Roman Stone Sculpture in the Territory of Today’s Slovenia. Discoveries in the Papers of Slovenian Researchers

The article presents an overview of the most important publications about the Roman stone sculpture in current Slovenia, presented by Slovenian researchers since 2000. A book entitled Zakladi tisočletij issued in 1999 was chosen as a starting point, which is a synthesis of the previous research in archaeology in the Slovenian territory. In the years 2014 and 2015, the public institutions of Ljubljana celebrated the 2000th anniversary of Emona, although the Roman colony (Colonia Iulia Emona) was founded perhaps already in the time of Octavian. To celebrate the anniversary, many studies were released on the subject. Regarding the monuments from Emona, for a Late Roman male head the identification with Constantius Chlorus or Licinius was proposed, while a second work examines a gilded bronze full-length portrait of a man in a toga and clarifies its funerary context. A review of older findings together with the new archaeological investigations allowed the reconstruction of the forum of Celeia (Municipium Claudium Celeia) with its decoration. The Roman inscriptions from Celeia and its ager were published in an epigraphic corpus. In the context of the Roman necropolis of Šempeter in Savinjska dolina, a new reconstruction of the Arcade Tomb was proposed. For selected monuments were suggested new iconographic interpretations: the side panels of the Spectatii aedicula in Šempeter, a funerary stela of Pompeia Matrona from Celeia, a relief of Selene and Endymion from Celeia, as well as a funerary monument at Gornji Grad. A careful examination of the portrait of Lucius Verus from the Borl/Ankenstein Castle, not far from Poetovio (Colonia Ulpia Traiana Poetovio), has shown that this long-supposed ancient sculpture is an unfinished copy from the second half of the 18th century in Rome. A new model of production and distribution of Roman monuments was derived from a new examination of the quarries (Šmartno in Pohorje) and of the stonework workshops of Poetovio. New studies have been published on all four typologies of the funerary monuments in Poetovio (stelae, sarcophagi, ossuaria, and aediculae); to be specially mentioned the Ma]sculus stela and Late Roman Convivium sarcophagus from Poetovio.