This workshop is organized within the framework of the FWF-funded project “Caskets of Late Antiquity: Syncretic Images, Ritual Contexts and Production Techniques in a Time of Change” (FWF P 36846-G), based at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Building on the pioneering research of Helmuth Buschhausen and Dorottya Gáspár, the project offers the first systematic re-evaluation of late antique caskets and their fittings across the Danube provinces and neighbouring regions.

The workshop brings together archaeologists, art historians, and archaeometry specialists to discuss these small yet richly decorated objects, whose iconographic programmes juxtapose pagan and Christian imagery and open a window onto the religious plurality and private devotion of late Roman society. Rather than treating caskets merely as decorative artefacts, participants approach them as material evidence of craftsmanship, ritual practice, and identity.

Drawing on new finds, museum collections, and fresh analytical methods, speakers will present the latest research on the production, iconography, find contexts, and material analysis of late antique caskets, offering a comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of this distinctive category of late Roman material culture.

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