Intersecting identities under Imperial rule in Western Asia as expressed in local portrait cultures (1st c. BCE-5th c. CE)
LoCiS investigates the rich yet understudied local portrait cultures of ancient Western Asia to uncover how these visual traditions reflect local and regional interactions with various imperial powers. By examining thousands of surviving portraits across six centuries, the project aims to illuminate intersecting identities at individual, local, and regional levels from a long-term historical perspective with global relevance. Through comprehensive quantification and contextual analysis, LoCiS builds a robust, chronologically anchored corpus that captures the diversity of this visual heritage.
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