Pasts Imperfect (10.8.26).

This week, Kimberly Cassibry and Elizabeth Macaulay discuss the architectural history and political messaging of triumphal arches. Then, a new book looks at W.E.B. Du Bois and Ancient Rome; researchers discover residues of anesthesia on 14th century surgical scissors and tweezers from Ming China; new open access books on polychromy in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages and another on Greek inscriptions in early Christianity; a new Champa Relief from Vietnam; recovering cochineal from ancient Peruvian textiles, new ancient world journals, and much more.

Trump’s Roman Arch? By Kimberly Cassibry and Elizabeth Macaulay

On September 24, 2026, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) abruptly halted consultation work with local governments assessing the impact of Trump's proposed arch on historical structures. This was the last hurdle to starting construction on the president's latest building project. The extremely short public response period already ended and there will now be a submission of comments to the Secretary of the Interior. But the court of popular opinion remains open. A Washington Post poll this summer found that only 21% of Americans stand firmly in support of the 250-foot arch. Like most ideas in the United States right now, this one has inspired headlines and hot takes. The monument has become so widely known that it has a Wikipedia entry, despite the fact that construction is just beginning. And yet, architectural historians know all too well that regardless of the political maelstrom surrounding the new arch, the Trump administration’s designs for it are neither novel nor unique.

Trump's arch is only the most recent in a long history of monuments proposed during moments of deep division as a way to promote unity—or at least the illusion of it. And the triumphal arch—the most Roman and imperial of monuments—is an architectural form uniquely suited to signaling this ideal. In fact, triumphal arches have always had this function.

Monuments are rhetorical landmarks with a dash of PR. The Roman Senate's arch for the emperor Titus in the first century CE, for instance, downplayed a recent civil war. To distract from the recent internecine conflict, the arch emphasized instead the success of Titus’ father, the emperor Vespasian, in suppressing a dangerous rebellion in Judaea, the First Jewish War (66-73 CE). The sculptures in relief within the interior of the arch show the Menorah from the Temple in Jerusalem being paraded through Rome's streets in a triumphal procession, while Titus stands head and shoulders above everyone else in his fancy chariot. Not exactly fake news, but not exactly the whole truth either.

In the early fourth century CE, the Senate again used an arch to signal solidarity to the Roman people. The Senate's arch for Constantine, built after his victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312—and dedicated in 315— praised the emperor for avenging the republic against a tyrant and his faction. The arch’s sculptures show Constantine holding court in Rome after routing Maxentius, his former co-ruler. Their power dispute brought warfare to the very heart of the empire and its capital city, yet the arch reassured the public that the government was stable and back to functioning normally. It was a half-truth at best.

Despite the doublespeak defining these monuments, their innovative designs have influenced political art and architecture for over 2,000 years. For anyone walking through the Arch of Titus, the parading emperor and soldiers appear in motion on both sides of the passageway. This ancient version of virtual reality became all the more vivid with added paint: bright yellow pigments survive on the Menorah.

Because the Arch of Titus was embedded in a medieval fortress until the 1820s, it was not a direct model for many early modern arches. But it inspired Renaissance architects to publish reconstruction drawings in their treatises on classical architecture. Its passageway sculptures, which have always been visible, appeared in books and prints that circulated throughout Europe; they provided the template for later images of triumphal processions. While later architects borrowed the single-bay form from this arch (and eventually from the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, too), its most enduring influence is that its sculptures solidified the association of arches with triumph and victory.

The Arch of Constantine also set a standard for art design. It is Rome's largest triumphal arch at nearly 70 feet tall and 85 feet wide with a capacious surface to style. The architect came up with an ancient version of a maximal gallery installation. Framed sculptures are stacked from top to bottom with statues added for a multi-media effect using marbles from “good” emperors like Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. It takes a superior design to make a monument memorable for more than its falsehoods. In terms of aesthetics, Trump's arch doesn't resemble these groundbreaking monuments from ancient Rome. The proposed arch is missing their lengthy Latin inscriptions, abundant sculptures, and intricate architectural details. 

The proposed arch is, to put it simply, derivative and generic.

The most derivative feature is the size. Colossal scale is nothing new. In the 19th century, Napoleon was the first to supersize triumphal arches with his iconic Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile (1806–1836) rising just over 160 feet tall in Paris. All colossal arches built after this one—including the Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang, North Korea (1982)—have followed Paris's lead more than Rome's. Making the U.S. Triumphal Arch a few feet taller than its competitors by supersizing the statues on top is not game-changing, especially since the Arc de Triomphe used to have them, too.

