Canadio-Byzantina no.29 (January 2018)

CANADIO-BYZANTINA A Newsletter published by the Canadian Committee of Byzantinists In this Issue Introductory Remarks 1 Activities of Members 2 Reports 8 Conference Announcement 16 Book Review 18 Undergraduate Essay Competition 20 No. 29 Announcements 21 January 2018 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS As will be immediately apparent, Canadio-Byzantina has undergone an overhaul, a cure de jouvence. I am extremely grateful to Chris Dickert of Simon Fraser University for undertaking this and to Dimitris Krallis for the suggestion. This improvement is just one of the positive consequences of the most enjoyable conference that Dimitris organised at SFU in February this year; you can read a report on the event in this issue. This issue is as a result appearing a little later than usual, but this turns out to be for the best, I think: you will ind an announcement in the issue about the next International Congress of Byzantine studies with details on applications to take part in Round Tables. These must be sent in by 22 June 2018 and come through the national association. I do encourage our members to put forward proposals; we can, of course, submit proposals that bring together colleagues from a number of countries (provided one of them is from Canada!). In order that I can forward the submissions, please send them to me by 15 June 2018. Our bulletin is thus still edited in Ottawa, but I then transfer the material to Chris in Burnaby, who proceeds to turn it into the elegant publication that you now have in front of you. I hope that it will be to everyone’s taste; comments are, of course, welcome, and we aim to continue making improvements. Having said this, I should draw attention to our treasurer’s report: membership continues to contract, it seems, although I have the impression that in fact quite a lot is going on in Byzantine studies in Canada at the moment. It is encouraging to note, for instance, that Richard Greenield has well over 100 students in his introductory course at Queen’s, and of course we have another winner of our essay competition this year. As Richard suggests, we should all try to encourage our graduate students to join our committee. With luck, by the time this has appeared, other members will have sent their cheques in to the treasurer. But if when you receive this bulletin, you still have not done so – please try to send yours in to him as soon as you can. Image: Fresco from Hosios Loukas Monastery in Boeotia, Greece (Wikicommons) In this issue you can also read about another conference held in Canada this year, which has some relevance to early Byzantium, concerning religious violence in antiquity. There is also news of a new bulletin published by the AIEB (http://aiebnet.gr/newsletter/). Naturally there are other reports too, both on our members’ research and on (e.g.) the excavations at Baturyn. We depend on your contributions to make this bulletin useful and informative, so I do hope that you will continue to send in details of your publications and conferences. C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 Geofrey Greatrex University of Ottawa 1 ACTIVITIES OF MEMBERS Emmanuel Bourbouhakis Classics Department Emmanuel C. Bourbouhakis, assistant professor of Classics at Princeton University, continues to teach a range of courses on Byzantine literature and culture, including a recent undergraduate class on medieval Constantinople and a graduate seminar on Byzantine philology. This past year he published Not Composed in a Chance Manner: The Epitaphios for Manuel I Komnenos by Eustathios of Thessalonike, Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia 18 (Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2017), a critical edition, with translation and commentary accompanied by a lengthy introduction of Eustathios’ formidable funerary oration and its ceremonial and literary contexts. A number of articles and book chapters are currently in press, including, “Among Friends—Epistolary Culture and Friendship in Byzantium,” in the forthcoming Brill Companion to Byzantine Epistolography, ed. A. Riehle; “The Byzantine Past as Text: Historiography and Political Renewal c. 900,” in Historiography and Identity towards the end of the First Millennium – A Eurasian Perspective, ed. by Walter Pohl and Daniel Mahoney (Turnhout: Brepols) [forthcoming]. He is currently at work on a book-length study of Byzantine epistolography of the 10th-12th c., as well as an edition of Psellos’ Rhetorica et grammatica for Teubner. He was reelected president of BSANA at the recent BSC held in Minneapolis, and hopes to see through a number of initiatives designed to reinvigorate the association’s representation of the discipline and to bolster membership. Benjamin Garstad Department of Humanities Last year I attended the Leeds International Medieval Congress and chaired the session on Flavius Josephus in the Middle Ages, which had been organized by Richard Pollard of the Université du Québec à Montréal. The representation of scholars interested in Late Antiquity at Leeds was impressive and it was good to catch up with some old friends. I also delivered a paper on banqueting, charity, and the Other in Pseudo-Turpin’s Chronicle at the annual meeting of the RAVEN research group in Edmonton. This year I will be delivering a paper on John Malalas’ account of the pagan gods and his presentation of the contemporary Persians as a contribution to a conference entitled “Malalas: Der Chronist als Zeithistoriker” to be held in February at Eberhard Karls Universtität in Tübingen. I also plan to speak on the depiction of Alexander the Great in Byzantine chronicles at a conference organized by Frances Pownall of the University of Alberta, “The Courts of Philip II and Alexander the Great: Monarchy and Power in Ancient Macedonia.” I am also anticipating the publication of a paper, “Dionysiac and Christian Elements in the Lysos Episode in the Greek Alexander Romance (β rec.)”, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 72 later this year. C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 2 Geoffrey Greatrex Department of Classics & Religious Studies Book: Le monde de Procope / The World of Procopius, edited with Sylvain Janniard, forthcoming in 2018, published by de Boccard, Paris. Recent publications (articles): ‘The impact on Asia Minor of the Persian invasions in the early seventh century’ in C. Şimşek and T. Kaçar, eds, GEÇ ANTİK ÇAĞDA LYKOS VADİSİ VE ÇEVRESİ / THE LYKOS VALLEY AND NEIGHBOURHOOD IN LATE ANTIQUITY, forthcoming. Reviews: Review of Laura Carrara, Mischa Meier, Christine Radtki-Jansen (eds), Die Weltchronik des Johannes Malalas: Quellenfragen, Malalas-Studien, 2. