Thirty‐sixth Annual BYZANTINE STUDIES CONFERENCE University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia 8‐10 October 2010 ABSTRACTS of PAPERS Index of Sessions Session I A: New Materials for New Narratives 3 Session I B: Monuments of Constantinople 9 Session II A: Palaiologan Society and Culture 15 Session II B: Icons in Practice and Theory 21 Session III A: Byzantium and the Renaissance 27 Session III B: Architecture 35 Session IV A: Converts and Conversion 43 Session IV B: Portraits and Patrons in Churches 49 Session IV C: Late Antique History and Historiography 55 Session V A: Manuscript Studies 61 Session V B: Medieval European Views of Byzantium 67 Session V C: Liturgy and Monastic Culture 73 Session VI A: Church Politics 79 Session VI B: Imperial Ritual and Dynastic Relations 87 Session VI C: Raising Capital: The Laskarids in Nicaea and Nymphaion 95 Session VII A: Roman Identity and the Other 101 Session VII B: Middle Byzantine Literary Culture 109 Session VII C: Architectural Spaces: Domestic, Acoustic, Monastic 117 Session VIII A: History of Archaeology 125 Session VIII B: Material and Meaning in Late Antiquity 139 Session VIII C: Images and Iconoclasm 135 Index 141 1 2 Session I A New Materials for New Narratives 3 The Chronicle of Galaxidi: An Overview of its importance for understanding the history of Southwest Central Greece based on a new study of the ms. and an analysis of its sources. Constantine G. Hatzidimitriou (St. John’s University) The Chronicle of Galaxidi, a monastic text written in 1703, preserves details from sources now lost concerning the history of the regions of Lokris and Doridos in Southwest Central Greece from the tenth to the seventeenth centuries. The unique manuscript of the Chronicle was discovered in the ruins of the Monastery of Our Savior in 1862 by the pioneering Greek scholar Konstantinos Sathas. He published his edition shortly thereafter as part of a regional history and no one since then has either had an opportunity to study the manuscript or produce a new edition. In the 1940’s the eminent Byzantinist, Nikos Bees was able to study photographs of the manuscript and suggested some corrections, however, the precious manuscript, then part of a private collection, was presumed lost during the aftermath of the Second World War. In fact, Bees reported prior to his study, that rumors had circulated that Sathas had forged the unique document and that his edition was a hoax. Scholars such as Bees, Vasiliev, Hood and Tivcev, have demonstrated the veracity and importance of the Chronicle concerning Slavic invasions and migrations into the Gulf of Corinth during the tenth century. Recently, Rosser has made a persuasive argument in favor of the islets off the Galaxidi coast in the gulf of Itea, as periodic isles of refuge using the same source. Similarly, Savvides has shown that the Galaxidi text preserves supplementary information concerning the eleventh century activities of the Normans in the region and Latin pirates during the thirteenth. Other sections of the Galaxidi chronicle however, continue to be underutilized especially for the Ottoman period. This paper presents an overview of the rediscovery and analysis of the “lost” manuscript based on a reading of it while I was a Gennadius Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies. The Overview consists of four parts: (1) A description and analysis of the manuscript, its language, and the perspective on the events it describes; (2) Some suggestions concerning the kinds of sources the monk Euthymios had at his disposal and how I believe he used them. For example, a comparison of the Galaxidi chronicle to other local sources such as the Chronicle of Varnakova will be made. (3) A 4 brief discussion of the sections of the Chronicle which relate important information concerning the Ottoman conquest of Central Greece during the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These supplement Latin and Greek sources such as Cyriacus of Ancona, Sphrantzes and Khalkokondyles; (4) Some comments concerning the attitude of the monk Euthymios on the terminology he uses for Hellenes, Latins, Romaioi, Ottomans and local identities based on the internal evidence the text provides. Polystylon: A Thracian Byzantine Town in the Context of Historical Developments during the 6th ‐ 14th Centuries as Deciphered by its Archaeo‐Anthropological Record Anagnostis P. Agelarakis (Adelphi University) At Byzantine Polystylon (ancient Abdera) on the Thracian coast of the Aegean archaeo‐anthropological investigations under the auspices of the 12th Ephoreiate of Byzantine Antiquities identified and recovered between 1981‐1995 three sites involving complex human activity areas. At the first site, an extended cemetery and a three‐aisled basilica were discovered outside the fortification walls of the Byzantine town. Both were in function between the end of the 6th and the 10th‐11th centuries. The second site, within the acropolis walls and adjacent to the central gate of Polystylon revealed a single‐aisled domed church of the 12th‐13th century. A