IMC 2020: Sessions
Session 807: Erasure in Late Antiquity, II: Erasing Text and Image?
Tuesday 7 July 2020, 16.30-18.00
| Sponsor: | Postgraduate & Early-Career Late Antiquity Network |
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| Organisers: | Becca Grose, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht Guy Walker, Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin |
| Moderator/Chair: | Adrastos Omissi, School of Humanities (Classics), University of Glasgow |
| Paper 807-a | Erasing Manuscripts: The Palimpsests of the Monastery of St Catherine in the Sinai (Language: English) Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Greek, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Monasticism |
| Paper 807-b | The Floor Mosaic in the Church of the Virgin in Madaba, Jordan: A Case of Iconoclasm? (Language: English) Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Art History - Decorative Arts, Byzantine Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies |
| Paper 807-c | Collateral Image?: Rethinking Iconoclasm in Byzantine and Umayyad-Era Jordan and Palestine (Language: English) Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Art History - Painting, Byzantine Studies |
| Abstract | Erasure entails not only destruction but also replacement and rewriting. This session focus on the Eastern Roman Empire to explore what scholars miss when using the concept of erasure to understand late-antique and Byzantine manuscript palimpsests and altered mosaics. The first paper (Rossetto) explores the processes of erasure and overwriting identified in monastic palimpsests from the Sinai, highlighting overwritten and previously unknown texts. The second and third papers reinterpret mosaic alteration, through analysing changes as interactions with and subversions of local Islamic aniconic trends (Sauquet) and by considering how deliberate shuffling and restricted recognisability can reinforce and emphasise the visual and material properties of mosaics (Stroth). |