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2017, BMCR 2017.11.51. Work in Progress Historical commentary on Procopius, Persian Wars, I-II. Richard Greenfield Department of History Richard Greenield was on academic leave for the irst half of 2017. An article ‘A revision in the dating of Euthymios the Younger of Thessalonike (BHG 655)’ will be published in Analecta Bollandiana, AB 135/II (Dec 2017); and a book chapter: ‘Magic and the Occult Sciences’ is due to be published any day now in Antony Kaldellis and Niketas Siniossoglou eds., The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium, 215-233. He also published a review of Youval Rotman’s book Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium: The Ambiguity of Religious Experience in Mouseion 14.2 (2017), 329-333. He continues to work on various projects including a short history of Medieval Greece, a translation of the Life of Gregory of Sinai by Kallistos, and a Byzantine Reader with Ted Christou (Queen’s Faculty of Education). He was happy to be invited to the Universite d’Aix-Marseille in June to examine the Thèse de doctorat en Histoire of Jean-Cyril Jouette (completed under the supervision of Élisabeth Malamut) on the subject ‘Magie bénéique, magie maléique et divination dans le monde byzantine (IXe-XIIe siècles)’. He continues to supervise a lourishing group of PhD students, joined this year by Louis-Patrick St-Pierre who completed his MA at the Université de Sherbrooke and is planning to continue his earlier work on Byzantine Roman identity. Once again this Fall term, he was pleased to have a substantial number of undergraduates (ca. 140) in his Byzantine survey lecture. Cecily Hilsdale Art History & Communication Studies Last winter I presented papers at conferences and lecture series at Simon Fraser University, the University of Birmingham, Brown University, and the University of Chicago, with two further papers scheduled in the fall at Bryn Mawr College and UCLA. In addition, I participated in a round table on “Teaching the Medieval Mediterranean” at the Medieval Academy of America Annual Conference in Toronto in April. In terms of publications, the two following pieces should appear in print this fall: “Translatio and Objecthood: The Cultural Agendas of Two Greek Manuscripts at St.-Denis,” Gesta C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 3 56, no. 2 (Fall 2017): 1-28. “The Thalassal Optic,” in Can We Talk Mediterranean? Conversations on an Emerging Field in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, eds. Brian Catlos and Sharon Kinoshita (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 19-33, 115-117. For the 2017-1018 academic year I will be on leave from McGill as a member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton. Kerim Kartal Department of History I am a ifth year PhD candidate in the History Department at Queen’s University. Presently I am in the process of writing my dissertation which is entitled “Cases of Criminality and Dissidence in the Court of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Late Byzantium, 1261-1453” under the supervision of Prof. Richard Greenield. In 2016-7, I was a teaching fellow of HIST 122 (Making of the Modern World). Currently, I am teaching two full-year courses: HIST 390-02 (Byzantine Society) as a teaching fellow in the History Department, and GREK 208 (Intermediate Greek) as an adjunct instructor in the Classics Department. Additionally, I am holding two awards granted by Queen’s University: Queen’s Graduate Award, and the Dissertation Completion Award. Dimitris Krallis SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies In 2017 four articles appeared in a various venues: “Historiography as Critical Contemporary Commentary” in the Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium, “Urbane Warriors: Smoothing out tensions between soldiers and civilians in Attaleiates’ encomium to Emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates” in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century, edited by Marc Lauxtermann and Mark Whittow, “Imagining Rome in Medieval Constantinople: Memory, Politics, and the Past in the Middle Byzantine Period” in the Uses of the Past in Past Societies volume of the British Academy edited by Bjorn Weiler and Peter Lambert and “Historians, Politics, and the Polis in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries” in Travaux et mémoires. A ifth article titled “Popular Political Agency in Byzantium’s Village and Towns” has been accepted by Byzantina Symmeikta and will appear either in late 2017 or early 2018 and a sixth, “The Social Views of Michael Attaleiates” will appear sometime in 2018/19 in the Social Change in Town and Country in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century volume, which is edited by James Howard-Johnston and just passed peer review for OUP. In the past year I also presented four papers at various conferences, seminars and symposia. “Corrupting the Law with the Gifts of Friendship: Efective Governance and the Challenge of Social Ainities, The Case of Psellos” and “The Mundane Mechanics of Politics: Byzantine Villages and Towns as loci of Political Activity” were presented at the Lecture Series on Byzantine Social History at the Department of History of the University of Belgrade on May 3 and 4 2017. “Mapping Statecraft in the Middle Byzantine Period” was presented in March 2017 at the 51st Annual Conference of the Medieval Association of the Paciic in Los Angeles. Finally, “Measuring the Goods, Mobilizing the Collective: Logistics, Procurement and Roman Identity in the Middle Byzantine Period” was presented at the Collectivities, Individuals, Identity and the Polity: Imagining the Commons in Late Antiquity and Byzantium, a symposium held in February 2017 at Simon Fraser University. In addition to publications and paper presentations I wrote the Byzantine Historiography entry for the British Library’s Greek Manuscript C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 4 Collections digitization program. In 2017 I organized a symposium on Collectivities, Individuals, Identity and the Polity: Imagining the Commons in Late Antiquity and Byzantium that was held at SFU’s Burnaby and Harbour Centre campus in February 2017. This project I received funding from SSHRC and brought Byzantinists from Canada, the US, UK and Greece to Vancouver for two days of stimulating discussions on Byzantine communities and their identity. Furthermore, at SFU I re-launched the Greece ield-school, which operated out of Athens and the picturesque village of Molyvos on the island of Lesvos. Antony Littlewood Department of Classical Studies Chapters in Books Translation with introduction and notes in Charles Barber and Stratis Papaioannou (edd.), Michael Psellos on Literature and Art, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 2017: ‘On Literary Composition, based on Dionysios of Halikarnassos’ On Composition’, 66-73, ‘To One Asking “Who Wrote Verse Better, Euripides or Pisides ?”’, 176-185, ‘A Comparison of the Novels of Heliodoros and Achilleus Tatios’, 186-192. Four further opuscula are translated and commented upon by other scholars from the Oratoria Minora of Psellos (Teubner, 1985). ‘William Ewart Astill of Ratby: Leicestershire and England Cricketer’, in Doug Harwood (ed.), The History of Ratby, vol. 5, Ratby Local History Group, 2017, 1-33. His travels this year have been to Gabon, Namibia and the two ex-Portuguese colonies of Angola and Sao Tome e Principe. Lucas McMahon Department of History In 2017 I passed the Princeton general exam and advanced to candidacy. From October 2017 I have been a visiting student in Cambridge, where I will remain for the 2017/18 academic year. My dissertation is dealing with Byzantine military intelligence in the context of logistics and diplomacy, and seeks to engage with matters of information lows and how Constantinople responded to potential threats. Glenn Peers Department of Art and Art History Forthcoming book: Orthodox Magic in Trebizond and Beyond: A Fourteenth-Century Greco-Arabic Amulet Roll, Geneva: Pommes d’or, 2018. Published article: “Sense Lives of Byzantine Things,” in Knowing Bodies, Passionate Souls: Sense Perceptions in Byzantium, ed. Margaret Mullett and Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2017, 11-30. Book Reviews: Forthcoming: Viewing Greece: Cultural and Political Agency in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean, ed. Sharon E.J. Gerstel, Turnhout, 2016, for The Renaissance Quarterly. Published: Wendy A. Stein, How to Read Medieval Art, New York, 2016, in The Medieval Review 17.07.03. C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 5 Conference Papers Delivered: Oct., 2017 “The Iconography of Healing and Damaged Bodies in Kariye Cami: Methodological Relections,” The Index at 100: Iconography in a New Century, Princeton University. “Kariye Muzesi’s Limitless Prism,” at the 43rd Annual Byzantine Studies Conference at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN. Linda Safran Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies Linda Safran has four articles in press, but, frustratingly, none appeared this year. She gave two papers: “Teaching Byzantine Art in China: Some Thoughts on Global Reception,” at “Global Byzantium,” the 50th Annual UK Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham; and “Diagramming Byzantine Orthodoxy,” at the Medieval Academy of America annual meeting in Toronto. She will edit Gesta (with Adam S. Cohen) for one more year, through the fall 2018 issue, and she is co-symposiarch (with Jefrey Hamburger and David Roxburgh of Harvard) of the 2018 Dumbarton Oaks Spring Symposium on “Diagrams in Cross-Cultural Perspective.” Alex Vukovich Department of Slavonic Studies I have embarked on a new project with Professor Vasiliki Penna of the University of the Peloponnese-Kalamata on Byzantine imitation coinage and the adoption of Byzantine political forms by emergent groups in the post-Roman world. This project is expected to result in an edited volume and, possibly, a conference that will take place in Athens. The project has received funding from the Onassis Foundation and I have received a fellowship from Dumbarton Oaks to pursue my own research for this project. The irst objective of the publication related to this project is to examine the parameters of what constitutes a Byzantine imitative and appropriative coin based on iconography, ideology, and identiication with the Byzantine symbolic landscape. An intellectual query of this study consists in identifying the limits to what can be termed as “Byzantine coinage,” as certain emergent cultures in the post-Roman world recuperated Roman symbols of power. Beyond a study of Byzantine-style coins, this volume will examine the temporal, geographic, and intellectual boundaries of the Byzantine world. This is why the second objective of this study is to shape a historical narrative of inluence, exchange, and recuperation of Byzantine political ideas and forms to examine why Byzantine coins were appropriated and imitated and how their meaning was shaped over time and across geographic boundaries. The result of this project will be a handbook that uses Byzantine imitative and appropriative coin production as a means of tracing diplomatic contacts between the Byzantine Empire and areas as diverse as the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, Rus, Iraq, and Ethiopia. This handbook will make salient the interconnectedness of the post-Roman world and the hold of Byzantine political symbols on the imagination of emergent groups. By emancipating thinking about early coinage, often used to articulate a national economic history, this handbook will take a transversal view of Byzantine imitation coins, connecting disparate cultures and groups across space and time. I will send further updates as soon as we have organized the volume and have a publisher. C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 6 Conor Whately Department of Classics Book Chapters 2017: “Procopius and the Characterization of Bessas: Where History Meets Historiography”, in E. Turquois & C. Lillington-Martin (eds.), Procopius Revisited: (New) Interpretations and Methodologies, Routledge, pp. 123-136. 2017: “Thucydides and the Historians of the Later Roman Empire,” in S. Forsdyke, R. Balot, and E. Foster (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides, OUP, pp. 691-707. Book Reviews 2017: D Breeze, The Roman Army, London, 2016, Journal of Roman Studies. 2017: W. Reiss and G. Fagan, The Topography of Violence in the Greco-Roman World, Ann Arbor, 2016, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2017.02.28. Conference Papers Conference Paper, October 2017 (invited): “Soldiers and Strategy on the Southeastern Frontier in the Age of Justinian,” ASMEA meeting, Washington, DC. Conference Paper, July 2017: “Looking for a Eurasian Way of War in the Late Roman Military,” 10th Celtic Classics Conference, Montreal. Conference Paper, May 2017: “A Rose is a Rose by Any Other Name: Military Terminology at the End of Antiquity,” Classical Association of Canada annual conference, St. John’s. Seminar Paper, February 2017 (invited): “Individuals, Collectives, and the Early Byzantine Military,” Byzantine Collectives, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. John Wortley Department of History CUP has agreed to publish More Sayings of the Desert Fathers, over six hundred tales and sayings translated into English for the irst time from six original languages by a team of experts (I did the Greek and Latin bits and am editor.). I also have a book ‘for Everyman’ irst suggested by, and currently being assessed by, CUP, Getting to know the Desert Fathers. There are also three articles out looking for publishers: ‘Literacy and the Desert Fathers’, ‘Women in the Desert’ and ‘Nostalgia among the Desert Fathers’, i.e. ‘times are not what they used to be.’ C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 7 REPORTS Treasurer’s Report Membership: This year to date (Dec 1st) we have twenty-two paid up members (fourteen faculty, eight students). Although this includes three ‘new’ members (two are longer term members who have returned to the paid-up fold) numbers continue to decline from year to year. I am hopeful that a number of subscriptions are simply delayed, not lapsed. Finances: Images: (Above) Nomisma histamenon of Nikephoros II Phokas (Dumbarton Oaks); (Below) Byzantine miniature depicting tax collectors accepting payment from a group of villagers Without supplying all the minutiae (available on request) I can say that, with the increase in dues from $20 to $30 for faculty and professional Members and from $10 to $15 for students, our inances have improved a little, despite the continuing decline in numbers. This will enable us to meet our obligations to pay annual dues of E200 for membership in the AIEB (at the last exchange rate over $300 CAD), our commitment to encourage undergraduate interest through the annual $100 essay prize, the costs of electronic and print distribution of the Bulletin, and bank fees, without courting an immediate deicit. With current numbers we do, however, remain uncomfortably close to the edge and so I do encourage any members who have not paid dues this year (or for a while) to make their contribution and, perhaps even more importantly, ask all members to do all they can to recruit new faculty and student members. One possibility, for example, is for graduate supervisors to pay the dues of their students and thus encourage them to participate in our community! Richard Greenield Department of History 49 Bader Lane Watson Hall Queen’s University Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6 