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In the year 944, two wonders arrived in Constantinople from the eastern borders of the empire: First, the Mandylion, a textile that Christ had miraculously imprinted with an image of his face, was brought to the city from Edessa. Second, to the awe of the city's inhabitants, male conjoined twins arrived from Armenia. In this article, I focus on the depiction of both events in the Madrid Skylitzes historical chronicle (Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS vitr. 26–2). My goal is to show how the multifaceted meanings of the conjoined twins and the Mandylion operated in the context of imperial rule, political intrigue, and religious authority, from the text's origin in Constantinople to the manuscript's illumination in Norman Sicily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyzes the known evidence for Byzantine engagement with what are conventionally termed "alchemical" texts, theories, and practices of the Islamic world. Much of the evidence is difficult to date. Nevertheless, the aggregated direct, indirect, and circumstantial evidence suggests at least some engagement by Greek-speaking scholars throughout the Middle Ages. This engagement took various forms, from the use of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish terminology to the adaptation of whole Arabic treatises in Greek. Sometimes the Byzantine texts emphasize their Islamicate sources, and sometimes they do not mention these sources at all. The resulting picture is still fragmentary, but it indicates that medieval Greek-speaking scholars were active in the circulation of chemical knowledge and techniques in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Byzantium, therefore, should no longer be left out of research into long-term patterns in the history of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to challenge the traditional narrative about the progression of medical knowledge from Arabic to Latin by including the role of the Byzantine world in that process. It examines critically the steady diffusion of Arabic medical knowledge throughout Byzantium by focusing on the introduction and dissemination of sugar-based potions. By studying for the first time a substantial body of mostly unedited translations of Arabic medical texts into Greek and works by Byzantine medical authors, this article argues that Byzantine literature and culture were more lively than they are given credit for and that—by medieval standards—Byzantine authors were quite open to outside influence. Moreover, it emphasizes that the subsequent use of sugar in Byzantine daily medical practice constituted a significant investment in health, especially bearing in mind the high cost involved in the cultivation, production, and transportation of sugar. Finally, it points to the regular use of sugar in medical practice from the late eleventh/early twelfth century onward, at least, in Constantinople, which suggests constant importing of the commodity, despite the fact that the first source confirming the trading of sugar in the Byzantine capital dates to the first half of the fourteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byzantium, like many other cultures, possessed a story of the origin of the crafts. Three ivory caskets in Cleveland, Saint Petersburg, and Darmstadt depict the traditional story of Adam and Eve, only they include an unusual scene of the first couple at the forge as well as an image of Plutus, the god of wealth. Examining Byzantine ideas about the discovery of the technai , this article interprets these boxes as object-genealogies, tracing their own material extravagance back into economic prehistory and eliciting wonder at the first couple's resourcefulness. The forge scene manifests a self-reflexive awareness within the artwork itself. The commodity claims to be descended from the first artifact. Romantically deriving craft labor from humanity's invention of metallurgy and farming, ivory workshops historicized a culture of consumption within the Byzantine capital. Adam and Eve's discoveries looked ahead to their own refined technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sudden fall of the Hittite Empire at the turn of the thirteenth century BCE is a major case study for political disruptions in the history of the Mediterranean, and it resulted in the profound transformation of central Anatolia, the former Hittite core territory. 1 This disruption affected the whole eastern Mediterranean, but nowhere was hit as severely as Hittite Anatolia. Hittite political legacy survived only at the eastern borderlands of the empire—the Upper Euphrates, Malatya, and Karkemiš—and only to the tenth century in northern Syria and south of the Taurus Mountains (fig. 1 ; Weeden 2013). As for central Anatolia, scholars generally concur that a degree of political complexity was reintroduced only in the eighth century BCE. Famine, mass migrations, and conflicts have been considered the main driving factors behind the sudden decrease in settlement occupation after the fall of the empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines instances and modes of interaction between monasticism and lay society in Late Byzantium. Offering a rare view of the little-known and decontextualized monastery of Linos located on Mount Papikion in Thrace, the hinterland of the empire, this study attempts to unveil the devotional practices and philanthropic activity of local communities in the fourteenth century. An anonymous donor portrait discovered in the narthex of the monastic church sheds light on the key role of lay families in making and sustaining rural monastic establishments amidst the turmoil of war, political dysfunction, and territorial shrinkage. In contextualizing and reconsidering the foundation process of the Linos Monastery, this analysis reveals the nature and magnitude of lay patronage within the broader social realities of the fourteenth century. Unlike data for other parts of the empire, the evidence on monastic renewal or production of painted decoration in Thrace tends to lack social documentation, especially in a period that has often been characterized as the age of patronage. Though numerous monastic complexes across the Byzantine countryside bear witness to an exceptional trend of generous benefactions on the part of laymen and women, the difference in the case of Linos lies in its setting on a holy mountain. A close reading of the archaeological site and the fragmentary painted decoration contributes to our understanding of women's accessibility to holy mountains through pious donations and the commissioning of their images on church walls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term enkolpion encompasses a broad category of objects—crosses, medallions adorned with Christian imagery, and miniature reliquaries, among others—worn around the neck. Protecting the wearer and providing a constant focus for prayer, enkolpia were arguably the most personal and intimate of all devotional artifacts in Byzantium. They were embraced at confession and appealed to in circumstances of danger and anxiety, intensely scrutinized, caressed, and kissed. Yet the agency of these diminutive objects was not limited to their basic religious function. Enkolpia actively participated in various forms of social interaction. They could serve as gifts, collaterals, and safe-conducts and, most important, operate as physical extensions of their owners. This article explores how the Byzantines used and related to devotional pectorals. It has two objectives: first, to recover the significance of enkolpia as a distinct category of objects; and second, to shed new light on the material culture of personal piety as a critical setting for the formation of subjectivity in Byzantium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Soundscapes of Byzantium, a collaborative effort across the world aimed at seeking to investigate the liturgical spaces of Byzantine through the scientific analysis of acoustics. The role of sound in the experience of the medieval worshipper and the association of chant, acoustics and architecture are explored. The mystagogical interpretation of worship as attested as early as late antiquity is also tackled.

