ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on ancient sculpture, exploring how touch could be exploited as an epistemological "touchstone" for probing the ontological status of statues: the three-dimensional forms of classical naturalism. It argues that both encouraged and responded to the fantasy of a sculpted object transformed into a tangible, touching and conscious subject. The chapter turns from life-size sculpture to miniature engraved gems: it surveys how the value of such finely worked objects worked in tandem with their function as seal-stones. It shows that this combination of tactile replication and bodily intimacy goes hand in hand with the use of the seal ring as a metaphor for haptic models of sense perception in Greek philosophy. The chapter explores the cognitive affordances of the seal-impression in more detail, all as a figure for the haptics of Graeco-Roman visual culture.