C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 8 Excavations at Baturyn in 2017 In August of last year, the Canada-Ukraine archaeological expedition conducted its annual excavations in the Ukrainian town of Baturyn, Chernihiv Oblast. The project is sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta, the Pontiical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (PIMS) at the University of Toronto, and the Ucrainica Research Institute in Toronto. The W. K. Lypynsky East European Research Institute in Philadelphia also supported the historical and archaeological investigations of early modern Baturyn in 2016-17. This past summer, the archaeological expedition in Baturyn engaged about 50 students and scholars from the universities of Chernihiv and Hlukhiv, as well as the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv. It was headed by archaeologist Yurii Sytyi of Chernihiv National University. Prof. Zenon Kohut, the former director of CIUS, serves as academic adviser for the Baturyn project. Dr. Volodymyr Mezentsev (CIUS) and Prof. Martin Dimnik (PIMS) take part in this research and the publication of its results. The 2017 archaeological indings have established that medieval Baturyn emerged in the Komnenian era as a frontier fortress of Kyivan Rus’ on the north eastern periphery of the Byzantine Commonwealth. After its destruction by the Mongols in 1239, the town recovered in the course of the Palaeologan period. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, the development of this settlement was interrupted. From 1625 the town was rebuilt under Polish rule over central Ukraine. Fig. 1. Mazepa’s palace in Honcharivka, the suburb of Baturyn before 1708. Hypothetical reconstruction by V. Mezentsev, computer graphic by S. Dmytriienko, 2017. In 1669, Baturyn became the capital of the 17th-18th-century Cossack state. It prospered most under the reign of the distinguished Hetman Ivan Mazepa (1687-1709), who promoted the town’s economic and cultural ties with the kingdoms of Poland and Sweden. In alliance with them, Mazepa led a revolt to liberate central Ukraine from the increasing domination of Russia. In 1708, the tsarist army repressed this insurrection and completely destroyed the hetman capital. Baturyn was rebuilt and experienced its last upsurge under the rule of the progressively-minded Hetman Kyrylo Rozumovsky (1750-64) prior to his death in 1803. Last summer, the expedition resumed its excavations in the Baturyn suburb of Honcharivka. Between 1696 and 1700, Mazepa constructed there his principal residence with three stories and a mansard. This brick palace was plundered and burned by Russian troops in 1708. Analysis of the excavated palace’s foundations, written sources, and a unique 1744 drawing of this structure’s ruins, found at the National Museum in Stockholm, has enabled researchers to recreate its architectural design and decoration. Although Mazepa’s main residence was likely built and adorned primarily in the Central European baroque style, the embellishment of this palace’s faҫades with glazed ceramic rosettes represents a distinctive attribute of the early modern architecture of central Ukraine. While excavating the remnants of Honcharivka’s villa in 1995-2013, many fragments of such rosettes were found. These round plate-like ceramic details are ornamented with relief stylized lowers of various patterns and covered by white, yellow, green, turquoise, and light or dark blue enamel. In 2017, on the basis of a detailed examination of numerous rosette fragments and using computer graphic techniques, archaeologists prepared hypothetical colour reconstructions of six types of these intact details. Each type has its own speciic lower or geometric relief ornament and predominantly three or four subtypes with variations of colour glazing, up to 21 subtypes altogether. These tiles were nailed to the frieze of the entablature in a row alternating diferent types or subtypes. According to the graphic reconstruc- C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 9 tion of the Honcharivka palace’s exterior, these friezes on each of its three stories were decorated with rosettes of various diameters, ranging from 30 cm to 40 cm. Fig. 2. Some of the glazed ceramic rosettes from the faҫade decoration of the Honcharivka palace prior to 1700. Hypothetical reconstructions by V. Mezentsev and S. Dmytriienko, computer graphics by S. Dmytriienko, 2017. Rosettes, heating stove tiles, and slabs bearing Mazepa’s coat of arms from the Honcharivka palace have been recognized as valuable pieces of Ukrainian baroque architectural majolica. The rosettes represent one of the most numerous and typologically diverse categories of ceramic embellishments of this ediice. Our conclusions regarding the ornamentation of the Honcharivka palace by six types and 16-21 subtypes of rosettes with a palette of six colours of enamel complement the results of earlier research on the application there of seven to nine patterns of loor pavements or inlays with glazed and terracotta tiles, about 30 kinds of ine glazed multicoloured stove tiles, and two versions of terracotta and glazed heraldic plaques. These indings attest to the exceptionally costly, reined, and diversiied ceramic adornments of Mazepa’s main residence in Baturyn. All of these ornamental ceramic details of the Honcharivka palace were conceivably fashioned by experienced tile-makers, whom the hetman summoned from Kyiv. Most likely the method of decorating the faҫades of this ediice with ceramic rosettes was borrowed from 17th-18th-century Kyivan churches and monastic structures. It was uncharacteristic of Western European and Russian baroque architecture. In fact, the Honcharivka palace is the only known residential building in Ukraine adorned with ceramic rosettes. Thus, the exclusive application of this speciic method of embellishing churches of the leading Kyivan architectural school for inishing Mazepa’s palace in Baturyn shows the unique nature and national lavour of the structure. By its three-story design, artistic polychrome glazed ceramic revetments, and unusual combination of Western and Ukrainian baroque decorations, the principal hetman residence stood out among the secular buildings of the Cossack realm. Last year, archaeologists partly excavated the foundation of a hitherto unknown brick structure at Mazepa’s estate in Honcharivka. Its investigation and identiication will be continued next summer. Recent archaeological research of the ramparts and ive earthen bastions protecting this manor have suggested that their design and polygonal layout were modelled on advanced contemporaneous Dutch fortiications. In 2017, the expedition continued excavating the site of the household of Judge General Vasyl Kochubei (after 1700) in Baturyn’s western end. After 1750, Rozumovsky owned this estate and commissioned three buildings for the hetman’s administration there. They were demolished in the 19th century. Archaeologists have uncovered portions of brick foundations that supported the wooden walls of two C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 10 Fig. 3. Two 17th-18th-century patterned neck crosses unearthed at Baturyn in 2017. Bronze and silver (centre and right). Photos by Yu. Sytyi. of Rozumovsky’s buildings of the second half of the 18th century. They have determined that the larger structure had one story, 20 m by 13 m in size, and at least two heating stoves. One of them was revetted with ornate Delft blue and white enamel ceramic tiles, which