This essay offers an overview of the history of the relations between science and Eastern Christianity based on Greek-language sources. The civilizations concerned are the Byzantine Empire, the Christian Orthodox communities of the Ottoman Empire, and modern Greece, as a case study of a national state. Beginning with the Greek Church Fathers, the essay investigates the ideas of theologians and scholars on nature. Neoplatonism, the theological debates of Iconoclasm and Hesychasm, the proposed union of the Eastern and Western Churches, and the complex relations with the Hellenic past all had notable impacts on the conception of science held by the Byzantine Orthodox. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the Christian Orthodox world did not actively participate in the making of the new science that was developing in modern Europe. It had to deal with the assimilation of scientific ideas produced by Western Christianity, and its main concern was the "legitimacy" of knowledge that did not originate directly from its own spiritual tradition. Finally, with regard to the Greek state, beyond the specific points of contact between the sciences and Orthodox Christianity--pertaining, for example, to materialism, evolution, and the calendar--the essay presents the constant background engagement with religion visible in most public pronouncements of scientists and intellectuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the ritual practices of icon and relic veneration, as well as the levels of mediation in the Byzantine era, as well as the language used by early Christian and Byzantine writers. It focuses on the works of authors John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite during the iconoclastic period. Also tackled are the modern scholars' theory of Byzantine haptic sight and the 2000 essay "To Say and to See: Ekphrasis and Vision in Byzantium," by Robert S. Nelson.

Byzantium's relationship with what we call “the classical tradition” is central to the development of its civilization and has been extensively discussed by Byzantinists for a number of reasons: since the fifteenth-century Renaissance, European interest in Byzantium was spurred by research on classical antiquity, and Byzantine literary culture was generally treated as a warehouse from which to retrieve information on ancient texts. In addition, Byzantine studies as a modern academic discipline was formed around the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, when the classical tradition was understood as a constituent part of modern Western culture, while ancient Greece and Rome served as political and aesthetic paradigms for the world's industrialized nations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Western medievalists have long questioned the notion that in the Middle Ages, as Jacob Burckhardt famously asserted in Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (1860), “[m]an was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation—only through some general category.” The sweeping teleological narrative of the rebirth of the autonomous self-conscious individual in the Renaissance, after its protracted medieval slumber, has been challenged by more nuanced accounts of the various ways in which personal identity and selfhood were constituted and expressed during the Middle Ages. In recent years, following Alexander Kazhdan's seminal, if contested, work on what he saw as a new sense of the individual in the Byzantine culture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Byzantinists have joined the debate and begun to explore the issues of identity, subjectivity, and individuality. Thus Byzantine selves and their formations and representations have been examined in several contexts, including autobiography, rhetoric and letter writing, and the liturgy. This essay seeks to contribute to this project by looking at the largely neglected evidence of Byzantine dedicatory epigrams and the devotional artifacts they accompany. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the suspicious death of the Abbāsid Caliph al-Abbās al-Maʾmūn. The author discusses the possibility that al-Maʾmūn was assassinated by his brother and Caliph Abū Isḥāq, Muḥammad b. Hārūn al-Muʿtaṣim bi-llah as part of a coup d'etat. Al-Muʿtaṣim's reliance on Turkish soldiers to protect him is discussed. An overview of al-Maʾmūn's will, including its prescriptions for his burial, is provided. The Abbāsids' relationship with the Byzantine Empire is discussed.

