Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection

In 1994, the "Dumbarton Oaks Conference, 1944-1994" brought together scholars and policymakers who have been involved with the study of international organizations or have played important roles in them. The conference papers in this volume examine both the formation of the United Nations and a number of current issues, including human rights, collective economic sanctions, peacekeeping operations, and the evolution of the role of the secretary-general.

This fourth and final installment in Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century resumes the previous volume’s discussion of the Ghassanids by examining their economic, social, and cultural history. Throughout the volume, the author reveals the history of a fully developed and unique Christian-Arab culture. Shahîd exhaustively describes the society of the Ghassanids, and their contributions to the cultural environment that persisted in Oriens during the sixth century and continued into the period of the Umayyad caliphate.

The sections begin with a short essay on the region’s location and history. Each seal is illustrated and is accompanied-where appropriate-by full commentary regarding the specimen’s date, biographical information on its owner, peculiarities of orthography, and special features of iconography. These small seals are a large contribution to historical geography, the evolution of the Byzantine provincial administration, prosopography, development in the Greek language,and decorative vogues.

The combined Dumbarton Oaks and Fogg collection of Byzantine seals is one of the largest in the world, containing 17,000 specimens. Volume 6 in the catalogue presents the seals of emperors and patriarchs of Constantinople. More than 250 seals are illustrated and accompanied—where appropriate—by a full commentary regarding each specimen’s date, biographical information on its owner, peculiarities of orthography, and iconographic features.

This is the first fully illustrated catalogue of a major collection of late Roman and early Byzantine imperial coins. It follows the general layout of the Byzantine volumes in the Dumbarton Oaks series, with a substantial introduction dealing with the history of the coinage, including iconography, mints, and the monetary system.

In volume 2 of this series, Part I examines Phocas and Heraclius (602-641) and Part II covers the period between Heraclius Constantine to Theodosius III (602-717).

This volume is in two parts. Part I covers the reigns of Alexius I to Alexius V (1081-1204), and Part II covers the emperors of Nicea and their contemporaries (1204-1261).

Part I includes the introduction, appendices and bibliography while Part II continues with the catalogue, concordances and indexes.

This catalogue focuses on the Greek and Roman antiquities of the collections at Dumbarton Oaks. The catalogue also includes other objects, such as a bronze horse, and four floor mosaics from Antioch.

These sculptures are not representative of any one culture or period, but rather are characteristic of the Blisses’ wide-ranging tastes and extraordinary connoisseurship. About a quarter of the objects are Greco-Roman in date, and nearly two-thirds of the remainder are Late Antique, predominantly limestone carvings from Early Byzantine Egypt. Sculpture from the Middle Byzantine period is very rare, making the four pieces in this collection especially significant.

This booklet is an examination of the nature of ivory, both as substance of certain consistent characteristics as well as material of varying availability treated by craftsmen in various and peculiar ways. The framework of this approach is defined by the geographical and chronological limits of the ivories at Dumbarton Oaks.

This catalogue focuses on numismatic gold jewelry, from pendants set with coins and medallions to stamped pseudo-medallions, or a combination of both. Special attention is given to the technical issues of mounting techniques.

Scarcely any object was as ubiquitous in Byzantine culture as the cross. This exhibition catalogue focuses on the figural processional cross, and the examples here provide opportunity to consider the various functions such crosses served in the imperial, ecclesiastic, military, and private sphere for both men and women.

This booklet covers phases of the coinage, gold, silver, and copper coinage, types and inscriptions, and ruler representations. Tables of values corresponding with various times in the empire’s history, a list of Byzantine emperors, and a glossary are also provided.

This book is the first general survey of lighting in Byzantium. The first part of the book discusses the technology and types of lighting devices and explains their decorative symbolism and social function. The second half illustrates this narrative by drawing on a Dumbarton Oaks exhibition.

This illustrated handbook presents a concise history of the development of the coinage of the early Arab caliphate in the seventh century. The historical introduction, which includes descriptions of all the basic types, is followed by a summary catalogue of the recently acquired collection of Arab-Byzantine coins at Dumbarton Oaks.