were probably imported from Holland. The other stove was faced with plain lat tiles glazed apple-green without images or ornaments. They presumably were produced in Baturyn in the second part of the 18th century. Fragments of both kinds of these tiles have been unearthed amidst the debris of the larger administrative premise last summer. At Kochubei’s court, a tiny 17th-18th-century silver neck cross has been discovered. It could have belonged to a child from his family or some other Cossack elite family. The shape and relief decoration of this artefact resemble Cossack crosses of local manufacture. It features a three-barred Golgotha cross inscribed on the front and some ornamental engravings on its back. On the cross arms, the initials of Jesus Christ, the King, are inscribed in keeping with mixed Byzantine and modern Slavic iconographic traditions. The Greek letters ІС and Х represent the canonical abbreviations of Christ’s name, while the Cyrillic letter Ц seemingly refers to His title in Slavic: Tsar (Царь). Such a brief monogram for Christ’s name and title, with only four characters (ІС, Х, Ц), is very rare among modern Orthodox crosses with Cyrillic inscriptions. It could be due to the small size of this child’s cross. Within the former Baturyn fortress, near the Resurrection Church (1803), a larger bronze neck cross was unearthed. In the centre, it bears the miniature relief of a cross set above a crescent moon. This less expensive cross was apparently cast in Muscovy and exported to Baturyn in the 17th century. During excavations near the Resurrection Church, a remarkable bronze ring with a seal on the octagonal glass insert of the late 17th or early 18th centuries was found. Researchers examining the seal made a sample wax impression and a graphic outline of the miniature relief image. The seal depicts a stylized masonry fortress wall lanked by two towers with steep conical roofs. Above the towers is an image of an eagle ighting a serpent or a dragon in the sky. The fortress symbolizes the fortiications of Constantinople. The seal presents the legendary combat of two creatures, lying above the city as described in the tale about the foundation and fall of the Byzantine capital in 1453 by the Russian author Nestor Iskander in the late 15th or early 16th centuries. Illustrations of this legend were popular in applied arts of 17th-century Muscovy. Gold and silver signet rings of this time with a similar composition were found in Tula Oblast and Mordovia in Russia. No early modern seals with this motif are known to us in Ukraine. It is also absent from the coat of arms of Ukrainian gentry and baroque engravings. This allows us to believe that the signet ring discovered in Baturyn was brought there from Muscovy during Mazepa’s reign. It could have belonged to an educated C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 Fig. 4. Bronze signet ring of the 17th- early 18th century, graphic outline of the images on the glass seal, and its wax impression. Photos by Yu. Sytyi and S. Dmytriienko, computer graphic by S. Dmytriienko, 2017. 11 Cossack oicer, state oicial, scribe, or cleric who was familiar with Iskander’s account about the origins of Constantinople. In Baturyn’s northern suburb, the expedition uncovered a portion of brick foundation of the early 18th-century residence of Chancellor General Pylyp Orlyk, the renowned author of the irst Ukrainian constitution (1710). This structure was burned during the conlagration of Baturyn in 1708. It had timber walls and at least two heating stoves. The irst was faced with imposing multicoloured glazed ceramic tiles, while the second one had less costly terracotta tiles without enamel. Several shards of both types of these stove tiles of Ukrainian production were unearthed in 2016-17. Fig. 5. Fragment of the early 18th-century terracotta stove tile and a graphic outline of its reliefs of a Cossack langed mace, banner, and acanthus leaf. Photo by Yu. Sytyi, computer graphic by S. Dmytriienko, 2017. One terracotta tile fragment from the last excavations features the reliefs of a stylized banner on a wooden shaft, a langed mace (the insignia of a Cossack colonel’s rank), and possibly a decorative acanthus leaf in baroque style at the bottom. These images may form part of Orlyk’s ceramic armorial bearings. Several fragments of ceramic stove tiles with various elements of his noble heraldic emblem were found on this site in 2014 and 2016. Archaeological explorations of Orlyk’s household will be renewed next summer. While excavating the fortress, town’s suburbs, and Kochubei’s estate, were also discovered: two glazed ceramic children’s toys fashioned in a folk style (a tiny cup and a whistle shaped as a stylized bird), three fragments of ornamented terracotta Cossack tobacco pipes, two iron belt clasps, two copper buttons, three lead musket bullets, and various iron tools, all of local manufacture, nine silver Polish-Lithuanian and three copper Russian coins from the 17th-18th century, as well as two silver shillings of Queen Christina Vasa of Sweden (1632-54) minted in Riga, Livonia, and one 17th-century silver solidus from Swedish Livonia. In Honcharivka, archaeologists have investigated the remnants of a wooden dwelling, which was burned together with the neighbouring Mazepa villa in 1708. Inside this structure, an iron cannon ball from the shelling of the town that year has been found. To summarise, the brick foundations of three heretofore unknown buildings and the ceramic tile adornments of the Mazepa and Rozumovsky eras were discovered at Baturyn in 2017. The latest archaeological indings have reconFig. 6. Silver coins from Swedish Livonia, 17th century. irmed the dynamics of masonry construction, local urban crafts, Ukrainian 2017 excavations at Baturyn. Photos by Yu. Sytyi. baroque applied arts, and the broad commercial and cultural relations of the hetman capital with the Netherlands, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Swedish empire, and Muscovy. Thanks to the 17-year-long annual Canada-Ukraine excavations at Baturyn, this town has become the most extensively archaeologically studied settlement of the Cossack realm. Further ield investigations in Baturyn are scheduled for August 2018. Martin Dimnik and Volodymyr Mezentsev C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 12 Conference Reports Collectivities, Individuals, Identity and the Polity: Imagining the Commons in Late Antiquity and Byzantium On February 3rd and 4th, 2017 the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University hosted a symposium entitled “Collectivities, Individuals, Identity and the Polity: Imagining the Commons in Late Antiquity and Byzantium” with support from SFU’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences as well as the Departments of History and Political Science. Participants engaged with the topic of Byzantine collectivities, examining the place of individuals within them and the ways in which politics, identity, and medieval polities were shaped by the tensions between the two. The event brought together scholars of Byzantium from the Universities of Athens, McGill, Ottawa, Oxford, Winnipeg, Wisconsin, Virginia and of course SFU. While the ield of History was well represented among the participants, valuable perspectives from the ields of Art History, Political Science, and Archaeology made this symposium this a truly multi-disciplinary afair. Panelists engaged with a wide variety of periods, from Late Antiquity to