The LoCiS project will investigate the rich but understudied local portrait cultures of ancient Western Asia with the aim of determining how they reflect local and regional entanglements with and responses to different imperial hegemonies. LoCiS aims to reveal new knowledge about intersecting identities on an individual, local and regional level through a long durée perspective with a global historical outlook. The thousands of surviving portraits have not been studied comprehensively - neither diachronically, nor in contexts or in cross-regional perspectives. LoCiS aims at offering unprecedented insights into the multilayered narratives of the varied individual experiences in antiquity.

The dataset containing all collected portraits will be made available through an Open Access database and forms the foundation for exploring the complex narratives of lived experience in antiquity. In doing so, LoCiS contributes to a materially grounded rethinking of classical antiquity, advancing a decolonizing approach that challenges traditional paradigms in the field.

The project will be involving a substantial group of international scholars, postdoctoral fellows and PhD students.