These ten holy women, whose vitae range from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, represent a wide variety of Byzantine female saints. From nuns disguised as monks to desert harlots, these holy women exemplify some of the divergent paths to sanctification in Byzantium. These vitae are also notable for their details of Byzantine life, providing information on family life and household management, monastic routines, and even a smallpox epidemic.

The seven vitae feature holy men and women who opposed imperial edicts and suffered for their defense of images, from the nun Theodosia whose efforts to save the icon of Christ Chalkites made her the first iconodule martyr, to Symeon of Lesbos, the pillar saint whose column was attacked by religious fanatics.

The vita of Lazaros, here translated into English for the first time, was written shortly after his death by a disciple, Gregory the Cellarer. The vita makes it clear that Lazaros’s reputation was questioned during his lifetime and reveals the existence of a sometimes startling hostility toward him on the part of local church officials, neighboring monasteries, and even his own monks. It is a refreshing piece of hagiography that provides a fascinating and unusual glimpse into the dynamics of the making, or breaking, of a holy man’s reputation.

This volume contains selected papers from a December 2006 Dumbarton Oaks symposium that complemented an exhibition of early Bible manuscripts at the Freer Gallery and Sackler Gallery of Art titled “In the Beginning: Bibles before the Year 1000.” The Old Testament in Byzantium considers the manifestations of the holy books in Byzantine manuscript illustration, architecture, and government, as well as in Jewish Bible translations and the construction of Muhammad’s character.

Becoming Byzantine: Children and Childhood in Byzantium presents detailed information about children’s lives, and provides a basis for further study. This collection of eight articles drawn from a May 2006 Dumbarton Oaks symposium covers matters relevant to daily life such as the definition of children in Byzantine law, procreation, death, breastfeeding patterns, and material culture.

This wide-ranging collection of essays charts the history, scope, and spread of Dutch garden art during the seventeenth century. A group of scholars, mostly Dutch, surveys what has been called the “golden age” of Dutch garden design. Essays discuss the political context of William’s building and gardening activities at his palace of Het Loo in the Netherlands; the development of a distinctively Dutch garden art during the seventeenth century; country house poetry; and specific estates and their gardens.

The study of garden history has grown rapidly over the last twenty years. This collection of essays explores the issues, methods, and approaches that students in landscape architecture have developed during that period to cope with the expanding subject of gardens and their history.

Regionalism has become a much-discussed design issue for landscape architects in recent years. Increased mobility, uprootedness, and the pace of change in an increasingly technological society have contributed to interest in this concept, which places value on cultural continuity in local areas. This approach to garden design attempts to capture the spirit of the place, the plant material, and symbolic qualities that define a region’s natural and cultural character. These essays lay the foundation for examining regionalism in American garden design. The organization of the papers is by geographical area, covering the West Coast, the Midwest, the South, and New England.

John Evelyn (1620-1706), an English virtuoso and writer, was a pivotal figure in seventeenth-century intellectual life in England. The contributors to this volume approach Evelyn and his work from diverse disciplines, including architectural and intellectual history and the histories of science, agriculture, gardens, and literature. They present a rich picture of the "Elysium Britannicum" as one of the central documents of late European humanism.

Places of Commemoration examines commemorative sites of different character, including gardens, landscapes, memorials, cemeteries, and sites of former Nazi concentration camps, detailing the ideas behind the creation of memorials and monuments and the struggles over the narratives they present.

Essays in this volume explore this complex framework of relationships the diverse settings of Britain, France, Biedermeier Vienna, and renaissance Genoa. The volume confirms that gardens were objects of conspicuous consumption, but also challenges the theories of consumption set forth by Thorstein Veblen and Pierre Bourdieu, and explores the contributions of gardens to major cultural changes like the rise of public opinion, gender and family relationships, and capitalism.

The present renewal of garden art demands a new approach to garden aesthetics. This book considers exceptional creations around the world and proposes new forms of garden experience using a variety of critical perspectives.