the ifteenth century, while papers spanned regions from Egypt, Italy, and Armenia to the imperial centre in Constantinople. The irst panel (Higgins, Whately, Greatrex) focused on Late Antiquity and featured presentations on Marian Iconography, the Early Byzantine military, and Procopius’ attitude towards barbarians. The second panel (Matheou, Dickert, Steiris) moved to the imperial periphery, engaging with collectivities in Armenian Cappadocia and Byzantine Italy, as well as ifteen-century Greek identities. The third panel explored public works programs in Laskarid Asia Minor, the reception of Buddha in Byzantine monasteries, and collective environmental action on the village level (Aleksandar Jovanović, Hilsdale, Olson). The inal panel (Krallis, Neville, Boucoyannis) examined Roman identity through the lens of state logistics, looked at the expression of religious sensibility in tenth Century tax law, and ofered a comparative study of English, Ottoman, and Russian patterns of collective organizations. The symposium was capped by a roundtable discussion. Overall, the symposium was a forum for lively debate and discussion, with questions frequently engaging both presenter and the audience. The SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University looks forward to hosting similar events in the future, providing an opportunity to Canadian Byzantinists and their peers around the world to exchange ideas and build intellectual ainities and institutional connections. Dimitris Krallis Image: Excerpt from the Madrid Skylitzes depicting Emperor Theophilos C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 13 Ottoman Conquest and Knowledge: A Transcultural History I am pleased to report that the “Ottoman Conquest and Knowledge: A Transcultural History” conference, which took place at Newnham College, Cambridge on July 6-7, 2017 was a success. We heard papers that encompassed a broad range of topics and regions, which demonstrated the scope of the transmission and creation of knowledge by and about the Ottoman conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean and former Byzantine lands. The main topics treated during the conference were as follows: • • • • • • • Understanding the Ottoman ‘Other’ Ottoman Dialogues with Muslim Neighbours: Reception and Appropriation Venice and the Ottoman World: Transferring Knowledge Across the Mediterranean The Reception, Rejection, and Creation of Technologies Cross-cultural Knowledge and Networks of Transmission in the Eastern Mediterranean under Ottoman Rule Perceptions and Reception of the Ottoman ‘Other’, Byzantine Perspectives Conservation, Transformation, and Transmission of the Built Landscape in Conquered Lands The conference successfully furthered our understanding of the ways in which knowledge was transformed, exchanged, diversiied, expanded, and suppressed during the period beginning with the Ottoman conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean. The broad geographic scope of the conference allowed for interdisciplinary exchange between researchers working on similar topics and themes, but on entirely diferent geographic regions. The resulting publication entitled “The Ottoman Conquest and the Production of Knowledge” will appear with Brill’s “The Medieval Mediterranean” series in 2019. One of the major thematic strands of this publication examines intellectual exchange and the transmission of information through diplomatic, mercantile, and religious infrastructures that rose out of the Ottoman conquest. A second major thematic strand examines how cultural and religious tolerance developed out of the Ottoman conquest based on knowledge exchange and transmission. Alex Vukovich Image: Newnham College, Cambridge University, UK C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 14 Religious Violence in Antiquity: A Religious Studies Approach Across the Longue Durée What is religious violence? Was such violence a phenomenon unique to Late Antiquity, or was it just as common in earlier centuries? Indeed, was religious violence in Late Antiquity always about religion? These were the central questions posed and discussed at the international conference Religious Violence in Antiquity: A Religious Studies Approach Across the Longue Durée. The conference ran from September 28th - 30th, 2017 and was jointly organized by Dr. Jitse Dijkstra (University of Ottawa) and Dr. Christian Raschle (Université de Montréal). On September 28th - prior to the conference proper - graduate students from both universities gathered at the Université de Montréal to participate in a masterclass led by Dr. Peter Van Nufelen (Ghent University, Belgium). Students were given the opportunity to present works in progress and engage in constructive discussions with one another and experts in the ield. That evening, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dr. Jan Bremmer (University of Groningen) gave the opening lecture, which was entitled, “Priests, Pogroms and Persecutions: Religious Violence in Antiquity across the longue durée.” On September 29th, the Université de Montréal hosted the irst full day of presentations - eight in total. Each of these was roughly twenty to twenty-ive minutes in length and was related to one of the four following themes: Greek Religion, Roman Religion, Religious Violence and the Jews, and Religious Violence and the Christians. For the third and inal day, the conference moved to the University of Ottawa. Once more, participants heard eight lectures, which were likewise categorized under one of four themes: New Perspectives on Religious Violence in Late Antiquity, Religious Violence in Monastic Literature, Religious Violence in the Church Historians, and Religious Violence in Late Antique Historiography. Concluding observations and relections by Dr. Bremmer brought the two days of presentations to an end. The conference oicially closed with an evening lecture by Dr. Hans Kippenberg (Jacobs University Bremen), entitled “Defending God’s Own Community: Violent Scripts of Contemporary Religious Communities”. Dr. Kippenberg was introduced by Sabine Sparwasser, the German ambassador to Canada, whose embassy not only assisted in organizing this closing lecture, but also generously provided light refreshments afterwards. For those interested in further information regarding the conference, including abstracts of the papers delivered, please see the following link: https://arts.uottawa.ca/cla-srs/ en/conferences/religious-violence-in-antiquity. Scott Winges Image: Conference participants, Religious Violence in Antiquity in Montreal C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 15 CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT Information on the Profile and Structure of the 24th Congress of Byzantine Studies-Istanbul 2021 Date: As already announced on the website of the AIEB, the 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies will be held on 23-28 August 2021 in Istanbul, Turkey. Main Theme: “Byzantium – Bridge Between Worlds”/ “Byzance – Pont entre des mondes” General Rule: Scholars can participate in no more than two sessions throughout the Congress. (i.e., as speaker in two sessions, or as speaker in one session plus as convenor, or as convenor in two sessions). Plenary Sessions: • • • Image: Blue Mosque, Istanbul (Daniel Burka) There will be six sessions. Each will have a commentator and three speakers, except the last one, which will have ive speakers. The Organizing Committee, in cooperation with the AIEB Bureau, has decided the theme of each session as follows: 1. Byzantium connecting civilizations 2. Networks: social, cultural, material 3. Continuity and break: from ancient to medieval worlds 4. Byzantium and the Turks 5. Dialogue among Byzantinists: linking ields, approaches, and methods 6. Bridging interdisciplinary gaps: new ways of making connections The provisional list of Plenary Session speakers and commentators will be approved at the Inter-Congress meeting in Athens in September 2018. National Committees will be informed about the list shortly before the meeting. C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 16 Round Tables: General rules: 1. Round Tables must be proposed through the National Committee of the convenor/proposer. 