scholarly journals Archaeology of Medieval Lebanon: an Overview

Chronos ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 103-128
Author(s):  
Tasha Voderstrasse

This article will present an overview of the archaeological work done on medieval Lebanon from the 19th century to the present. The period under examination is the late medieval period, from the 11th to the 14th centuries, encompassing the time when the region was under the control of various Islamic dynasties and the Crusaders. The archaeology of Lebanon has been somewhat neglected over the years, despite its importance for our understanding of the region in the medieval period, mainly because of the civil war (1975-1990), which made excavations and surveys in the country impossible and led to the widespread looting of sites (Hakiman 1987; Seeden 1987; Seeden 1989; Fisk 1991; Hakiman 1991; Ward 1995; Hackmann 1998; Sader 2001. In general, see Fisk 1990). Furthermore, many collections within Lebanon itself could not be visited for the purpose of study and even collections outside Lebanon remained largely neglected. The end Of the civil war, however, marked a time of renewed interest in the country's archaeology, particularly in the city of Beirut. Also, the identification of large numbers of Christian frescoes in the region meant that churches and their paintings were studied in detail for the first time. Although much had been lost during the civil war, it was clear the archaeological heritage of Lebanon remains critical to our understanding of the archaeology of the Levant. As a crossroads for Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the late medieval period, the region that is now Lebanon was of great importance in the 1 lth to 14th centuries.

2017 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 231-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Payne

The mortuary roll of John Islip (1464–1532), Abbot of Westminster, is the finest example of its kind to survive in England. The drawings, possibly by Gerard Horenbout, afford the only views of the interior of Westminster Abbey before the Dissolution. The discovery of eighteenth-century copies of an unknown, coloured version of the roll provides important new evidence for both the circumstances of the production and the later history of both rolls. It also provides, for the first time, an authentic colour view of the interior of Westminster Abbey in the late medieval period, and new information on its decoration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Ting ◽  
Thilo Rehren ◽  
Athanasios Vionis ◽  
Vasiliki Kassianidou

AbstractThis paper challenges the conventional characterisation of glazed ware productions in the eastern Mediterranean, especially the ones which did not feature the use of opaque or tin-glazed technology, as technologically stagnant and unsusceptible to broader socio-economic developments from the late medieval period onwards. Focusing on the Cypriot example, we devise a new approach that combines scientific analyses (thin-section petrography and SEM-EDS) and a full consideration of the chaîne opératoire in context to highlight the changes in technology and craft organisation of glazed ware productions concentrating in the Paphos, Famagusta and Lapithos region during the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries CE. Our results indicate that the Paphos production was short-lived, lasting from the establishment of Frankish rule in Cyprus in the thirteenth century to the aftermath of the fall of the Crusader campaigns in the fourteenth century. However, glazed ware production continued in Famagusta and Lapithos from the late thirteenth/fourteenth centuries through to the seventeenth century, using technical practices that were evidently different from the Paphos production. It is possible that these productions were set up to serve the new, local demands deriving from an intensification of commercial activities on the island. Further changes occurred to the technical practices of the Famagusta and Lapithos productions around the 16th/17th centuries, coinciding with the displacement of populations and socio-political organisation brought by the Ottoman rule.


2021 ◽  
pp. 343-357
Author(s):  
Astghik Babajanyan

THE NEWFOUND CHAPEL OF THE LATE MEDIEVAL PERIOD IN TEGHUT (The Results of the Excavations in 2010) In 2010 in the results of the excavations carried out at the site of "Lands of Gharakotuk" in Teghut a cemetery chapel with almost a square floorplan (8.7x7.7 m2) was uncovered. The chapel has a rectangular apse highlighted from both inside and outside which is not common in Armenian architecture. The architectural plan of the chapel was distorted in the result of multiple and often incorrect reconstructions. The excavations revealed a variety of tombstones of the 14th17th centuries, including two grave markers with Georgian inscriptions (deciphering and commentaries by Temo Jojua), two complete and two dozen fragmentary khachkars (two of them dated 1513 and 1604), ceramic and metal artifacts. Based on the analysis of the found materials and the architectural structure, the chapel dates to the 16th-17th centuries. According to the environment ‒ sacred trees (Celtis caucasica) growing around the chapel and the cemetery, as well as a collection of specially hidden metal objects (human figurines, animal shoes, lock etc.) which had protective significance from the evil eye or various diseases, the chapel served also as a place for pilgrimage.


2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Franco Motta ◽  
Eleonora Rai

Abstract The introduction to this special issue provides some considerations on early modern sanctity as a historical object. It firstly presents the major shifts in the developing idea of sanctity between the late medieval period and the nineteenth century, passing through the early modern construction of sanctity and its cultural, social, and political implications. Secondly, it provides an overview of the main sources that allow historians to retrace early modern sanctity, especially canonization records and hagiographies. Thirdly, it offers an overview of the ingenious role of the Society of Jesus in the construction of early modern sanctity, by highlighting its ability to employ, create, and play with hagiographical models. The main Jesuit models of sanctity are then presented (i.e., the theologian, the missionary, the martyr, the living saint), and an important reflection is reserved for the specific martyrial character of Jesuit sanctity. The introduction assesses the continuity of the Jesuit hagiographical discourse throughout the long history of the order, from the origins to the suppression and restoration.


Author(s):  
Edith Bárdos ◽  
Máté Varga

The preliminary explorations of the bypass of road 61 to the North of Kaposvár took more years. Among the ex-cavations in the pathes of the new highway, one of the great-est and most important is the excavation of site number 2 to the South of Toponár. The excavation is located on the East-ern bank of Stream Deseda. The territory was almost always suitable for settlement. It is proved by the fact that we found artifacts from 9 period-cultures from the late Neolithic to the late Medieval period. On the site of the excavations there is an outstanding amount of scattered cremation burials and urn graves from the period of the Transdanubian Encrusted Pot-tery Culture, as well as the cemetery established in the 11th century, in the Arpadian-age. The extended area of the exca-vations was settled intensively in the late Avar-age and in the early Arpadian-age.


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