Breaking with the idea that gardens are places of indulgence and escapism, these studies of ritualized practices reveal that gardens in Europe, Asia, the United States, and the Caribbean have in fact made significant contributions to cultural change.

This book highlights the religious, artistic, political, and economic consequences of horticultural pursuits, exploring the roles of peasants, botanists, horticulturists, nurserymen and gentlemen collectors in these developments, and concluding with a reflection on the future of horticulture in the present context of widespread environmental devastation and ecological uncertainty.

Studies of rituals in sacred gardens and landscapes offer tantalizing insights into the significance of gardens and landscapes in the societies of India, ancient Greece, Pre-Columbian Mexico, medieval Japan, post-Renaissance Europe, and America. Each section of this book is devoted to a different form of agency, together revealing a profound cultural significance of gardens previously overlooked by studies of garden style.

The papers presented in this volume range from proposals for new design approaches, historical analysis of the relationship between the practice of landscape architecture and environmentalism, to the theories of early practitioners of landscape architecture imbued by an environmentalist outlook.

Baroque Garden Cultures proposes a new approach to the study of baroque gardens, examining the social reception of gardens as a means to understand garden culture in general and exploring baroque gardens as a feature of baroque cultures in particular.

This book unites new information and surprising results from the last fifteen years of garden research, at a remove from the clichés of Orientalism. Garden archaeology reveals the economic importance of Judean gardens in Roman times and the visual complexity of gardens created and transformed in Moorish Spain. More contemporary approaches unravel the cultural continuities, variations, and differences between gardens in the Middle East since Roman times and in the Islamic world.

Dumbarton Oaks houses the extraordinary art collection begun by Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss. In this book the museum publishes the specialist collections in Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art, along with examples from the Blisses’ superb European collection, for the first time.

From mirroring the true reality of God in Sufi Persia to the enjoyment of fictitious identities in Rome or present-day Granada, the ways of imagination in gardens are infinitely varied. This book explores how gardens could be imagined, and also how they could be used to trigger the imagination by very different cultures in Japan, China, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Spain, and Israel.

These seven chapters, originally given as lectures honoring the fiftieth anniversary of Dumbarton Oaks, cover a wide range of topics, from the relationship of Byzantium with its Islamic, Slavic, and Western European neighbors to the modern reception of Byzantine art.

The authors reveal the scope, the forms, and the functioning of magic in Byzantine society, throwing light on a hitherto relatively little-known aspect of Byzantine culture, and, at the same time, expanding upon the contemporary debates concerning magic and its roles in pre-modern societies.

Although ethnicity is a modern concept and would not have been recognized by the Byzantines, throughout its history the Byzantine Empire was a multi-ethnic state. The papers in this volume examine questions of the uniformity and separateness of the various Byzantine populations and the degree and mechanisms of acculturation.

This collection of essays addresses a number of questions regarding the role of consent in marriage and in sexual relations outside of marriage in ancient and medieval societies. Ranging from ancient Greece and Rome to the Byzantine Empire and Western Medieval Europe.

From the walls and curtains of first-century Judaism to the tramezzo of Renaissance Italy, screens of various shapes and sizes have been used to separate the sacred from the secular. Drawn from papers presented at a recent Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Studies symposium, this volume provides insightful new research on the history of the iconostasis.

This fascinating two-volume set includes a photographic reproduction of an anonymous seventeenth-century Italian gardener’s notebook from Dumbarton Oaks’s Rare Books Collection. The notebook is a record of the planting of three flower gardens at San Lorenzo and provides insight into the creation of a seventeenth-century garden. Ada Segre’s accompanying study of the notebook is a groundbreaking example of garden archaeology.

Individual essays discuss Byzantine conceptions of paradise, the textual evidence for monastic horticulture, animal and game parks, herbs in medicinal pharmacy, and the famous illustrated copy of Dioskorides’s herbal manual in Vienna. An opening chapter explores questions and observations from the point of view of a non-Byzantine garden historian, and the closing chapter suggests possible directions for future scholarship in the field.

The essays in this volume focus on the different aspects of Italian gardens of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is divided into two parts, with the first part concentrating on the decorations in Roman gardens of the sixteenth century, and the second considering two particular sites and their histories.