cemetery dating to the same period surrounded the church building. The third excavation site situated at the highest elevation within the acropolis of the Byzantine town focused on the ruins of the 9th‐10th century Episcopal Church. The western courtyard of the church had been used as a cemetery during the 13th and 14th centuries. This paper focuses on the anthropological materials retrieved from the three cemeteries spanning over a time period from the 6th to the 14th centuries. The cemeteries offered significant evidence on the typology of tombs, and of funerary customs and practices. The study of the human skeletal remains from the three cemeteries based on physical anthropological, paleopathologic and archaeometric analyses provided significant data on demographic and biological growth dynamics as well as of the pathologic profiles of the populations involved, reflective of distinct transformations in 5 the living environments at Polystylon as a provincial Byzantine town between the 6th and 14th centuries. The combination of evidentiary data from both the archaeological and anthropological records elucidate facets of the changing socio‐economic organizational capacities at this western Thracian Byzantine town which allows for a better and more thorough understanding of its historical development. In conjunction with such assessments overarching in time between the 6th and 14th centuries at Polystylon, this study offers the opportunity to also address a number of particular aspects of the larger socio‐political realm in the Byzantine Empire. Some emphasis is also given in the early years of the 14th c., during the reign of Emperor Andronicus II, regarding the nature of composition of the population involved in a walled town under times of distress, in particular under the coeval decentralized Byzantine defense strategy as revealed at Polystylon. The Corpus of Dated and Datable Inscriptions from Constantinople, Bithynia, and Eastern Thrace Anne McCabe (Athenian Agora Excavations/CSAD, Oxford) Some forty years ago, the late Prof. Ihor Sevcenko and Prof. Cyril Mango began collecting material for a Corpus of Dated and Datable Inscriptions from Constantinople, Bithynia, and Eastern Thrace. The emphasis of the project, which is nearing completion, is on tracing the evolution of Greek letter‐forms during the Byzantine period; it will also provide a dated series against which undated inscriptions may be compared. The Corpus now consists of some 120 inscriptions on stone which are either dated or datable, e.g. containing an allusion to a known person or belonging to a monument whose date is known from other sources. These inscriptions are from the capital and its hinterland; an area chosen since it has greater epigraphic continuity, so to speak, than much of the empire, with texts representing the entire Byzantine period from the fourth century until the fifteenth. Some of the inscriptions are in situ on the Land and Sea Walls of Istanbul, while others are built into churches such as SS Sergius and Bacchus or St. Mary Pammakaristos. Many loose stones have been gathered in the Archaeological Museums of Istanbul, Iznik, and Tekirdag, and a few have found their way further afield to Greece and Russia. A number were identified or published for the first time by Prof. Sevcenko, 6 such as the verse inscription from St. Polyeuktos, or the epitaph of Sisinnios, curator of Tzurulon. Among the categories represented are dedications of monuments and buildings, funerary inscriptions both humble and aristocratic, boundary stones, and an inscribed decree. Also included are a number of lost inscriptions of which reasonably good facsimiles exist. In 1995 the newly‐founded Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents at Oxford provided facilities for photos of the inscriptions to be scanned and for a database to be created. I am now preparing the Corpus for publication together with Prof. Mango. Mapping the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire Nicholas de Lange (University of Cambridge) The paper presents for the first time to an audience of specialist Byzantinists a new research project which aims to generate interactive on‐line maps of the Jewish presence in the Byzantine empire, using GIS (Geographic Information Systems). The project, funded by the European Research Council, aims to fill a gap in two fields, Byzantine history and Jewish history. Additionally, the application of new technology to the study of a historical subject will furnish a model that can be followed in other historical projects. The project will collate all the information that has so far been published about the Jewish communities: their whereabouts, their history, their relationships with each other and with their wider environment, including trade routes and historical trends, and also about individuals and their relationships with each other. Full bibliographical documentation will be supplied. It also aims to go beyond the published record and investigate unpublished sources, so as to be as complete and up‐to‐date as possible.