Byzantine Materiality

by: Freeman, E. Betancourt, R.

Byzantine Materiality
Edited by: Evan Freeman and Roland Betancourt

About this book
This volume explores the power of matter and materials in the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium. Recent attention to matter as dynamic and meaningful constitutes an emerging, interdisciplinary field of inquiry known as materiality, new materialism, or the material turn. Materials can be symbolic, but matter can also act on human subjects. This volume builds on these insights to consider the role of matter, materials, form, and embodied experiences in Byzantium. In many respects, Byzantine materiality represents a continuation of its Greco-Roman inheritance, which was also shared by neighboring peoples such as the Umayyads and Abbasids. But the Byzantines also developed their own, unique perspectives on matter and form, as with their parsing of the sacred materialities of icons, the Eucharist, and relics. Chapters in this volume consider the cultural meanings and functions of materials such as gold and ivory, the materiality of icons and relics, experiences of objects, as well as Byzantine philosophies of matter and form. Materiality takes center stage in Byzantine constructions of power, luxury, belief, and identity, which will be of interest to scholars and students of Byzantium and the wider medieval world.

Table of contents
Frontmatter

Acknowledgments

Preface

Contents

Contributors

List of Figures

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Evan Freeman
1 The Materiality of Charis in Early Byzantium

Alicia Walker
2 The Animate Floor in Early Byzantium: Glass and Gold

Sean V. Leatherbury
3 Early Christian and Byzantine Bread Stamps: An Ecology of Matter and Form

Katherine Taronas
4 Whence Agency?

Gary Vikan
5 Miniature Materials, Major Monuments: Concrete Connections and Concrete Histories

Harry Prance
6 Materiality and Metonymy: Seeing the Eucharist through Stone and Glass in the Middle Byzantine Liturgy

Evan Freeman
7 Being Material, Material Being: Ivory and Ontology

Anthony Cutler
8 The Place of Materiality in Byzantine Thought

Charles Barber
9 Icon, Eucharist, Relic: Negotiating the Division of Sacred Matter in Byzantium

Roland Betancourt
10 Icons, Relics, and the Substance of Things Half Seen

Annemarie Weyl Carr
Afterword

Roland Betancourt
Bibliography

Index

ΟΙ ΛΑΤΡΕΙΕΣ ΤΗΣ ΑΚΡΟΠΟΛΕΩΣ : ΣΥΛΛΟΓΗ ΦΙΛΟΛΟΓΙΚΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΠΙΓΡΑΦΙΚΩΝ ΜΑΡΤΥΡΙΩΝ

by: ΜΑΛΟΥΧΟΥ, Γ.Ε.

• ISBN-13: 9786185459161 / 978-618-5459-16-1
• ISBN-03: 6185459167 / 618-5459-16-7
• ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΕΠΙΓΡΑΦΙΚΗ ΕΤΑΙΡΕΙΑ / Greek Epigraphic Society / Hellenike Epigraphike Hetaireia, ΑΘΗΝΑ / Athens, 2025

Price: 38,16 EURO

(in stock)

ΔΙΔΑΣΚΩ : Manuel a l'usage des Grands Debutants des lycees et universites : Premiere Annee, Tome I : Grammaire, lecons

by: Debut, J.

• ISBN-13: 9782251070018 / 978-2-251-07001-8
• ISBN-03: 225107001X / 2-251-07001-X
• Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1987

Price: 75,00 EURO

1 copy in stock

Balkan Dialogues : Negotiating Identity between Prehistory and the Present

by: Gori, M. Ivanova, M.

• ISBN-13: 9780367874315 / 978-0-367-87431-5
• ISBN-03: 0367874318 / 0-367-87431-8
• Routledge, London, 2019

Settlement in Crete During the Bronze to Iron Age Transition : The Crisis, Collapse and Reconstruction, ca. 1230-900 BC : In memory of Kostis Davaras

by: Nowicki, K.

• ISBN-13: 9783111116815 / 978-3-11-111681-5
• ISBN-03: 3111116816 / 3-11-111681-6
• Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2025

Contextualizing Pompeiopolis : Urban Development in Roman Anatolia from a Comparative Perspective

by: Summerer, L. Johnson, P. Koch, J.M.

• ISBN-13: 9783111706436 / 978-3-11-170643-6
• ISBN-03: 3111706435 / 3-11-170643-5
• Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2025

Advances in Ancient Greek Linguistics

by: de la Villa, J. Striano, A. Verano, R.

• ISBN-13: 9783111633619 / 978-3-11-163361-9
• ISBN-03: 3111633616 / 3-11-163361-6
• Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2025

My Name is Your Name : Anthroponyms as Divine Attributes in the Greco-Roman World

by: Gasparini, V. Ezquerra, J.A. Bonnet, C.

• ISBN-13: 9783111646992 / 978-3-11-164699-2
• ISBN-03: 3111646998 / 3-11-164699-8
• Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2025

Byzantine Materiality

by: Freeman, E. Betancourt, R.

• ISBN-13: 9783110799736 / 978-3-11-079973-6
• ISBN-03: 3110799731 / 3-11-079973-1
• Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2024