Byzantine News

Intelligible Beauty: Byzantine Jewelry, Latest Free Book from the British Museum

2017-10-29T06:17:00.003-07:00

"Intelligible Beauty" recent research on Byzantine jewellery. Edited by Chris Entwistle and Noël Adams
Click here to read

The Harbour of Theodosius

2017-10-22T03:09:00.004-07:00

The Harbour of Eleutherios (Greek: λιμήν Ἐλευθερίου), later known as the Harbour of Theodosius (Greek: λιμήν Θεοδοσίου, Latin: Portus Theodosiacus) was one of the ports of ancient Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, located beneath the modern Yenikapi neighbourhood of Istanbul, Turkey.
The harbour was located on the south side of the peninsula where the city is built, facing towards the Sea of Marmara. The other harbours of the city were the Harbour of Julian and the small harbour of the Boukoleon Palace, likewise on the southern shore, and the harbours of Neorion and Prosphorion on the northern side. The harbour was built in the late 4th century during the reign of Theodosius I, and was the city's major point of trade in Late Antiquity. The area was later transformed for agricultural use due to the effects of erosion and silting. In Ottoman times, the area was built over.

Here is a video about the harbour:

New Texts Digitized by TLG (Thesaurus Linguae Graecae)

2017-10-20T07:52:00.000-07:00

The TLG project has recently added 30 more Byzantine texts:

0545 Claudius AELIANUS Soph. (1 work)
0674 AELIUS PROMOTUS Med. (1 work)
2042 ORIGENES Theol. (1 work)
3013 Andronicus CAMATERUS Scr. Eccl. (1 work)
3085 NEOPHYTUS INCLUSUS Scr. Eccl. (6 works)
3157 THEODORUS Scutariota Hist. (1 work)
3251 PHILOTHEUS COCCINUS Theol. (4 works)
4028 STEPHANUS Byzantius Gramm. (2 works)
4457 THEOGNOSTUS Theol. (1 work)
5026 SCHOLIA IN HOMERUM Schol. (1 work) 5327
ACTA MONASTERII VAZELON Acta et Eccl. (1 work)
5357 TIPUKEITUS Jurisprud. (1 work)
9023 Thomas MAGISTER Philol. (8 works)
9030 Constantinus HARMENOPULUS Legal. (1 work)

Click here for more

Free to Download: Rome and the Arabs by Irfan Shahid

2017-10-16T10:11:00.002-07:00

Dumbarton Oaks has made available I .Shahid's book on Rome and the Arabs. Click here to download

The Arabs played an important role in Roman-controlled Oriens in the four centuries or so that elapsed from the Settlement of Pompey in 64 B.C. to the reign of Diocletian, A.D. 284–305. In Rome and the Arabs Irfan Shahîd explores this extensive but poorly known role and traces the phases of the Arab-Roman relationship, especially in the climactic third century, which witnessed the rise of many powerful Roman Arabs such as the Empresses of the Severan Dynasty, Emperor Philip, and the two rulers of Palmyra, Odenathus and Zenobia. Philip the Arab, the author argues, was the first Christian Roman emperor and Abgar the Great (ca. 200 A.D.) was the first Near Eastern ruler to adopt Christianity. In addition to political and military matters, the author also discusses Arab cultural contributions, pointing out the role of the Hellenized and Romanized Arabs in the urbanization of the region and in the progress of Christianity, particularly in Edessa under the Arab Abgarids.

New Book: Reading in the Byzantine Empire and Beyond

2017-10-15T04:29:00.000-07:00

Editors: T. Shawcross & I. Toth

From Cambridge University Press:

Offering a comprehensive introduction to the history of books, readers and reading in the Byzantine Empire and its sphere of influence, this volume addresses a paradox. Advanced literacy was rare among imperial citizens, being restricted by gender and class. Yet the state's economic, religious and political institutions insisted on the fundamental importance of the written record. Starting from the materiality of codices, documents and inscriptions, the volume's contributors draw attention to the evidence for a range of interactions with texts. They examine the role of authors, compilers and scribes. They look at practices such the close perusal of texts in order to produce excerpts, notes, commentaries and editions. But they also analyse the social implications of the constant intersection of writing with both image and speech. Showcasing current methodological approaches, this collection of essays aims to place a discussion of Byzantium within the mainstream of medieval textual studies.Read more

