The Sculptor's Workshop at Aphrodisias

The Sculptor's Workshop at Aphrodisias was located in the civic heart of the ancient city, where it occupied several rooms of a modified stoa situated north of the Bouleuterion and south of the Temple of Aphrodite. Excavations carried out between 1965 and 1970 uncovered the physical facilities for the manufacture of marble sculpture, stone-carving tools, and over 200 pieces of sculpture in various states of completion, including several "practice pieces" carved by apprentices as part of their training. The importance of this material for the field of classical archaeology lies in the unique preservation of a range of finished and unfinished statuary within an identifiable and datable production context, allowing for a fuller understanding of the production of Roman marble sculpture than has previously been possible. This study of the Sculptor's Workshop provides a full archaeological analysis of the facility and a comprehensive catalogue of the marble finds, most of which are currently unpublished. The first chapter examines the excavation history, architecture, and urban setting of the Workshop. The sculptural finds from the facility suggest that the Sculptor's Workshop specialized almost exclusively in the production of portrait sculpture and mythological statuary: the repertoire and chronology of the Workshop's output are discussed in chapters two and three. In the fourth chapter the unfinished sculptures are analyzed in terms of their technique: the evidence provided by these unfinished pieces allows hypotheses to be made concerning the working methods of the sculptors, the organization of the Workshop and the division of labor within it, and the methods used to train the apprentices. Like many of the monuments of Aphrodisias, the Sculptor's Workshop is unique only in its state of preservation: in its setting, architecture, and repertoire, however, the Workshop is quite typical for marble-working facilities in classical antiquity. This study concludes by situating the Sculptor's Workshop and its output into the larger context of ancient sculptural production through comparison with less well-preserved facilities and related material recovered from other archaeological sites.