2. We strongly encourage those who propose Round Table sessions to follow the Congress main theme and the themes of the Plenary Sessions. 3. Round Tables should consist of no fewer than four and no more than six speakers, plus the convenor(s), in order to ensure adequate time for discussion. 4. The most important criterion for accepting a Round Table proposal will be its innovative scholarly contribution. 5. The number of proposals by each National Committee is limited to ten. 6. Proposals should include a title, an abstract of 250 words, the names of the convenor(s) and speakers as well as the name of the person sending the proposal, his/her ailiated institution and his/her mail address. 7. Proposals should be written in English or French. Timetable: • • • The deadline for submission of Round Table proposals by National Committees to the Organizing Committee is 22 June 2018. Any Round Table proposal received after the deadline will not be accepted. The proposals should be sent to: [email protected] A provisional list of approximately ifty Round Table proposals will be presented for discussion at the Inter-Congress meeting in Athens in September 2018. Following the Inter-Congress meeting, National Committees will be informed about the inal decision in October/November 2018 (acceptance, rejection, or rejection with the option of thematic free communication session). Istanbul, 24 January 2018 Organizing Committee C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 17 BOOK REVIEW Michael J. Decker, The Byzantine Dark Ages (London: Bloomsbury 2016) viii + 246 pp. This book discusses the material culture of the eastern Mediterranean basin between roughly the late sixth and the ninth centuries CE, a time often claimed to be obscured by a lack of sound contemporary written sources, hence the popular sobriquet ‘dark age’, but also called the Early Middle Ages. The book has an introduction, followed by six chapters, a bibliography and an index. Decker begins with a brief overview of the historiographical background of the terms ‘Dark Ages’ and ‘Byzantium’. The ‘Dark Ages’ are popularly associated with public perceptions of the Middle Ages, some obscure period separating Italian humanism from Greco-Roman culture. ‘Byzantium’ represents a medieval Christian culture centred on the Roman city of Constantinople. However, the extent of that culture as imagined or interpreted by a researcher can vary, based upon a number of factors (nationality, geographic remit). This introduction aims to introduce readers to these oft-debated topics. Decker presents his work as a contribution to this debate, centred on archaeological data, beginning early to point out the misleading quality of the term ‘dark age’ with respect to the period studied, and returning to this point repeatedly throughout the book using his evidence base. Chapter one comprises a historical overview of the period, following a roughly chronological order of imperial reigns, including important material culture or physical events associated with each reign, such as outbreaks of bubonic plague, climate change, the loss of physical territory to Islamic forces, and iconoclasm. Furthermore, the author uses this chapter to further develop thoughts that he outlined in the Introduction, by discussing theories used by researchers for interpreting evidence from the period, and by outlining the historiography of the early medieval Mediterranean over the past century, pointing out that medieval Byzantium was ignored as a research topic in favor of Greco-Roman antiquity. Chapter two briely describes the principal types of material culture present in the eastern Mediterranean (ceramics, coinage, glass, metallic objects, stone, bone, ivory, and textiles), and discusses their importance in the debate about the eastern Mediterranean in the period. Among the topics discussed, Decker provides a valuable English summary of early medieval lead glazed wares that replaced the slipped terra sigillata of the earlier Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean, and discusses the silk trade that developed in Constantinople in about the sixth century CE, pointing out alternative sources of evidence to counter claims of the age being ‘dark’. C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 18 Chapter three discusses the transformation of cities in the region from the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages. Decker dwells on cities that remained Byzantine into the Early Middle Ages (Nicopolis ad Istrum in Bulgaria, Butrint in Albania, Corinth, Amorium and Hierapolis in Phrygia). However, his discussion is very valuable because the transformation that these Greco-Roman cities experienced in the period studied represents in many cases what is at present visible in countries such as Turkey and Syria, even if the inhabitants’ religion has changed. This information provides a very valuable link between antiquity and the present. Chapter four discusses the study of the rural Byzantine world. Pedestrian or archaeological survey is the principal method used to study the rural portion of any past culture, and the author discusses it at length to point out the weaknesses with the method for the medieval eastern Mediterranean, arguing that it is impractical to compare the results with the collected survey data of earlier time periods in the same region, such as Classical Greece or Imperial Rome, because of the fundamental diference in culture, and also because of a diference in deinitions used in project research designs. However, he highlights general trends evident from period data, generally based on the number of sites identiied. There is a general and gradual abandonment of the northern Balkan peninsula compared to regions further to the south, whereas levels of activity in other regions, such as Sicily, Italy and Asia Minor, are variable throughout the period. The author discusses the role played by types of material culture and environmental changes in these interpretations, repeatedly emphasizing the diiculty of making clear interpretations of the collected data. Chapter ive follows up with a summary of the Byzantine economy in the period. Decker discusses coinage at greater length than in chapter two because of its importance in measuring economic activity. Although the economy remains generally tri-metallic in the period, the author points out that it shrank because of the loss of eastern provinces to Arabs. Nevertheless, travel carries on in the period, and there are still a wide range of products for trade, from silk textiles to pottery. Material evidence such as period shipwrecks (Yassi Ada, Yenikapı in Istanbul) ofers opportunities to learn more about trees used for timber, and pottery tended to be produced