Contents:
INTRODUCTION TO BOOKS, READERS, AND READING
I. Byzantium: a bookish world Teresa Shawcross
II. Modern encounters with Byzantine texts and their reading publics Ida Toth
PART I. Love for the Written Word
The emotions of reading
1. John Mauropous and the benefits of reading Marina Bazzani
2. The autobiographies of the Patriarch Gennadios II Scholarios Michael Angold
Centre and margins
3. The role of the speeches of John the Oxite in Komnenian court politics Judith R. Ryder
4. The liturgical poetics of an elite religious confraternity Paul Magdalino
5. Manuscript notes and the Black Death in rural Cyprus Tassos Papacostas
PART II. Contact with a Living Culture
The power of rhetoric
6. Ancient Greek rhetorical theory and Byzantine discursive politics: John Sikeliotes on Hermogenes Panagiotis Roilos
7. Memoirs as manifesto: the rhetoric of Katakalon Kekaumenos Jonathan Shepard
8. Performative reading in the late Byzantine theatron Niels Gaul
Religious texts
9. The religious world of John Malalas David M. Gwynn
10. Oikonomia in the hymns of Romanos the Melode Johannes Koder
11. Quotation and allusion in Symeon the New Theologian Manolis S. Patedakis
12. Scriptural citation in Andronikos Kamateros Alessandra Bucossi
Secular texts
13. Aristocratic family narratives in twelfth-century Byzantium Peter Frankopan
14. Historiography, epic and the textual transmission of imperial values: Liudprand's Antapodosis and Digenes Akrites Günter Prinzing
15. Intertextuality in the Late Byzantine romance Tale of Troy Ulrich Moennig
PART III. Communication and Influence
Educational practices
16. Late Byzantine school teaching through the iambic canons and their paraphrase Dimitrios Skrekas
Text and image
17. Eros, literature and the Veroli Casket Liz James
18. Object, text and performance in four Komnenian poems Margaret Mullett
19. Textual and visual representations of the Antipodes from Byzantium and the Latin West Maja Kominko
Interlingual circulation and transmission
20. Basil I, Constantine VII and Armenian literary tradition in Byzantium Tim Greenwood
21. Bilingual reading, the Alexiad and the Gesta Roberti Wiscardi James Howard-Johnston
22. Transplanting culture: from Greek novel to medieval romance Roderick Beaton
PART IV. Modern Reading as Textual Archaeology
Traces of authorship
23. Anonymous textual survivals from Late Antiquity Fiona K. Haarer
24. Authorship and the Letters of Theodore Daphnopates John Duffy
25. Authorship revisited: language and metre in the Ptochoprodromika Marjolijne C. Janssen and Marc D. Lauxtermann
Recovered languages
26. The lexicon of horses' colours in learned and vernacular texts Erich Trapp
27. Multilingualism and translation in the edition of vernacular texts Manolis Papathomopoulos
Afterword: Reading and hearing in Byzantium Elizabeth Jeffreys and Michael Jeffreys

Witnessing Byzantium: The Greek Perspective | The National Gallery Lecture

2017-08-30T07:13:00.000-07:00

Audio lecture by Sharon Gerstel: Witnessing Byzantium: The Greek Perspective

New Issue of Dumbarton Oaks Papers

2017-08-25T08:53:00.001-07:00

Articles from the latest issue of Dumbarton Oaks Papers, no 71:

