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IMC 2023: Sessions

Session 1115: The Entangled Caucasus, II: Distant Entanglements - Between and beyond Caucasus Regions

Wednesday 5 July 2023, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:Medieval Caucasus Network
Organisers:James Baillie, Independent Scholar, Birmingham
Nicholas Evans, Clare College, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:Tara L. Andrews, Institut für Klassische Philologie, Universität Bern
Paper 1115-aThe Colonial Archive at the End of the World: The Mediterranean Slave Trade during the Twilight of the Genoese Colonies in the Black Sea
(Language: English)
John Latham-Sprinkle, Department of History, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London
Index terms: Archives and Sources, Economics - Trade, Historiography - Modern Scholarship
Paper 1115-bAni Entangled: Caucasian Urbanisation in the Afro-Eurasian Commercial Revolution, 900-1400
(Language: English)
Nicholas Matheou, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford
Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Economics - Trade, Economics - Urban, Social History
Paper 1115-cContacts between Georgia and the North Caucasus in the Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Lado Mirianashvili, Independent Scholar, Tbilisi
Index terms: Epigraphy, Historiography - Medieval
Abstract

Mobility of people and objects within and beyond the Caucasus intensified in the period 900-1475. Not only did this play a large part in determining the course of the region's economic development, but it also became critical to the determination of value in a political and religious sense. The four papers from this panel offer various perspectives on the value of interconnection, its facilitation and limitation in high and late medieval Caucasia. Galstyan's paper explores the Trans-Eurasian resonances of architecture with specific reference to 13th-century mausolea from Ahlat. Matheou's paper retains the Trans-Eurasian focus, but on a macro scale, comparing processes of urbanisation in Caucasia and elsewhere in the Eurasian world. Mirianashvili's paper explores the importance of materiality in the spread of religious ideas, specifically the spread of Christianity in the North Caucasus. Finally, Latham-Sprinkle's paper uses Genoese colonial archives relating to the North Caucasus to explore the question of how we judge relative value and importance when writing global histories of interconnection.