Dr Ine Jacobs

jacobs
Stavros Niarchos Foundation Associate Professor of Byzantine Archaeology and Visual Culture
+44 (0)1865 288372
ine.jacobs@classics.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests

The development of the Eastern Mediterranean in late antique and Byzantine times. 

 

Research Profile

Research Activities

I was a member of the Sagalassos team (Turkey) between 2003 and 2014, director of the British Archaeological Project at Grumentum (Italy) between 2012 and 2015. I now co-direct the Kostoperska Karpa Regional Archaeological Project (FYROM) and am field director at Aphrodisias (Turkey).  Because I am an archaeologist, I mainly deal with material evidence, but I am particularly interested in how this relates to and can (or cannot) be combined with literary sources. My doctorate looked into the how and why of late antique and Early Byzantine urban development and representation. In a first postdoctoral fellowship I investigated the reciprocal relations between the drastic political and religious changes taking place in the Theodosian period on the one hand and the economic developments and general prosperity in the eastern Mediterranean on the other. Since then I have been focussing ever more on the influence of Christianity on contemporary society. I am examining how the augmenting power of bishops over their congregations is expressed in the urban fabric as well as how ordinary people enacted their personal, everyday religiosity. 

After a degree in Archaeology at Leuven (Belgium), I obtained a grant from the Research Foundation Flanders to start a DPhil. The same foundation also funded my postdoctoral research as well as a long research stay in Munich. In the meantime, I had also become Lecturer in Roman Archaeology at the University of Brussels. In October 2013, I moved to Edinburgh as a Chancellor’s Fellow in Classics. Since January 2015, I am the Associate Professor of Byzantine Archaeology and Visual Culture at Oxford.

Publications

  • Old statues, new meanings. Literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence for Christian reidentification of statuary

    JACOBS, I
    September 2020
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Byzantinische Zeitschrift
    This article examines literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence for the Christian reidentification of statuary and reliefs as biblical scenes and protagonists, saints and angels. It argues that Christian identifications were promulgated, amongst others by local bishops, to make sense of imagery of which the original identity had been lost and/or was no longer meaningful. Three conditions for a new identification are discussed: the absence of an epigraphic label, geographical and/or chronological distance separating the statue from its original context of display, and the presence of a specific attribute or characteristic that could become the prompt for reidentification. In their manipulation and modernization of older statuary, Christians showed a much greater appreciation of the statuary medium than generally assumed.

  • Village churches and donors at the end of Antiquity

    JACOBS, INE
    Edited by:
    TOTH, I, LAUXTERMANN, M
    January 2020
    |
    Chapter
    |
    Inscribing Texts in Byzantium. Continuities and Transformations

  • Asia Minor in the Long Sixth Century:

    Edited by:
    JACOBS, INE, Elton, H
    February 2019
    |
    c-book
    This volume brings together historians and archaeologists working on diverse aspects of Asia Minor in the long sixth century. They discuss topics as varied as rural prosperity, urbanism in cities large and small, frontier management, and the imperial capital of Constantinople. Many of the papers focus on the fabric of cities during this period, showing that there was much greater vitality than has often been assumed. Together, they produce a comprehensive impression of the quality of life in both city and countryside in the period shortly before the transformation of Asia Minor in the face of the Arab attacks of the seventh century.
    Late Antiquity, Asia Minor

  • Chapter 1. Introduction

    JACOBS, I, Elton, H
    Edited by:
    JACOBS, I, Elton, H
    February 2019
    |
    Chapter
    |
    Asia Minor in the Long Sixth Century Current Research and Future Directions
    Presents a comprehensive impression of the quality of life across Asia Minor during the last century or so before the end of Antiquity.
    History, late antique archaeology, Late Antiquity, Asia Minor

  • Chapter 3. Pagan-mythological statuary in sixth-century Asia Minor

    JACOBS, I
    Edited by:
    JACOBS, I, Elton, H
    February 2019
    |
    Chapter
    |
    Asia Minor in the Long Sixth Century Current Research and Future Directions
    Presents a comprehensive impression of the quality of life across Asia Minor during the last century or so before the end of Antiquity.
    History, late antiquity, late antique archaeology
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Teaching

Undergraduate teaching

Undergraduate course lecture:

  • FHS core paper: Urbanisation and Change in Complex Societies

Undergraduate course convenor:

  • FHS option: Byzantium: the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Postgraduate teaching

Postgraduate taught course options in: