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IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 1040: Byzantine Materialities, I: Textiles, Exchange, and Daily Life

Wednesday 3 July 2019, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman & Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham
Organiser:Leslie Brubaker, Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman & Modern Greek Studies / Institute of Archaeology & Antiquity, University of Birmingham
Moderator/Chair:Leslie Brubaker, Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman & Modern Greek Studies / Institute of Archaeology & Antiquity, University of Birmingham
Paper 1040-aMateriality of Demand: Cotton Diffusion in the Late Roman World - A Tale of Two Networks
(Language: English)
Anna C. Kelley, Department of Classics, Ancient History & Archaeology, University of Birmingham
Index terms: Archaeology - Artefacts, Byzantine Studies, Economics - Trade
Paper 1040-bChristian 'Tiraz': Religious Textile Inscriptions
(Language: English)
Julia Galliker, Department of Classical Studies, University of Michigan
Index terms: Art History - Decorative Arts, Byzantine Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies
Paper 1040-cUnpacking the Basket and Knowing the Ropes: Patterns in Humble Materials as Design Prototypes
(Language: English)
Eunice Dauterman Maguire, Department of the History of Art, Johns Hopkins University
Index terms: Art History - Decorative Arts, Byzantine Studies, Daily Life
Abstract

This session is the first of four interconnected panels concerned with Byzantine Materiality. Textiles are key to this theme because they represent the largest body of material 'stuff' traded in the medieval world. In this first session two papers focus on them exclusively in order to establish their critical significance to our understanding of economic and cultural exchange. The first paper overturns the old paradigm of the significance of Indian cotton imports and demonstrates the existence of two parallel trade networks - one sub-Saharan - that long preceded the infusion of cotton previously associated with the Arab 'conquests' of the 7th and 8th centuries. The second paper examines the cultural implications of widely traded textiles across the Christian and Islamic medieval worlds, thus locating local production of material in a global context. The final paper introduces a second major theme of these sessions: the relationship between everyday, locally produced goods and motifs that transcend local boundaries; in other words, the impact of the ordinary on the material production of the Byzantine world.