Craftspeople churned out miniature reproductions that brought these statues before the eyes of people who would otherwise never see them. Some of the most famous statues of the Greek world – masterpieces such as Athena Parthenos by Phidias, Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles, and Tyche of Antioch by Eutychides – spawned veritable souvenir industries, not just at the sites where these cult statues stood but also, in some cases, elsewhere. For people who could not travel to such sites in person – which included the majority of the empire’s inhabitants – reproductions were a key means for visualising their physical appearance and cultural significance. In the Roman Empire, which lacked a print culture, let alone digital media, souvenirs were crucial in disseminating knowledge of places, be they cities, monuments, buildings or statues. By taking ancient souvenirs seriously, we can glimpse how Romans themselves understood their empire and its cultural heritage. Souvenirs perform vital work in shaping how people come to know their world and its landmarks. Souvenirs then and now offer a remarkable window on how people develop shared visions of places, how they conceive of such foundational ideas as authenticity, and how we create emotionally meaningful personal relationships. Indeed, a broad range of souvenirs commemorating places emerges from the archaeological record. In the Roman Empire, the common languages of Greek ( koine) and Latin, standardised coinage and centralised bureaucracy increased the ease of travel, all of which helped a culture of souvenirs flourish. Souvenirs, an omnipresent facet of modern tourism, trace their roots to the ancient Mediterranean.
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