Until recently, little archaeological investigation has been dedicated to the Inka, the last great culture to flourish in Andean South America before the sixteenth-century arrival of the Spaniards. Using a range of theoretical and methodological approaches, scholars from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities provide a new understanding of Inka culture and history.

Gardens have exerted a deep influence on the culture of cities. Considering each city as a whole, this book presents the profoundly different roles of gardens in cultural development and social life. Gardens, City Life, and Culture unveils an exciting domain of interplay between public and private action that is little known by citizen groups, city planners, and managers.

Marcus reconstructs Classic Maya political organization through the use of evidence derived from epigraphy, settlement pattern surveys, and locational analysis. This study describes the development of a four-tiered settlement hierarchy and its subsequent collapse.

Illustrated with both black-and-white photographs and line drawings, this catalogue records the most important objects in the storeroom of the museum at Palenque.

This volume, published jointly with the Textile Museum and based on the proceedings of the Dumbarton Oaks-Textile Museum conference of 1973, includes important contributions to the knowledge of Pre-Columbian textiles and weaving technology.

Twenty-one papers on the Olmec were written for this volume in tribute to Matthew W. Stirling, "pioneer archaeologist, ethnologist, and the discoverer of the Olmec civilization."

The body of Pre-Columbian art that Robert Bliss carefully assembled over a half-century between 1912 and 1963, and which has been amplified slightly since his death, is a remarkably significant collection. Andean Art is composed of five topical essays, shorter essays on the Andean cultures represented in the collection, and discussions of the individual objects.

The Plant Book for Dumbarton Oaks was prepared as a resource for those charged with maintenance of the gardens following their acquisition by Harvard University in 1941. Beatrix Farrand here explains the reasoning behind her plan for each of the gardens and stipulates how each should be cared for in order that its basic character remain intact.

Five authors explore the variety of relationships between garden making and cultural change in Argentina, the Caribbean, Mexico, and the United States. They show how gardens express popular cultural invention and attempts at political manipulation, as well as provide places of cultural resistance by subjugated people.

This book explores the diverse traditions and dynamic interactions along the Mexican Gulf lowlands at the height of their cultural florescence. Best known for their elaborate ball game rituals and precocious inscriptions with long-count dates, these cultures served as a critical nexus between the civilizations of highland Mexico and the lowland Maya, influencing developments in both regions.

In 1969, House and Garden magazine commissioned one of the first minimalist artists, Patricia Johanson, to propose new directions for American garden art. Having never been exhibited or published before as a whole, the resulting garden proposals reveal an unknown dimension of the New York art world of the late 1960s.

This book summarizes research on the nature of El Niño events in the Americas and details specific historic and prehistoric patterns in Peru and elsewhere.

Astronomers, Scribes, and Priests examines evidence for cultural interchange among the intellectual powerbrokers in Postclassic Mesoamerica, specifically those centered in the northern Maya lowlands and the central Mexican highlands. The volume includes a wealth of new data and interpretive frameworks in this comprehensive discussion of a critical time period in the Mesoamerican past.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

Volume 60 of this annual journal explores a range of Byzantine subjects: the classification of stamping objects, the date and purpose of the construction of Constantinople’s church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, the Coptic Church’s literary construction of its identity in post-conquest Egypt, the evidence for the tenth-century revision of the so-called Chronicle of 811, an unusual development in the iconography of St. Menas, and versions of Niketas Choniates’ History.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

This latest volume of Dumbarton Oaks Papers focuses in part on literary and historical texts: historicism in Byzantine thought and literature; the Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, encompassing the First Crusade and the Armenian diaspora; and a reappraisal of the satirical prose work Mazaris’s Journey to Hades.

