ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. The book shows that silverware evokes a wide and significant range of aspects of late antique cultural history, thereby establishing its importance for an understanding of late antique art which is grounded in the role of visual culture in this society. It offers an alternative both to a strictly archaeological approach and to art history's traditional stylistic one. There is a need to synthesize the range of approaches to silver which have previously been deployed in isolation. The book compares silver with a wide range of other forms of artistic production: ivories, mosaics (on both walls and floors), sculpture, textiles, illustrated manuscripts, glass and pottery. These comparisons balance stylistic perspectives with the iconographic and functional ties between silver and other artistic media.