Not all modern arches are cookie cutter Arc de Triomphes, however. Other nations have moved in a bold new direction, with Mexico City leading the way. For the Monument to the Revolution (finished in 1938), architects repurposed a legislative building abandoned mid-construction, intentionally stripped away classical features like columns, and added modern sculptures of Mexico's people. The result is a colossal triumphal arch with a gleaming dome, 220 feet tall.  Rather than representing unity under one leader, it speaks to local history. Its design is unique to Mexico City.

Rather than taking a cue from our innovative neighbor to the south, proponents of Trump's arch argue that Washington needs a triumphal arch so as to resemble Europe's capitals. Critics claim that such arches should be excluded from DC's skyline because an imperial monument has no place in a bastion of democracy. Yet these monuments already stand throughout the US, from New York to New Orleans. Communities have used them to honor national leaders like George Washington as well as fallen soldiers from World War I. The monument's associations have become more broadly honorific than strictly triumphal, judging from the Gateway Arch (1965) dedicated to the American people in St. Louis. Rising 630 feet tall in sleek metal, this most innovative of America's arch monuments admittedly took inspiration from an ambitious monument planned for Fascist Rome.

Like Trump's arch right now, the so-called E42 Arch is known primarily through images. It was supposed to be the key landmark of a world's fair planned for 1942. The imagined arch is now famous for being the fair's logo in posters and architectural models. The arch's streamlined design took shape through an open competition among Italy's best architects, who thought that the Roman Empire's signature monument should be updated for the twentieth century. The Fascist party's policies were certainly abhorrent—anti-immigrant, anti-semitic, and pro-cult-of-the-leader. But Italy has always been a culturally confident nation, especially when it comes to architecture.

Cutting-edge design does not serve Trump’s ethos and aesthetic. The 2025 Executive Order, "Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again (14344)," demands a return to classical and other historical architectural styles for federal buildings. Like so many Trump initiatives (from tariffs to manufacturing), this order and the proposed arch look backward rather than forward, as if the US can return to a now-lost golden era. Designing for the future takes guts and boldness. Like a bland blend of European designs from the era of Napoleon with some American symbols, the arch is more “Made in Europe” than “Made in Rome” or “Made in America.” Yet the proposed design may not be the one that is built, given that the plan keeps changing, and even the final proposal may not be the end of the story. And as Roman memory sanctions point to: after a building goes up, anyone's name can be carved on it, and that name can be erased again.

Critics can take heart that future generations will decide the monument's fate and perhaps its legacy. For as long as triumphal arches have been built, they have also been repurposed. Roman arches for the Severan dynasty had their inscriptions and portraits recarved after a princely squabble ended in fratricide. More recent triumphal arches, like the Fascist Monument to Victory in Bolzano, Italy, have also had their meanings changed. The Bolzano arch is no longer a testament to Fascism. Electronic signs and documentary exhibits now warn about the dangers of dictatorships. Conflict can also lead to redesign. In Kyiv, the Ukrainian government removed statues symbolizing friendship from a titanium arch (1982) that celebrated the Soviet Union's 60th anniversary. Formerly known as the "Peoples' Friendship Arch," the monument is now called the "Freedom Arch of the Ukrainian People." Monuments are commemorative entities, but the memories transmitted always change over time. 

In the same way that Romans who lived through successive civil wars recognized the political spin of triumphal arches, we already know that our public monuments preserve selective memories and can even plant false ones. The public commentary about Trump's arch– and its physical form, if it is ever built–will give future historians ample food for thought on Trump’s definition of “unity” during his second term. They may also reconsider whether the United States was truly, as the monument proposes: "one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”[1] 

[1] In June of 1954, President Eisenhower added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, which was formulated in the late 19th century. Even national mottoes change (See Kruse, One Nation Under God, 2015).

Public Humanities and a Global Antiquity

In Archaeology Magazine, they cover a new article on the anesthesia residue found on medieval Chinese medical instruments from the Ming Dynasty. The authors look at a pair of scissors and tweezers dating to the Ming Dynasty (c. 1368–1644 CE) from a tomb made for the physician Xia Quan in Jiangyin, China. The tomb dates to between 1348 and 1411. Using Raman scattering microscopy, the scientists recovered traces of aconitine, which may have been administered as a topical anesthetic during surgery.

