounding this relationship in this thesis, and, as has been shown by examples, will differ per regional social situation.

For example, when we look at the sculptural representations, there is a huge difference between the absence and strict limitation of jewellery in Rome and the presence of jewellery in Palmyra. Neither has a negative connotation though, in both regions the sculptures represented the female ideal and were expressions of gender constructions. In Palmyra the opulent display of jewellery was seen as underlining feminine virtues, even as a supplement to them. The type of sculptures proclaiming the female ideal in Palmyra would probably have not brought this message across in Rome, to viewers accustomed to not having much or any jewellery represented on their ideal of the female statue.