This volume begins with a substantial investigation of the murder of several members of the imperial family during the summer of 337, following the death of Constantine. Among others, are two major articles devoted to well-known Byzantine illustrated manuscripts, the ninth-century Sacra Parallela and the fourteenth-century collection of theological works by the emperor John VI Kanta-kouzenos.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

Olga Linares offers a reinterpretation of the Classic rank-societies of the central Panamanian provinces based on archaeological, ecological, iconographic, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic evidence, and concludes that the art style of this area used animal motifs as a metaphor in expressing the qualities of aggression and hostility characteristic of social and political life in the central provinces.

Townsendoffers an interpretation of major examples of Mexica monumental art by identifying three interrelated iconographic themes: the conception of the universe as a sacred structure, the correspondence of the social order and the territory of the nation with the cosmic structure, and the representation of Tenochtitlan as the historically legitimate successor to the civilization of the past.

This study analyzes the visual traits of Izapa-style monuments to establish a stylistic inventory of visual elements and the rules for their use, and compares other Late Pre-Classic monuments of the Guatemala-Chiapas highlands and Pacific slopes.

The authors present evidence that specific place names do exist in Maya inscriptions, and show that identifying these names sheds considerable light on both past and present questions about the Maya.

The Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca was created at a pivotal transitional moment, bridging an era when pictorial manuscripts dominated and one that witnessed the rising hegemony of alphabetic texts. Script and Glyph is a particularly appropriate volume for Dumbarton Oaks, as it crosses the boundaries of Pre-Columbian and Landscape areas of study. The volume is beautifully illustrated with color images from the manuscript itself.

This volume is devoted to the archaeology of Formative Ecuador in order to bring new information on this important period of the region’s past to the attention of New World scholars.

As in the Old World, kings and nobles of ancient Mexico and Peru had luxurious administrative quarters in cities, and exquisite pleasure palaces in the countryside. This volume explores the great houses of the ancient New World, from palaces of the Aztecs and Incas, looted by the Spanish conquistadors, to those lost high in the Andes and deep in the jungle.

This volume contains: David A. Freidel, “Polychrome Facades of the Lowland Maya Preclassic”; Linda Schele, “Color on Classic Architecture and Monumental Sculpture of the Southern Maya Lowlands”; Jeff Karl Kowalski, “Painted Architecture in the Northern Maya Area”; John Paddock, “Painted Architecture and Sculpture in Ancient Oaxaca”; Ellen Taylor Baird, “Naturalistic and Symbolic Color at Tula, Hidalgo”; H. B. Nicholson, “Polychrome on Aztec Sculpture”; and Elizabeth H. Boone, “The Color of Mesoamerican Architecture and Sculpture.”

Until the 1980s, the Roman frontier in modern Jordan was among the least studied of the empire’s far-flung border regions. From 1980 until 1989, excavation focused on the late Roman legionary fortress of el-Lejjun as well as four smaller but contemporaneous forts. This report presents detailed results from the excavated forts, a broad range of material evidence from animal bones to bedouin burials, and provides a synthesis of the history of this frontier, which witnessed the first confrontation between the Byzantine Empire and the forces of Islam.

This is the first monographic study of a single Armenian manuscript, the Glajor Gospel, a fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript. In addition to critical studies of the iconography of the illuminations, Mathews and Sanjian provide the history of the Glajor Gospel and the political and cultural setting in which it was produced, as well as the history of the monastery and school of Glajor. All full-page illuminations from the Gospel are reproduced at their original size, with twenty-four color illustrations.

The "Parangelmata Poliorcetica" and the "Geodesia," two Greek treatises on the construction of devices for siege warfare, are products of 10th-century Byzantium. The texts are presented here in critical editions based, for the first time, on the archetype manuscript "Vaticanus graecus 1605" and accompanied by an English translation and commentary. The illustrations, reproduced in this edition, go beyond the traditional ground plans of the time and show elevations to represent finished devices in action.

The nature of the typkia, discussed by John Thomas in the introduction, was one of flexible and personal documents, which differed considerably in form, length, and content. Not all of them were foundation documents in the strict sense, since they could be issued at any time in the history of an institution. Some were wills; others were reform decrees and rules; yet others were primarily liturgical in character.

