Miscellaneous Objects
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Book Series
Jerash Papers, vol. 15
- Pages: approx. 142 p.
- Size:156 x 234 mm
- Illustrations:26 b/w, 96 col.
- Language(s):English, French, German
- Publication Year:2027
- € 60,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-62555-3
- Hardback
- Forthcoming (Feb/27)
- € 60,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-62556-0
- E-book
- Forthcoming
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Subject(s)
BIO
Stefanie Becht is an archaeologist specialized in Roman bronze casting. She was the field director of the excavations of the workshop in the temple of Zeus in Jerash from 2021 to 2023. Currently she works as a research assistant at Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg.
Gerhard Zimmer is professor emeritus at the KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and a renowned expert on ancient bronze casting. He was the director of the DFG-funded-project for the research on the Jerash workshop.
Summary
Excavations carried out beneath the Temple of Zeus at the site of Roman Gerasa have revealed a striking testimony to bronze statuary production in the ancient city. First identified by Jacques Seigne’s French mission and later confirmed by the University of Eichstätt Ingolstadt (2021–2023), this temporary workshop once served the ambitious casting of the monumental bronze Zeus for the new mid-second-century temple. This volume for the first time offers an overview of the site, and explores how its sequence of rooms, together with casting pits, firing installations, and mould fragments, offers an exceptional glimpse into the organization and techniques of large-scale bronze production on the sacred terrace.
The authors also trace the scholarly collaboration that enabled renewed study of this workshop, linking Seigne’s discoveries with Gerhard Zimmer’s expertise in ancient bronze-casting technologies. Viewed within the city’s vibrant craft economy, the workshop illustrates how external specialists worked alongside local artisans, relied on regional suppliers, and contributed to knowledge transfer in a flourishing urban centre. Long known for its colonnades, Gerasa emerges here as a city equally shaped by skilled labour and sophisticated metallurgical practice.