An Islamic coffin discovered in the church of Maria Spilaiotissa near the old Seljuk capital of Konya in central Anatolia bears the following Greek inscription: “Here lies the descendant of men born in the purple, Michael Amiraslan, the grandson of the great-grandson of the blessed emperor born in the purple, Kyr John Komnenos Maurozomes, the son of the humble John Komnenos.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article deals with the rural vicinity of the towns of Yavneh and Yawleh-Yam (on Israel's coastal plain) in the Byzantine period (ca. mid-fourth to mid-seventh centuries C.E.), and synthesizes archaeological data relating to the Jewish, Christian, and Samaritan populations of this region. The present study is based on literary sources and a few previous archaeological discoveries, but mainly is focused on the results of comprehensive archaeological surveys conducted in the region by the authors on behalf of Tel Aviv University since 2001. The main aim is to assemble data about the hinterland of Yavneh and Yavneh-Yam throughout their history. Inter alia, these surveys have revealed much new evidence about rural settlement in the discussed area in the Byzantine period, including some important details about the religious identity of the settlement in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the religious history of the peoples of the Negev Desert Highlands during the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods, based on archaeological evidence. In particular, it discusses the relationships and transitions among Christianity, paganism, and Islam, and the cultic practices of the population. Archaeological sites and their attendant religious and church architecture discussed include the Negev towns of Elusa (Khalasa, or Haluza), Sobota (Isbeita-Shivta), Nessana, Ruheibeh (Rehovot ba-Negev), Eboda ('Abda, or 'Avdat), and Mampsis (Kurnub-Mamshit), and additional sites including Sede Boqer and Nahal 'Oded.

The article focuses on the 10-century Limburg Staurotheke or container of the most powerful relic of the empire, which was kept in the Byzantine palace in Constantinople, Turkey. An author of an article about Byzantium is said to argue that the future of the field depends on the discovery and exploration of its links with the East, such as Islam and China. The luxury box has been commissioned by a leading eunuch Basil Lekapenos who placed a metric inscription on its cover. It has been argued that through its decoration and poetic epigram, the container has established a parallel between the relationship of eunuch and emperor and between the container and the relic.

Although little known today, several histories of the Ottomans originating in Byzantine Greek, Arabic, and Turkish circulated in the Latin West during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The Latin translators honored their authors and promoted their works as valuable additions to Western knowledge. In "The Generall Historie of the Turkes" (1603), Richard Knolles regularly cites these Byzantine and Turkish sources. While Knolles sometimes used the Turkish histories to criticize the Ottomans, his reliance upon "history written by the enemy" humanized and contextualized Ottoman actions that, in earlier Western accounts, often appeared arbitrary or incomprehensible. In translating "The Reign of Orchan" directly from the Turkish in 1652, William Seaman outdid even the Latin translators in his enthusiasm for his source and the culture from which it sprang. These texts suggest that Orientalist stereotypes did not develop in a simple linear fashion and that important East-West exchanges occurred through the medium of translation in the early modern period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report provides an overview of the Bir Madhkur Project and summarizes recent fieldwork conducted at the site. Bir Madhkur lies in the foothills of Wadi Araba, northwest of Petra and along the Petra-Gaza trade route. The site, which was of economic and military significance through most of the Nabataean, Roman, and Byzantine periods, now centers upon the remains of a major Roman fort. As it once was an administrative center in the fairly isolated southern desert of Jordan, Bir Madhkur provided the base for a mixed social environment, where foreign traders, Roman soldiers, and indigenous groups practicing varying forms of economic subsistence interacted. The primary goal of the Bir Madhkur Project is to illuminate these interactions and relationships and to interpret them within their broader social, economic, and cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Ottoman state emerged in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it encountered the contemporary, medieval cultures of Western Europe and Byzantium, as well as the past, classical cultures of northwest Asia Minor. An examination of early Ottoman architecture, including the construction of new-works, adaptation of existing buildings, and attitudes expressed toward older monuments, helps to clarify the nature of the encounter. The Ottoman appropriation of the past may be understood as a part of their symbolic control of the land and as an attempt to position themselves within the larger context of world history as the rightful heirs of the Roman/Byzantine Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details of the garments of the saints in the vaults of the outer narthex of the fourteenth-century church of the Chora in Constantinople resemble contemporary aristocratic fashion and associate the heavenly and earthly courts. SS. George and Demetrios flanking the entrance to the nave, though among the most popular in Byzantium, were also important to the reigning Palaiologan dynasty and to the current emperor, Andronikos II, and his prime minister, Theodore Metochites, the patron of the church. St. Andronikos, third in the saintly hierarchy, never enjoyed such prominence in any other church and max he interpreted as a reference to the emperor himself Located next to a scene of the Holy Family's Enrollment for Taxation, St. Andronikos lends heavenly approval to the necessary, hut controversial, fiscal policies of the patron and is an integral part of a decorative program that is simultaneously religious and political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses monumental narratives of four different saints' lives in Orthodox art. Appearance of the three main pictorial cycles of local saints in diverse contexts in churches on the eastern and western fringes of the Byzantine world; Radical change that the Orthodox world underwent in 1204; Link between the pictorial cycles and political changes.