Leo’s firsthand experience of the campaigns and courts of two Byzantine emperors provides vivid descriptions of sieges, pitched battles, and ambushes. His account of the conspiracy against Nikephoros II Phokas, murdered as he slept on the floor in front of his icons, is one of the most dramatic in Byzantine narrative histories.

Based on four seasons of fieldwork, this book presents the results of the first systematic site survey of a region rich in material remains. From architecture to fresco painting, Cappadocia represents a previously untapped resource for the study of material culture and the settings of daily life within the Byzantine Empire.

Thomas examines the private ownership of ecclesiastical institutions to determine the nature and extent of private ownership of religious institutions in the Byzantine Empire. This includes churches, monasteries, and philanthropic institutions such as hospitals and orphanages, which were founded by private individuals and retained for personal administration independent of the public authorities of the state and church.

The Kariye Camii remains one of the most important and best-known monuments of the Byzantine world. Rebuilt and decorated in the early fourteenth century by the statesman and scholar Theodore Metochites, the Kariye Camii played a key role in the development of Late Byzantine art. Ousterhout presents a detailed structural history and architectural analysis of this important building, and shows that the Kariye Camii was equally important in the development of Late Byzantine architecture.

The text explores the iconographic and stylistic sources of the Greek mosaicists, as well as the departures from Byzantine norms, and the relationship of the decoration to contemporary work in the royal foundations. Also included is a chapter on the architecture of the church by Slobodan Çurciç.

Sirarpie Der Nersessian’s scholarship has influenced the understanding of Armenian art and its Byzantine context. These two volumes are the culmination of six decades devoted to the exploration of Armenian art, and reflect a deep knowledge of the manuscripts and their creators.

The impact of the life of Sabas and his exceptional system of monastic life has endured from the fifth century to the present. In this study, which originated from an archeological survey, Joseph Patrich examines the Sabaitic contributions to Palestinian monasticism, from Sabas’s role as founder and abbot to the theological struggles after his death.

This volume examines the use of florilegia—anthologies of earlier writings—by these councils. The manuscript provides new information concerning the beginning of the Filioque controversy and the use of Iconophile florilegia by the seventh ecumenical council in 787. Also discussed is the archetype’s role in the negotiations between Rome and Constantinople that led to the Union of the Churches, and the indirect involvement of Thomas Aquinas through his Contra Errores Graecorum.

In this work, David and June Winfield discuss the language of Byzantine church decoration, methods of plastering, proportional rules, system of coloring, and the working methods of the Byzantine painter.

More than fifty years after the earthquake of 365 destroyed Kourion, the seat of the Roman administration of Cyprus, a Christian basilica was built upon the remains of its pagan predecessor. Replete with mosaics and revetment, the basilica was the center of the ecclesiastical administration until its destruction in the late seventh century. In this long-awaited report, A. H. S. Megaw and colleagues present in full the results of excavations from the 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s.

The military achievements of the emperors Nikephoros Phokas, John Tzimiskes, and Basil II brought the Byzantine Empire to the height of its power by the early eleventh century. This volume presents new editions and translations of two military treatises–the Praecepta militaria of Nikephoros Phokas and the revised version included in the Taktika of Nikephoros Ouranos.

This is a reprint of the second revised edition of the text and translation of the De Administrando Imperio written and compiled by Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century. The edition includes general and critical introductions, an index of proper names, and an extensive glossary, as well as grammatical notes and an index of sources and parallel passages.

Threatened on all sides by relentless enemies for a thousand years, the Byzantines needed ready armies and secure borders. To this end, experienced commanders compiled practical handbooks of military strategy. Three such manuals are presented here. These treatises provide information not only on tactics and weaponry but also on the motivations of the men who risked their lives to defend the empire.

This study highlights a selection of garden ornaments from Dumbarton Oaks, the Washington, D.C., estate of Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss. Drawings from Beatrix Farrand’s office and excerpts from her Plant Book for Dumbarton Oaks, combined with original period photographs, endeavor to show the stylistic sources, evolution of design, and iconography.

