ABSTRACT

In spite of the striking abundance of extant primary material, Byzantine epigraphy remains uncharted territory. The volume of the Proceedings of the 49th SPBS Spring Symposium aims to promote the field of Byzantine epigraphy as a whole, and topics and subjects covered include: Byzantine attitudes towards the inscribed word, the questions of continuity and transformation, the context and function of epigraphic evidence, the levels of formality and authority, the material aspect of writing, and the verbal, visual and symbolic meaning of inscribed texts. The collection is intended as a valuable scholarly resource presenting and examining a substantial quantity of diverse epigraphic material, and outlining the chronological development of epigraphic habits, and of individual epigraphic genres in Byzantium. The contributors also discuss the methodological questions of collecting, presenting and interpreting the most representative Byzantine inscriptional material, and addressing epigraphic material to make it relevant to a wider scholarly community.

chapter |14 pages

Opening address

part I|90 pages

After Late Antiquity

chapter 3|22 pages

Reading, viewing and inscribing faith

Christian epigraphy in the early Umayyad Levant

chapter 4|32 pages

The epigraphy of the Abgar Story

Traditions and transitions

part III|63 pages

Church and state

part IV|55 pages

Formal and informal inscriptions in Athens

part V|70 pages

Objects, texts and images

chapter 13|18 pages

Word of image

Textual frames of early Byzantine icons

chapter 14|26 pages

Short texts on small objects

The poetics of the Byzantine enkolpion