IMC 2021: Sessions
Session 1219: Erasure in Late Antiquity, I: Erasing Text and Image?
Wednesday 7 July 2021, 14.15-15.45
| Sponsor: | Postgraduate & Early-Career Late Antiquity Network |
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| Organisers: | Becca Grose, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht Rebecca Usherwood, School of Classics, University of St Andrews Guy Walker, Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin |
| Moderator/Chair: | Samuel James Barber, Medieval Studies Program, Cornell University |
| Paper 1219-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 1219-b | A Word Is Worth a Thousand Images: The Iconophilic Floor Mosaic of the Church of the Virgin in Madaba, Jordan (Language: English) Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Art History - Decorative Arts, Byzantine Studies, Islamic and Arabic 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 paper reinterprets 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). |