The imperial court in Constantinople has been central to the outsider’s vision of Byzantium. However, in spite of its fame in literature and scholarship, there have been few attempts to analyze the Byzantine court in its entirety as a phenomenon. The studies in this volume aim to provide a unified composition by presenting Byzantine courtly life in all its interconnected facets.

This volume contains three monographs from the series of Collected Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archeology. Johannes Wilbert looks at the use and decoration of spindles, focusing on those from Ecuador. Peter Roe examines the Chavin seriations, with numerous illustrations and a pullout chart, and Elizabeth Benson considers the motif of felines and men in Mochica art.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

Tokali Kilise (Buckle Church) was the principal sanctuary of a large monastic center in Byzantine Cappadocia, now central Turkey. This cave church was carved into the soft volcanic stone of the region and decorated with frescoes in several stages between the mid-ninth and mid-tenth centuries, and is one of the richest ensembles of painting to survive from the early Middle Ages.

This volume had its beginnings in the colloquium, "Rethinking Chichen Itza, Tula and Tollan," that was held at Dumbarton Oaks. The selected essays revisit long-standing questions regarding the nature of the relationship between Chichen Itza and Tula. These essays place the cities in the context of the emerging social, political, and economic relationships that took shape during the transition from the Epiclassic period in Central Mexico, the Terminal Classic period in the Maya region, and the succeeding Early Postclassic period.

The articles in this book conceptualize the ancient New World through new and varied approaches, from iconography to the history of anthropology. The many essays in this volume explore extensively the vast vista of the Pre-Columbian world.

This volume, which includes the texts in Latin with an English preface and extensive indices, contains the text of two notarial protocols in the Notai di Candia series of the Archivio di Stato di Venezia. Both notaries were active in the town of Candia, modern Herakleion, in the Venetian colony of Crete in the early fourteenth century.

The essays in this volume demonstrate that on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean there were rich, variegated, and important phenomena associated with the Crusades, and that a full understanding of the significance of the movement and its impact on both the East and West must take these phenomena into account.

This study traces the history of gardens in Iran from the earliest remains of the Timurid period to those of the Qajar dynasty of the nineteenth century. Illustrations from early travel books and paintings show the original conditions of now ruined gardens.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

The annual journal Dumbarton Oaks Papers was founded in 1941 for the publication of articles relating to late antique, early medieval, and Byzantine civilization in the fields of art and architecture, history, archeology, literature, theology, law, and the auxiliary disciplines. Numerous maps, tables, illustrations, and color plates provide supplementary information for many of the articles.

This is the first comprehensive treatment and pictorial record of one of the greatest bodies of sculpture in the Pre-Columbian world. Parson’s work orders the Late Pre-Classic sculptures of highland and Pacific coastal Guatemala into chronological and stylistic groupings, relating them to the other artistic and iconographic movements at the time the Maya style was coalescing.

Dorie Reents-Budet, Claude Baudez, William Fash, Jr., Berthold Riese, William Sanders, and David Webster contribute to this monograph, and using an integrated art historical and anthropological approach, consider the House of the Bacabs’ context as an elite Maya structure, its excavation and restoration, and its iconographic and epigraphic reconstruction and interpretation, to establish models for understanding Classic Maya social and political life.

This is the first publication of complete watercolor renderings recording early documentation of the frieze of the Palace of the Stuccoes, an unusual example of architectural decoration in the northern Maya lowlands.

Turyn here examines book scripts and subscriptions from dated Greek manuscripts in the libraries of Great Britain. He extensively interprets the prosopographical and linguistic elements of the manuscripts while elucidating their origins, their character as documents of Byzantine culture, and their role in the transmission of ancient and medieval Greek literature.

This book is a study of the complete extant repertory of Greek and Slavonic Communion hymns preserved in Byzantine, Russian, and Moldavian musical manuscripts of the twelfth to sixteenth centuries.

This volume considers the significance of stone monuments in Preclassic Mesoamerica, focusing on the period following the precocious appearance of monumental sculpture at the Olmec site of San Lorenzo and preceding the rise of the Classic polities in the Maya region and Central Mexico. By quite literally “placing” sculptures in their cultural, historical, social, political, religious, and cognitive contexts, the seventeen contributors utilize archaeological and art historical methods to understand the origins, growth, and spread of civilization in Middle America.