Maya Maskarinec, “Saints for All Christendom: Naturalizing the Alexandrian Saints Cyrus and John in Seventh- to Thirteenth-Century Rome”;
Joseph Glynias, “Prayerful Iconoclasts: Psalm Seals and Elite Formation in the First Iconoclast Era (726–750)”;
Jordan Pickett, “Water and Empire in the De Aedificiis of Procopius”;
Florin Leonte, “Visions of Empire: Gaze, Space, and Territory in Isidore’s Encomium for John VIII Palaiologos (1429)”;
Anastasia Drandaki, “Piety, Politics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Venetian Crete”;
Julian Baker, Filippo Dompieri, and Turan Gökyildirim, “The Reformed Byzantine Silver Based Currencies (ca. 1372–1379) in the Light of the Hoards from the Belgrade Gate”;
Vasileios Marinis, “The Vision of Last Judgment in the Vita of Saint Niphon (BHG 1371z)”;
Daniel Reynolds, “Rethinking Palestinian Iconoclasm”;
Athanasios Vionis, “Understanding Settlements in Byzantine Greece: New Data and Approaches for Boeotia, Sixth to Thirteenth Centuries”;
Nikolaos Zagklas, “Experimenting with Prose and Verse in Twelfth-Century Byzantium: The Cases of ‘Mixed Works’ and ‘Diptychs’ / ‘Triptychs’”;
Christophe Erismann, “Theodore the Studite and Photius on the Humanity of Christ: A Neglected Byzantine Discussion on Universals in the Time of Iconoclasm.”

Byzantine Mosaic Floor of 1,500-year-old Found in Jerusalem

2017-08-24T04:14:00.001-07:00

From Haaretz:
While digging to lay a cable network by the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, workers uncovered an intact mosaic with Greek writing on what seems to have been the floor of an ancient version of a boutique hotel 1,500 years ago. The writing reads: "In the time of our most pious emperor Flavius Justinian, also this entire building Constantine the most God-loving priest and abbot, established and raised, in the 14th indiction," according to Leah Di Segni, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, an expert on ancient Greek inscriptions.

"'Indiction' is an ancient method of counting years, for taxation purposes. Based on historical sources, the mosaic can be dated to the year 550 or 551 C.E.," Di Segni says.

Both she and David Gellman, the director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority believe the mosaic decorated the floor of what had probably been a hotel for pilgrims flocking to Jerusalem as Christianity took hold of the Eastern Roman Empire, which became known as the Byzantine Empire. Under Emperor Flavius Justinian (482-565), the Byzantine Empire reached new heights – and completed its conversion from paganism to Christianity. In the year 543 C.E. Justinian had a vast, architecturally elaborate church built on Mount Zion. Dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus, it was called the New Church of the Theotokos, or, the Nea Church.

The Nea was the biggest church in Jerusalem and one of the largest in the entire empire, and reportedly included a hospital, monastery and accommodation. Its abbot was Constantine, which explains why he and the emperor were mentioned in the inscription. read more:
The Nea Church was considered so important that it even appears on the famous 6th-century mosaic Madaba Map of ancient Jerusalem (in the upper right corner of the city).

The Nea Church was badly damaged by the Persian invasion of Jerusalem in the year 614. Its remains – at least, the stones that hadn't been repurposed over the ages - were partially excavated in 1970, during archaeological exploration of the ancient Jewish quarter after the Six Day War in 1967.

In one sense, finding the extraordinary mosaic by Damascus Gate was little surprise, say the archaeologists. For centuries, Damascus Gate had been the main northern entry point to Jerusalem, so it would naturally brim with archaeological remains, Gellman explains. "In the Byzantine period, with the emergence of Christianity, churches, monasteries and hostels for pilgrims were built in the area north of the gate, and the area became one of the most important and active areas of the city," he says.

The Throne of Archbishop Maximianus of Ravenna

2017-05-31T09:22:00.002-07:00

The Throne of Maximian (or Maximianus) is a throne that was made for Archbishop Maximianus of Ravenna and is now on display at the Archiepiscopal Museum, Ravenna. It is generally agreed that the throne was carved in the Greek East of the Byzantine Empire and shipped to Ravenna, but there has long been scholarly debate over whether it was made in Constantinople or Alexandria.

