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 |
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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-a | Materiality of Demand: Cotton Diffusion in the Late Roman World - A Tale of Two Networks (Language: English) Index terms: Archaeology - Artefacts, Byzantine Studies, Economics - Trade |
Paper 1040-b | Christian 'Tiraz': Religious Textile Inscriptions (Language: English) Index terms: Art History - Decorative Arts, Byzantine Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies |
Paper 1040-c | Unpacking the Basket and Knowing the Ropes: Patterns in Humble Materials as Design Prototypes (Language: English) 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. |