on a more localised level with a lead-based glaze instead of a slip. Furthermore, despite the hostile nature of the relationship between medieval Byzantium and Islamic caliphates in the Near East, trade between the two carried on at an important level. Chapter six draws everything together into a general conclusion, pointing out that archaeological work has allowed igurative light to be cast on the period, making it less dark. Only further archaeological work, both excavation and survey, will allow more conident claims about Byzantine culture of the period to be made. The book has already been reviewed (Paul Arthur in Medieval Archaeology volume 61). This reviewer quite enjoyed reading it, learning a fair bit, and recognizing its value as an important source on early medieval Byzantium for an anglophone audience. In spite of the fact that Decker repeatedly uses evidence from following centuries to look at the period, he omits an edited volume from 2008: Charalampos Pennas and Catherine Vanderheyde (eds), La sculpture byzantine. VIIe-XIIe siècles (Paris, 2008). This volume provides much information, although many chapters are written in Greek, about sculpture in Middle Byzantium, a topic which could contribute to the discussion of inhabited settlement in the period. Stefan Mofat C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 19 UNDERGRADUATE ESSAY COMPETETION Lily Dunbar of McGill University was this year’s winner of the undergraduate essay competition in Byzantine studies. The title of her essay was ‘A Timeless Testament: Identity, Authority, and Legacy in the Leo Bible”. Her paper showed how Leo the Patrician’s, the bible’s patron, inscriptions can serve to explain its illuminations and even some of the biblical passages. We are also pleased to announce the fourth Undergraduate Essay Contest in Byzantine Studies, which is designed to celebrate and reward exceptional research undertaken by undergraduate students in Canada who have written essays, in English or French, on any theme relating to Byzantine studies, i.e., concerning the eastern Roman Empire from A.D. 312 to 1453. Applicants do not need to be a major in a pertinent discipline (Archaeology, Art History, Classics, History, Medieval Studies, Near Eastern Studies, etc.) to submit their work. Furthermore, the course for which the essay was written need not be focused speciically on Byzantine Studies. The prize for the winner will be $100. Essays should be submitted electronically (from a university e-mail address) by either the student or the instructor on the student’s behalf. In either case, the student should have the instructor’s endorsement. They should be sent in pdf format to: Dr. Conor Whately Department of Classics University of Winnipeg 515 Portage Ave. Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada Tel.: 204-786-9879 [email protected] There should be no indication of the student’s identity on the essay document itself. Instead, the required information should be provided on a separate document (also sent electronically) that indicates the student’s name, email address, university ailiation, and the title of the paper. If the essay is being submitted by an instructor the name and email address of the applicant should be included. The essay should be submitted as it was written for its course without revisions, with the exception of typographical corrections. It should be 10-20 pages in length (including bibliography) and double-spaced. Students may submit only one essay per year. The judging is based on both the essay’s content and its form: the winning essay must be well written, clearly organized and free from errors of grammar and syntax; and the contest winner will have made good use of the pertinent sources, have covered their chosen subject thoroughly, and ideally have provided new insights on their chosen topic. The deadline for submitting material to the competition is May 28th, 2018. The winner will be notiied in August (2018) and will be announced in a subsequent CAN-BYZ newsletter. Image: Excerpt from the Madrid Skylitzest, depicting Leon VI receiving a Bulgarian delegation It is possible to submit the essay both to this contest and to that organised by SCAPAT (www.scapat. ca). C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 20 ANNOUNCEMENTS AIEB Matters The new AIEB newsletter has been launched. To receive the BYZANTINE NEWS, register yourself at http://aiebnet.gr/newsletter/ For your information, here is the Mission Statement: The main aim of the AIEB Newsletter Byzantine News is to facilitate information exchange among Byzantine scholars worldwide. It hopes to fulill this aim by functioning as an information hub, i.e. by receiving and distributing news and information about activities and events that may be of interest to Byzantine scholars throughout the world. In particular, it seeks to collect and distribute calls for papers; announcements of forthcoming congresses, conferences and similar events (presentations of volumes, seminars, public lectures, etc.); and news about exhibitions and museum events. The Newsletter does not publish announcements of recent publications. A special section entitled ‘Opportunities’ lists job postings, scholarships, and other funding opportunities for scholars at all levels, junior through senior. The Newsletter is published by the AIEB. Collection and distribution of information is carried out by the editorial team approved by the Bureau of the AIEB and on its behalf. The coordination of the editorial team is carried out by the coordinators of the Development Commission of the AIEB. We welcome submissions from National Committees of Byzantine Studies, universities, scholarly and research institutions, museums, libraries, galleries, as well as individual scholars at any stages of their careers as well as members of the general public interested in scholarly research on Byzantium and its heritage. The editorial team of the Newsletter reserves the right to choose what to publish, particularly when submissions are deemed or may be deemed to contravene the Mission Statement of the Newsletter. Alessandra Bucossi Image: Panayia Pantanassa in Monastiraki, Athens. C-B No. 29 | JANUARY 2018 21 Dumbarton Oaks Conor Whately has drawn my attention to new resources at the Dumbarton Oaks website, in particular to the making available on-line of the late Irfan Shahîd’s valuable series of monographs, Byzantium and the Arabs. The volumes may be found here: http://www.doaks.org/newsletter/byzantium-and-the-arabs Canadio-Byzantina No. 30: Deadline for Submissions It’s never too early to start thinking about next year’s issue of the Canadio-Byzantina. In order to ensure the timely publication and distribution of the next issue, we’d like to establish a deadline for submissions of December 1, 2018. Please be sure to send your submissions to Geofrey Greatrex via email ([email protected]); a friendly reminder will likely follow as the year progresses. Membership Renewal Notice Finally, if you have not renewed your subscription for this year, please send a cheque ($30 or $15 for students) payable to ‘The Canadian Committee of Byzantinists’ to Prof. Richard Greenield, Department of History, Watson Hall, Queen’s University, 49 Bader Lane, Kingston ON, K7L 3N6. For more information about the Canadian Committee of Byzantinists, please visit: http://www.scapat.ca/canbyz/ Image: The Evangelists Mark and John writing the Gospels, Karanlik Kilise, Goreme, Turkey. (Photo by DeAgostini/ Getty Images)