Maximianus, Portrait, Ravenna

The style of the throne is a mixture of Early Christian art and that of the First Golden Age of Byzantine art. It is made of carved ivory panels, with frames of winding vines and grapevines, on a wooden frame. The throne itself is large with a high semi-circular back and may have held a jewelled cross or Gospel book for some of the time. The ivory carvings are done in relief and the panels depict important biblical figures. The back of the throne shows scenes of the Life of Christ, the sides include scenes of the Story of Joseph from the Book of Genesis, and on the front of the throne are the Four evangelists around John the Baptist, who is holding a medallion with the Lamb of God and Maximian’s name above him.

View from the front

Hundreds of New Byzantine Texts Digitized by Thesaurus Linguae Graecae

2017-05-30T08:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a list:

0645	JUSTINUS MARTYR Apol.
1389	HARPOCRATION Gramm.
1595	PHILODEMUS Phil.
2042	ORIGENES Theol.
2130	ARETHAS Scr. Eccl. et Philol.
2642	<ASTRAMPSYCHUS Magus> Onir.
2702	Michael PSELLUS Epist., Polyhist., Phil., Hagiogr. et Theol.
2721	Theodorus PRODROMUS Poeta et Polyhist.
2738	CHRONOGRAPHIAE ANONYMAE Chronogr.
2772	ACTA TIMOTHEI Hagiogr., Apocryph. et Acta
2933	GERMANUS I Scr. Eccl.
3010	Theodorus BALSAMON Scr. Eccl.
3024	Constantinus STILBES Poeta et Rhet.
3036	EUTHYMIUS Scr. Eccl.
3053	JOANNES II Scr. Eccl.
3054	JOANNES IV (vel V) Oxeïtes Scr. Eccl.
3059	JOANNES X CAMATERUS Scr. Eccl.
3073	Euthymius MALACES Scr. Eccl., Rhet. et Theol.
3077	MICHAEL I CERULARIUS Theol. et Scr. Eccl.
3078	MICHAEL III Epist., Theol. et Rhet.
3085	NEOPHYTUS INCLUSUS Scr. Eccl.
3092	Nicephorus BLEMMYDES Phil. et Theol.
3093	NICETAS Phil., Theol. et Scr. Eccl.
3099	Nicetas STETHATUS Theol. et Hagiogr. Click here for the complete list

New Book: Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium

2017-05-28T07:23:00.005-07:00

From the editors:

This volume brings into being the field of Byzantine intellectual history. Shifting focus from the cultural, social, and economic study of Byzantium to the life and evolution of ideas in their context, it provides an authoritative history of intellectual endeavors from Late Antiquity to the fifteenth century. At its heart lie the transmission, transformation, and shifts of Hellenic, Christian, and Byzantine ideas and concepts as exemplified in diverse aspects of intellectual life, from philosophy, theology, and rhetoric to astrology, astronomy, and politics. Case studies introduce the major players in Byzantine intellectual life, and particular emphasis is placed on the reception of ancient thought and its significance for secular as well as religious modes of thinking and acting. New insights are offered regarding controversial, understudied, or promising topics of research, such as philosophy and medical thought in Byzantium, and intellectual exchanges with the Arab world.

Contents are here

Two Old Maps of the Byzantine Empire Online

2017-03-11T05:04:00.002-08:00

Author: Houze, Antoine Philippe

Date: 1844

Short Title: Empire Grec et Royaume d'Italie 774 a 900

Publisher: Chez P. Dumenil

Publisher Location: Paris

Type: Atlas Map

Source Link

Author:Spruner von Merz, Karl

Date:1855

Short Title:Das Byzantinische Reich bis in das XIte. Jahrhundert.

Publisher:Justus Perthes

Publisher Location:Gotha

Type:Atlas Map

Source Link

A Recipe of a Delicious Byzantine Cake: Koliva

2017-03-04T05:01:00.001-08:00

A recipe of delicious Byzantine vegan food from a manuscript at the British Library:

One of our Byzantine Greek service books, a collection of lessons for the Saturdays and Sundays of Lent, contains a very special recipe: not only is it completely vegan, it is said to have been received directly from Heaven. The short note is preserved in a lection for the first Saturday of the Great Lent which records the miraculous revelation of the new recipe as follows.