In book news, there is a new, open access edited volume that looks at The Many Histories of Naqada: Archaeology and Heritage in an Upper Egyptian Region. And another new open access edited volume that addresses late antique and medieval polychromy, Colour Concept “Secoli bui” a colori: Codici cromatici e architetture dipinte nell’età tardoantica e medievale (Archaeopress 2026). It is edited by Elisabetta Neri, Paolo Liverani, and Fulvio Cervini and they remark that, "This volume examines the role of colour in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, exploring its use in art and architecture through archaeological, art historical and scientific research. It highlights how colour was produced, perceived and experienced, and its importance in shaping later visual and cultural traditions."

In epigraphy news, editors Christiane Zimmermann and Cilliers Breytenbach have a new, open access book on Ancient Christianity on Stone Greek Inscriptions and the Early Church. As they note, "This volume contributes to the reconstruction of the history of ancient Christians on the basis of an exemplary selection of Greek inscriptions," with fifteen essays addressing epigraphic remains from Greece and Asia Minor. And in Vietnam, Arkeonews reports that "Vietnamese Archaeologists May Have Found Da Nang’s Earliest Known Champa Relief." The Southeast Asian Champa civilization often carved reliefs made of sandstone that can depict Buddhist figures or Hindu deities. The preliminary testing dates the relief to around the 700-899 CE.

We wanted to give a shout out to two highly anticipated books, Mathias Hanses' Black Cicero: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Ancient Romans in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries and Kelly Nguyen's Critical Classicality in Vietnam and the Diaspora, which come out this month. Both are part of the "Classical Presences" series, which focuses on reception and "use, and abuse, of the classical past." For more on Black Cicero, see the book note below.

Over at the Duke digital magazine for the College of Arts and Sciences, they zoom in on the work of Anna Sheinberg, a Ph.D. candidate in Chemistry,working with the Duke Chemistry Department and the Nasher Museum of Art to uncover info about ancient textiles in the museum collection from present-day Peru.

They were specifically focused on the cochineal-dyed textiles. Cochineals are small insects that live on prickly pear cacti native to Mexico and South America and have been harvested and used by Indigenous communities for thousands of years to produce vibrant red dyes. Being able to determine whether the textiles were in fact dyed with red pigment from cochineals could help the researchers understand who created the textiles originally.

You can watch a video about the process here. Side note that the Mediterranean version of this shade of red was made from kermes. And just remember that some of your favorite cocktails use or have used cochineal bugs!

Peter Adamson's History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps Podcast, featured back in our May 4th 2023 issue, marks its 500th episode with a series of five gap-filling conversations including Marguerite Johnson on Sappho,   Melissa Lane on Herodotus and Thucydides, and Troels Engberg-Pedersen on St Paul and the Stoics. And there's now an exciting spinoff: Pages of History, which casts discussions of global pre-modern philology in conjunction with the  Cluster of Excellence on Cross-Cultural Philology, at LMU-Munich. Three episodes are already out: Lorraine Daston on Philology as a Sciencec, Beate Kellner on Cain and Abel; and Holger Gzella on Aramaic. Have a listen!

New Ancient World Journals by @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social‬
American Journal of Philology Vol. 147, No. 3 ( 2026) #openaccess
Frammenti sulla Scena (online) Vol. 6 (2025) #openaccess
Frankfurter elektronische Rundschau zur Altertumskunde No. 59 (2026) #openaccess
Hesperia Vol.95, No. 3 (2026)
Historia Vol. 75, No. 4 (2026)
Journal of Roman Archaeology Vol. 39, No. 1 (2026) #openaccess NB Tamara Lewit “Not Just a Housekeeper: A New Look at the Work of the Roman Vilica”
Λογεῖον Vol. 15 (2025) #openaccess
Minerva No. 39 (2026) #openaccess
OANNES Vol. 8, No. 2 (2026)
Religion in the Roman Empire Vol. 12, No. 2 (2026) The Galenic MS Vlatadon 14 & Its Significance in the Light of Ancient Medicine, Philosophy and Christianity
Revue de philologie, de littérature et d'histoire anciennes Vol. 99, No. 1 (2026)
TAPA Vol. 156, No. 2 (2026)
Doctor Virtualis Vol. 21 No. 1 (2026) Storia e Medioevo
Intellectual History of the Islamicate World Vol.14, No. 1 (2026) The Joining of the Ways: The Abrahamic Crucible in Early Abbasid Iraq
Méthexis Vol. 38, No. 2 (2026)
Oriens Vol. 54 Nos. 1-2 (2026)
Dead Sea Discoveries Vol. 33, No. 3 (2026) Józef T. Milik’s Contributions to the Study of Enoch
Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Vol. 24, No. 2 (2026) Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation, 25 Years On
Journal of Biblical Literature Vol, 145, No. 1 (2026)
Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Historia Vol. 71, No.1 (2026) #openaccess Faces of the Gods, Gods without Faces
Bulletin of the Asia Institute Vol. 32 (2026) #openaccess
Journal of Near Eastern Studies Vol. 85, No. 2 (2026)
Iranica Antiqua Vol. 60 (2025)
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft Vol. 176, No. 2 (2026)
AOQU Vol. 7, No. 1 (2026) #openaccess Traduzioni e riscritture di materia troiana fra Medioevo e Rinascimento
Francia Vol. 52 (2025) #openaccess
The Medieval Chronicle Vol. 18, No. 2 (2026)
postmedieval Vol. 17, No. 2 (2026) NB "Caroline Bynum is a child of the Sixties: A conversation"
Antiquity Vol. 100, No. 413 (2026)
Arheologia = Археологія No. 3 (2026) #openaccess
Praehistorische Zeitschrift Vol. 101, No. 2 (2026)

