Synodia. A Rare Type of Religious Community in Inscriptions from the Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Basilica of the Machkhomeri Fortress in Lazica

Introduction. The process of Christianization of the Lazica, poorly presented in written sources, received an important source in the recently found inscriptions from the Machkhomeri fortress near Khobi. Analysis. The inscriptions were discovered during the excavations of a three-nave basilica, built in the 6th c. by a certain Gorgonios in honour of Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. The next benefactor of the church was a certain Theonas, his wife and family. In the northern part of the basilica, there were also found fragments of two inscriptions, which contain the list of benefactors with their synodiai. The dedicants of the inscriptions were among others the carpenters/ builders of the church and their colleagues, who probably also formed a synodia. Results. Thus, we see in the 6th-c. Lazica a rare kind of religious community around a mighty person or institution – a synodia consisting mainly of lay people. The competition for the right to own objects inside the Machkhomeri Basilica shows that this church was the centre of attraction and pilgrimage in the region, perhaps thanks to the relics of the Martyrs of Sebaste.

The voices of the tale: the storyteller in early Byzantine collective biographies, miracle collections, and collections of edifying tales

This article is a first attempt to approach the figure of the storyteller in three types of early Byzantine tale collections (fourth–seventh centuries): collective biography, miracle collection, and collection of edifying tales. Our approach draws significantly on Walter Benjamin's discussion of the storyteller and Monica Fludernik's work on conversational storytelling. Our analysis has a twofold purpose: first, to revise the impression that the storyteller is a canonical force that possesses the same characteristics in every single tale; second, to suggest that the storyteller is an inherent feature of short hagiographical narratives.

6th century Amphorae with Menorah Representation from Phanagoria

During excavations in 2019 in Phanagoria at the Lower City site, two amphorae with red paint dipinto representing a seven-lamp menorah were found in a fire layer dating from around the middle of the 6th century. Representations of seven-armed candelabrum on amphorae and generally on containers were a sign that they contained a kosher food, i.e. suitable for consumption according to Halakha – a corpus of laws guiding activities of a Jew. Thus, the published amphorae attest to the presence of a Jewish community in the city in early Byzantine time and fill a chronological gap in a short list of archaeological and written evidence about the Jewish community of Phanagoria, moreover, the fact that the vessels were found at a fairly close distance from each other in a narrowly dated gated complex may indicate the presence of a Jewish quarter there. The finds are of particular importance due to the fact that the number of amphorae and other vessels with dipinti representing a menorah known to date is rather insignificant. Their findings are known only from excavations in several centres of the Northern Pontic and Palestine.

Monumental Painting: Pre-Iconoclasm

Early Byzantine artists (active ca. fourth–early eighth century) continued to employ traditional Roman techniques. In most of the empire, they painted on wet plaster (fresco) but in Egypt they applied pigments onto dry plaster (secco) using bonding agents of animal protein (tempera) or molten wax (encaustic). By far the largest number of surviving wall paintings from this period is found in Egypt, especially in desert monasteries and burial grounds. Painted buildings also survive in the city of Ephesus (Turkey), as well in other sites scattered across the empire. Although regional styles probably existed, too little survives to identify their characteristics. Instead, the extant paintings indicate considerable unity in in both styles and subjects.

Jewelry and Enamels

This chapter surveys jewelry and enamels. Byzantine jewelry has survived in small numbers. Early Byzantine rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings were made with gold, gemstones, and pearls, often in the opus interrasile openwork technique. From the tenth century, enamels could also adorn (imperial) gold jewelry. Inscribed and engraved rings were common in the Middle and Late Byzantine period. Bronze pieces attest to everyday jewelry. Increased exchange with other areas, especially the West, is noticeable in post-Crusader times.

The Byzantine Arts and Byzantine Literature

This chapter examines the relationships between literary and visual forms in Byzantium. Both in the Early and in the later Byzantine periods there were clear parallels between the ways that literary and visual compositions were structured, whether through the rhetorical techniques of repetition, variation, and acrostic in Early Byzantine art, or through comparison and antithesis along with the selective realism of ekphrasis and ethopoiia, after Iconoclasm. These parallels involved both fundamental principles of design and organization and more isolated instances of quotation, raising the complex question of whether one medium can be said to have exerted influence on the other, or whether the same forms occurred in literature and the visual arts as parallel expressions of common habits of thought.

Magic and Byzantine Art

The term magic has been long understood as problematic. Studies of Byzantine magic have rapidly developed over the past several decades, and have come to suggest various ways of understanding the term. Two Early Byzantine amulets, serving as case studies, display conventional linguistic structures, including persuasive analogy, speech-acts, and show-acts. These linguistic structures and ways of organizing information operate equally in religious, medical, and philosophical examples. Accordingly, art and texts of ritual power exemplify intersecting communities of thought and are useful for interpreting various types of social practices. Magic studies are interdisciplinary, and as such they open new directions for the history of Byzantine art, Byzantine religion, Byzantine mentalities, Byzantine women, Byzantine Jews, and even a history of the Byzantine “individual.”

Secular Architecture: Domestic

Byzantine domestic housing of the fourth–fifteenth centuries is preserved predominantly in the Balkans and Asia Minor. Peristyle houses dominate in the Early Byzantine period and continue later: their construction and decoration, subdivision, and disappearance in the sixth century have been studied. The Middle Byzantine courtyard house was a typically urban form, centrally located in towns with Classical predecessors; it provided privacy for the residents who may have been merchants dealing in agricultural or industrial products. Most people in the Byzantine period, however, probably lived in variations of the “longhouse,” in agriculturally based small towns and villages, where they shared living quarters with livestock. Houses in Late Byzantine/Frankish centers such as Mystras were large and elaborate longhouses in an urban setting.