“Koliva is wheat kernels boiled soft and sweetened with honey, sesame seeds, almonds, ground walnuts, cinnamon, pomegranate seeds, raisins and anise.' When the archbishop inquired who is the provider of the new recipe , his visitor simply answered, 'I am Theodore the Martyr of Christ whom he has now sent to you to reveal this and provide new food for his people.'

Read here the whole story

Three Christian Martyrdoms from Early Islamic Palestine

2017-02-21T09:16:00.000-08:00

From the editors:

A distinctive feature of Christian culture in early Islamic Syria and Palestine was a renewed interest in literature on martyrs, which represented a potential reaction among some Christian communities to the rise of Islam in the region. The adaption of this early Christian genre to the new circumstances of political domination during the early Middle Ages offers a revealing, yet until now largely unexplored, window onto how Christians responded culturally to Islamic imperialism. This bilingual edition of three martyrdoms provides a new opportunity to understand this historical phenomenon.

These writings, composed at the Mar Saba monastery in the Judean Desert and attributed to famous members of that community, share a common high literary style, although each portrays Christian martyrdom at the hands of the Muslims very differently. This parallel-text edition offers the only English translations available of these important works, making it an invaluable resource for both students and scholars of religious history.

Click here for more

Byzantium and the Emergence of Muslim-Turkish Anatolia, ca. 1040-1130

2017-02-19T03:23:00.001-08:00

Author: A. Beihammer

The arrival of the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia forms an indispensable part of modern Turkish discourse on national identity, but Western scholars, by contrast, have rarely included the Anatolian Turks in their discussions about the formation of European nations or the transformation of the Near East. The Turkish penetration of Byzantine Asia Minor is primarily conceived of as a conflict between empires, sedentary and nomadic groups, or religious and ethnic entities. This book proposes a new narrative, which begins with the waning influence of Constantinople and Cairo over large parts of Anatolia and the Byzantine-Muslim borderlands, as well as the failure of the nascent Seljuk sultanate to supplant them as a leading supra-regional force. In both Byzantine Anatolia and regions of the Muslim heartlands, local elites and regional powers came to the fore as holders of political authority and rivals in incessant power struggles. Turkish warrior groups quickly assumed a leading role in this process, not because of their raids and conquests, but because of their intrusion into pre-existing social networks. They exploited administrative tools and local resources and thus gained the acceptance of local rulers and their subjects. Nuclei of lordships came into being, which could evolve into larger territorial units. There was no Byzantine decline nor Turkish triumph but, rather, the driving force of change was the successful interaction between these two spheres.

Click here for more

New Groundbreaking Book: Dialogues and Debates from Late Antiquity to Late Byzantium

2017-02-18T06:32:00.002-08:00

Some interesting articles:

PATRICK ANDRIST: Literary distance and complexity in late antique and early Byzantine Greek dialogues Adversus Iudaeos

PÉTER TÓTH: New wine in old wineskin: Byzantine reuses of the apocryphal revelation dialogue

FLORIN LEONTE: Dramatisation and narrative in late Byzantine dialogues:Manuel II Palaiologos’s On Marriage and Mazaris’ Journey to Hades

NIELS GAUL: Embedded dialogues and dialogical voices in Palaiologan prose and verse

From the editors (Niels Gaul and Averil Cameron):

Dialogues and Debates from Late Antiquity to Late Byzantium offers the first overall discussion of the literary and philosophical dialogue tradition in Greek from imperial Rome to the end of the Byzantine empire and beyond. Sixteen case studies combine theoretical approaches with in-depth analysis and include comparisons with the neighbouring Syriac, Georgian, Armenian and Latin traditions. Following an introduction and a discussion of Plutarch as a writer of dialogues, other chapters consider the Erostrophus, a philosophical dialogue in Syriac, John Chrysostom’s On Priesthood, issues of literariness and complexity in the Greek Adversus Iudaeos dialogues, the Trophies of Damascus, Maximus Confessor’s Liber Asceticus and the middle Byzantine apocryphal revelation dialogues. The volume demonstrates a new frequency in middle and late Byzantium of rhetorical, theological and literary dialogues, concomitant with the increasing rhetoricisation of Byzantine literature, and argues for a move towards new and exciting experiments. Individual chapters examine the Platonising and anti-Latin dialogues written in the context of Anselm of Havelberg’s visits to Constantinople, the theological dialogue by Soterichos Panteugenos, the dialogues of Niketas ‘of Maroneia’ and the literary dialogues by Theodore Prodromos, all from the twelfth century. The final chapters explore dialogues from the empire’s Georgian periphery and discuss late Byzantine philosophical, satirical and verse dialogues by Nikephoros Gregoras, Manuel II Palaiologos and George Scholarios, with special attention to issues of form, dramatisation and performance.