Lectures, Workshops, and Exhibitions

On Thursday, October 8, 2026 at 2:00 PM - 5:45 PM BST, The annual UCL-KCL Seminar 2026 will focus on the Book of Enoch. "Fragments of the original Aramaic text of this important apocryphon were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. A full text of the Book of Enoch is preserved in Ethiopic translation. This seminar features three acknowledged experts on Enochic traditions." Register here for online or in person attendance.

The Institute of Classical Studies Ancient Philosophy Seminar on Monday, October 12, 2026 at 2pm BST= 9am EDT features Lea Cantor on "Aristotle’s ambiguous attitudes toward 'Asians.'" It is hybrid: Online & Room 261, Second Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. Sign up here.

On Thursday, October 15, 2026 at 6:30 PM (Rome Time), Anthony Grafton will give the 2026 International Prize for History Lecture for the American Academy in Rome. He will be speaking in-person and on zoom regarding "The Undocumented Past: Conjectural History in Renaissance Europe." Register for the Zoom here.

Booknote: Black Cicero by Mathias Hanses

Black Cicero examines the Black American scholar and activist W. E. B. Du Bois's lifelong engagement with the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. To Du Bois, Cicero's life and his opposition to Caesar provided a foundational example of anti-tyrannical thought and action, a tradition of which he considered himself a part alongside his ancient Roman forerunner. Despite this continuity in Du Bois's extensive oeuvre, the image of ancient Mediterranean life that informed his self-fashioning as a "Black Cicero" underwent tremendous changes as the nineteenth century yielded to the twentieth.

Considering Cicero a White man at the start of his career, Du Bois later came to advertise ancient Rome's multi-continental positioning at the intersection of Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as the diversity of that space's populations. Du Bois travelled, read, and interacted with thinkers from across these same continents—and the Americas—evincing a complex intertextual rhizome within which Cicero ultimately turned non-White. From the Jim Crow era, through World War I and II, to the Cold War and his move to newly independent Ghana at the end of his life, Du Bois celebrated those who pursued liberty, and he condemned imitators of the imperialist oppression that he observed in the Roman empire. 

At the same time, Black Cicero also focuses on the distortions inherent in presenting Cicero as a defender of liberty, given the fact that the orator and philosopher stood up mainly for the freedoms of the Roman elite. The book embeds this duality in the discourses about the ancient Mediterranean that were proliferating in Du Bois's time. Probing Du Bois's attractive yet also notably imprecise view of a freedom-loving Cicero, this book traces how one of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries' most engaging thinkers and compelling writers made ancient Rome relevant to discussions about White supremacism and anti-Blackness, to decolonial and anti-colonial thought, to communism, and to the fight against fascism.

For all those interested in joining the conversation about Du Bois and Cicero, Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research is hosting a panel on the book at 1pm ET on Thursday, November 12, 2026. At the invitation of Emily Greenwood, Mathias Hanses will be engaging in conversation with Hannah Čulík-Baird, Harriet Fertik, Andrea Kouklanakis, Jesse McCarthy, Jackie Murray, Dan-el Padilla Peralta, and Diontay Wolfries-Thomas. The event will be livestreamed on their YouTube channel: youtube.com/hutchinscenter