Dress and Ornaments

Dress is part of a complicated system of non-verbal communication. It is a commonplace that modern religious groups or individuals use dress to set themselves apart from the secular world or even members of their own community but, by comparison, the use of clothing in the ancient world was more subtle. This chapter presents three case studies—specialty garments and the Parthenon frieze, propaganda on the Ara Pacis Augustae, and dedications in Terracotta—that demonstrate some of the ways clothing worked in religious contexts. All three cases concern “art” objects, but what makes their interpretation relevant for our purposes is that all are from a known archaeological context that is religious in some way. The carved friezes of the Ara Pacis are generally similar in form and subject to the Greek procession frieze of the Parthenon.