Click here for more

Thousands of free images of Byzantine art from the Met Museum

2017-02-11T07:17:00.000-08:00

From NY Times:

All images of public-domain artworks in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection — about 375,000 — are now free for anyone to use however they may please.The museum announced on Tuesday that it had changed its open access policy to allow free, unrestricted use of any images of artworks in the public domain, using the license designation Creative Commons Zero, known as CC0.

Click here to access the collection

New Book: The Church of the East: An Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity

2017-01-04T02:49:00.002-08:00

The so-called 'Nestorian' Church (officially known as the Apostolic Assyrian Church of the East, with its See in Baghdad) was one of the most significant Christian communities to develop east of the Roman Empire. In its heyday the Church had 8 million adherents and stretched from the Mediterranean to China. Christoph Baumer is one of the very few Westerners to have visited many of the most important Assyrian sites and has written the only comprehensive history of the Church, which now fights for survival in its country of origin, Iraq, and is almost forgotten in the West. He narrates its rich and colorful trajectory, from its apostolic beginnings to the present day, and discusses the Church's theology, christology, and uniquely vigorous spirituality. He analyzes the Church's turbulent relationship with other Christian chuches and its dialogue with neighboring world religions such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Islam, Buddhism, and Taoism. Richly illustrated with maps and over 150 full-color photographs, the book will be essential reading for those interested in a fascinating, but neglected Christian community which has profoundly shaped the history of civilization in both East and West.

A solidus from the time of Constantine the Great

2016-12-31T05:35:00.002-08:00

The billon (roughly 25% percent silver) coin was the first appearance of VLPP type.

Circa 313 A.D., Trier.

New Translation: Stories of Holy Men of Mount Athos

2016-12-05T08:12:00.004-08:00

Often simply called the Holy Mountain, Mount Athos was the most famous center of Byzantine monasticism and remains the spiritual heart of the Orthodox Church today. This volume presents the Lives of Euthymios the Younger, Athanasios of Athos, Maximos the Hutburner, Niphon of Athos, and Philotheos. These five holy men lived on Mount Athos at different times from its early years as a monastic locale in the ninth century to the last decades of the Byzantine period in the early fifteenth century. All five were celebrated for asceticism, clairvoyance, and, in most cases, the ability to perform miracles; Euthymios and Athanasios were also famed as founders of monasteries.

Holy Men of Mount Athos illuminates both the history and the varieties of monastic practice on Athos, individually by hermits as well as communally in large monasteries.

The Lives also demonstrate the diversity of hagiographic composition and provide important glimpses of Byzantine social and political history.All the Lives in this volume are presented for the first time in English translation, together with authoritative editions of their Greek texts.

Click here to read more

Rare 1st-century mosaic unearthed in southeastern Turkey

2016-10-30T01:49:00.002-07:00

New Syriac inscriptions have been discovered

Archaeologists have discovered five base mosaics from Abgar V (BC 4 – AD 7), the fifth king of the kingdom of Osroene (132 BC to AD 244), depicting fine engravings and Syriac inscriptions, as part of a project titled "The Castle Skirts". The mosaics will be displayed in museums after their restoration is completed

5 Great Byzantine Army Leaders

2016-10-17T08:41:00.001-07:00

Justinian I (482-565)

One of the most spectacular features of Justinian's reign was the recovery of large stretches of land around the Western Mediterranean basin that had slipped out of Imperial control in the 5th century. As a Christian Roman emperor, Justinian considered it his divine duty to restore the Roman Empire to its ancient boundaries. Although he never personally took part in military campaigns, he boasted of his successes in the prefaces to his laws and had them commemorated in art. The re-conquests were in large part carried out by his general Belisarius.

