ABSTRACT

Perhaps the most significant development in luxury metalwork during the eighth and ninth centuries was the rise of cloisonne enamel around the year 800, a technical innovation that was apparently imported to the Byzantine east during the first half of the ninth century. Most artisanal metalwork that survives from the period was made of less expensive materials, predominantly base metal (chiefly copper alloy), and generally consists of small-scale objects such as pectoral crosses. l No large-scale non-architectural metalwork has been preserved, although textual descriptions suggest that it was produced, and the only monumental works in metal still extant are the copper-alloy and silver panels that covered the southwest door into Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.