This book began to take shape following a conference on the Statue of Zeus at Olympia held at the University of Queensland in July 2008. In line with the main themes of the conference, the book has two fundamental aims: the first is to recognise the unsurpassed reputation of the Zeus in antiquity, to move beyond the framework provided by the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and to treat the famous statue in depth, as befits its unique importance in ancient times; the second aim is to employ a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives in the hope of capturing more accurately than before something of that unique importance. The book is aimed at academic specialists in a variety of disciplines (such as art, archaeology, history, literature, and cultural poetics), though it is also intended to be accessible to undergraduates and certainly to research students. The audience will primarily be one interested in classical antiquity, but there are chapters which trace the story and influence of the Zeus through the Byzantine, Renaissance, and early modern periods, and into more recent centuries in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
About the Author: Janette McWilliam is a Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She is a social historian of Republican and Imperial Rome, and of several of the provincial cultures of the early Roman Empire. Janette is also interested in Roman art, Roman law, and Etruscan civilization. She has recently been working with digital and other emerging technologies, particularly for the teaching of Latin. Sonia Puttock is a Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She is curator of the RD Milns Antiquities Museum and her main research areas are Greek and Roman art and archaeology, along with Roman Britain. Tom Stevenson is a Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He is at heart a historian of late Republican and early Imperial Rome but has published numerous articles on Greek and Roman art. Rashna Taraporewalla holds an MA from the University of London, England, and a PhD from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, where she has taught for several years. Her major research field is the relationship between sanctuary sites and polis identity in ancient Greece.