Bardas Phokas (died 989)

In 978 Bardas was delivered from his prison cell by the eunuch Basil Lekapenos, Basil II's uncle and de facto regent. He was dispatched in disguise to his native Cappadocia to stir up the local aristocracy against Skleros, who had revolted against imperial authorities and advanced to the Hellespont. Despite several initial setbacks, and with the assistance of a Georgian army led by Tornikios, Phokas eventually suppressed the revolt, gaining victory in single combat with Skleros. For his vital services to the crown, he was rewarded with a coveted office of Domestic of the Scholae and at once led the Byzantine armies to reconquer Aleppo from the Saracens. Later, to quote Psellos, "he was given the privilege of a triumph and took his place among the personal friends of his sovereign."

Basil II (958-1025)

In 987/8, a seven-year truce was signed with the Fatimids, stipulating an exchange of prisoners, the recognition of the Byzantine emperor as protector of the Christians under Fatimid rule and of the Fatimid Caliph as protector of the Muslims under Byzantine control, and the replacement of the name of the Abbasid Caliph by that of the Fatimid Caliph in the Friday prayer in the mosque of Constantinople.[12][13] Nevertheless, in 991 the Fatimids launched a campaign against the Hamdanid Emirate of Aleppo, a Byzantine protectorate, perhaps in the belief that Byzantium would not interfere. Under the governor of Damascus, Manjutakin, the Fatimids scored a series of successes against the Hamdanids and their Byzantine allies, including a major victory at the Battle of the Orontes against the doux of Antioch, Michael Bourtzes, in September 994. Bourtzes' defeat forced Basil to intervene personally in the East: in a lightning campaign he rode with his army through Asia Minor in sixteen days and reached Aleppo in April 995, forcing the Fatimid army to retreat without giving battle. The Byzantines besieged Tripolis unsuccessfully and occupied Tartus, which they refortified and garrisoned with Armenian troops. The Fatimid caliph al-Aziz now prepared to take the field in person against the Byzantines and initiated large-scale preparations, but they were cut short upon his death.

Alexios I Komnenos (1048-1118)

Alexios was Byzantine emperor from 1081 to 1118. Although he was not the founder of the Komnenian dynasty, it was during his reign that the Komnenos family came to full power. Inheriting a collapsing empire and faced with constant warfare during his reign against both the Seljuq Turks in Asia Minor and the Normans in the western Balkans, Alexios was able to curb the Byzantine decline and begin the military, financial, and territorial recovery known as the Komnenian restoration. The basis for this recovery were various reforms initiated by Alexios. His appeals to Western Europe for help against the Turks were also the catalyst that likely contributed to the convoking of the Crusades.

Michael VIII Palaiologos (1259-1282)

Michael VIII was the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty that would rule the Byzantine Empire until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. He recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire in 1261 and transformed the Empire of Nicaea into a restored Byzantine Empire.

5 Beautifully Crafted Imperial Byzantine Coins

2016-10-16T05:35:00.001-07:00

Hyperpyron of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1118-1180)

Hyperpyron of Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118)

John III Doukas (1221-1254)

Scyphate Electrum Hyperpyron, Andronicus II & Michael IX, (1295-1320)

Constantine VIII (960 – 11 November 1028)

Masterpieces of Byzantine and Early Christian Art from Syria

2016-10-15T02:08:00.001-07:00

An article from the Greek newspaper Kathimerini:

The Syrian Mosaic Pavement Documentation project, which was signed in 2005, foresaw the full documentation of the country’s floor mosaics and annual education programs for Syrian postgraduate students to help them keep abreast of technological developments.

Click here to read more.

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Greek Manuscripts Project from the British Library

2016-09-18T23:59:00.001-07:00

The British Library platform for the study of Greek Manuscripts has been launched.

Explore some of the highlights of the British Library's collection items, read articles by leading experts on Greek manuscripts, discover themes running through the collections, and watch videos on key topics.

Click here to visit the project.

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