IMC 2015: Sessions

This panel proposes a fresh understanding of the Christian archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean while also rethinking the region's wider material culture associated with pilgrimage. Daniel Reynolds shows that the Christian landscapes of Syria-Palestine, long assumed to be a direct result of their appeal as the places of Christ's ministry and the revelations of the Old Testament, in fact existed atop a network of sites with no apparent connection to the biblical past. Such sites indicate the complex ways in which the sacred world was negotiated, and require us to reconceptualise our understanding of sacred topography. Two papers will then explore the sensory and economic consequences of the pilgrim artefact. As Deniz Sever shows, Turkish collections of objects such as ampullae and medallions suggest that the sensorial experience was indispensable in Byzantine pilgrimage. Such objects reveal how the pilgrim's quest for the blessing was marked and remembered during and after the pilgrimage. Finally, Inbar Ktalav will explore the discovery in Israel of scallop shells associated with pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. These famous symbols of the Way of St James reveal, in this eastern context, an intriguing and complex struggle of fraud, monopolies, and tax evasion in the 13th century.