Analyzes a Genizah letter from the island of Rhodes written by Moshe Agura concerning the reconquest of Crete by the Byzantines. Consequences of the Byzantine victory on Crete; Historical analysis of the social, political and economic status of the Jews in mid-tenth-century Byzantium.

Presents an archeological history of Byzantine Palestine. Historical review of Diocletian's leadership providing insights on the political processes that shaped culture; Summary of significant inscriptions; Implications of sophisticate archeological surveys; Assessment of architecture, pottery and other material remains; Impact of the research on historical understandings of the period.

At the bottom of the Catalan embroidery of Genesis (1050-1100) now in the museum of Girona Cathedral, there is a band of scenes which unfortunately has been torn in half These badly preserved, though still recognizable, motifs from the legend of the True Cross form the starting point for this article. I hope to add to existing research with regard to the tradition and the context of this legend of the invention of the cross. The iconography bears resemblances to the Carolingian Wessobrunner Gebetbuch. Moreover, I put forward a hypothesis concerning the figure at the bottom, carrying a cross, who has almost completely disappeared. Certain features of this figure point to the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (610-641), who is related to the tradition of the True Cross from iconographical and liturgical points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Banning (1986) and Parker (1987) have put forward contrasting viewpoints on the relationship of the nomadic population (Saracens) to the settled inhabitants (Romans) in the late Roman-Byzantine era, based essentially on their interpretations of different kinds of archaeological evidence. This paper takes the position that the true temper of the relationship can only be assessed by an analysis of the literary sources, which are particularly rich for that period. The complexities of that relationship are demonstrated in detail: there was both conflict and symbiosis between Roman and Saracen and a Pax Romana never existed between the two. As to the position that Roman military strategy was to monitor and control the movement of Arab tribes, there is no evidence that it ever did or indeed that it was designed for that purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alluvial sequences in central Israel reveal a history of climatic and landscape changes from Chalcolithic through Byzantine times. These are closely related to social and historical events at Tel Lachish. The deposits indicate a moister climate during initial settlement in the Chalcolighic period and Early Bronze Age. Rapid floodplain buildup in MB I suggests an instability in the drainage system corresponding to widespread abandonment of Levantine cities, including Lachish. A dry period of wadi incision followed. This lasted until a phase of colluvial deposition in the Late Iron Age, which apparently resulted from neglected agricultural terraces after the Assyrian destruction of Israelite Lachish. A later fill accompanied Byzantine settlement and may be related to an amelioration in climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A church complex consisting of four buildings was discovered at Kibbutz Magen in the western Negev. These buildings and associated settlement evidence bring to light several new features of church construction during the Byzantine period and expand the picture of settlement in the Negev during this period. The mosaics, inscriptions, glass and pottery, and several coins will be presented in other articles in this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines Byzantine religious practices by referencing crosses and other antiques kept by the Detroit Institute of Arts. Crosses, lamps and censers were widely used by 12th-16th century Byzantine worshippers. Crosses were associated with salvation from sin, while light was perceived as a symbol of divine presence. The Byzantine culture assimilated the pagan practice of offering incense during prayer. Descriptions of the Byzantine collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts are presented, including their estimated date of creation and provenance.

In current scholarship Byzantine architecture has been isolated from contemporaneous Western European developments. Moreover, its proper understanding is hampered by preconceptions and expectations based on our greater familiarity with Western medieval architecture. Accused by medievalists of being small, stagnant, and dull, Byzantine architecture may be facing, at best, utter disregard. The following paper attempts to clarify several common misconceptions and to suggest ways in which Byzantine architecture might be integrated into the larger picture of medieval architectural developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]