Michael McCormick rehabilitates a neglected source from Charlemagne’s revival of the Roman empire: the report of a fact-finding mission to the Christian church of the Holy Land. It preserves the most detailed statistical portrait before the Domesday Book of the finances, monuments, and female and male personnel of any major Christian church.

Italian gardens have received more attention from historians than perhaps any other garden tradition. This volume presents eight richly illustrated essays by established and emerging scholars that suggest striking new directions, both quantitative and methodological, for future research.

This publication reproduces all the text pages and illustrations from the two Red Books in the collection of the Garden Library at Dumbarton Oaks; that for Brandsbury, produced in 1789 as the first Red Book, and the one for Glemham Hall, produced in 1791.

This volume is a “must read” for all Mesoamericanists. Originally published in 2007, it revisits long-standing questions regarding the relationship between Chichén Itzá and Tula and considers their roles in the social, political, and economic relationships that emerged during the transition from the Epiclassic to the Early Postclassic period.

Landscape Body Dwelling documents and offers reflections on Charles Simond’s inaugural installation for Dumbarton Oaks’ contemporary art series, which launched in spring 2009. This volume demonstrates how contemporary culture connects us with the past, reinvigorating historical tropes while enlivening the institutions that continue to speak them.

Their Way of Writing considers substantive and theoretical issues concerning writing and signing systems in the ancient Americas. The contributions here not only present the latest thinking about graphic and tactile systems of communication but constitute a major contribution to our comparative and global understanding of writing and literacy.

Following its initial publication in 2005, A Byzantine Settlement in Cappadocia has become a seminal work in interpreting the rich material remains of Byzantine Cappadocia. This revised edition builds upon its predecessor with an updated preface, a new bibliography, and a new master map of the Çanlı Kilise site.

Tombs for the Living examines how mortuary practices functioned in different cultures across the Andes. By examining rich sets of archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric data, this collection enriches our understanding of the context and meaning of mortuary traditions in the region.

This volume explores how ancient Mesoamerican cities defined themselves through their built environments. Themes include the ways in which a kingdom’s monuments reflected geographic space, patron gods, and mythology, and how the Olmec, Maya, Mexica, Zapotecs, and others sought to center their world through architectural monuments and public art.

This illustrated volume examines how the natural world is transformed through the creative use of language. Its contributors do not assume that there is an opposition between nature and culture, but rather emphasize that forms of language are embedded in our understanding and appreciation of the natural environment across cultures and time periods.

How are markets in antiquity to be characterized? As comparable to modern free markets? As controlled by the State? Or in completely different terms, as free but regulated? Here, scholars address these and related questions by reexamining and reinterpreting records from Byzantium and its hinterland for local, regional, and interregional trade.

This introduction to Maya art is based on study of one of the most important collections in the United States, assembled by Robert Woods Bliss between 1935 and 1962. The catalogue, written by leading Maya scholars, contains detailed analyses of specific works of art along with thematic essays situating them within the context of Maya culture.

The fall of Acre in 1291 inspired many schemes for crusades to recover Jerusalem. One of these proposals is How to Defeat the Saracens, written around 1317 by William of Adam, a Dominican who traveled in the eastern Mediterranean, Persia, and parts of India. Extensive notes guide the reader through the historical context of this fascinating work.

The De Administrando Imperio, compiled by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century, is one of the most important historical documents surviving from the middle Byzantine period, containing information on foreign relations and internal administration. Long out of print, this most authoritative study of the text is once again available.

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 64 includes “Apostolic Geography: The Origins and Continuity of a Hagiographic Habit”; “Byzantine Political Culture and Compilation Literature in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries”; “Tracing Monastic Economic Interests and Their Impact on the Rural Landscape of Late Byzantine Lemnos”; and other essays.

Built around 1100, the church of Asinou in Cyprus is decorated with accretions of images, from the fresco cycle executed shortly after construction to those made in the seventeenth century. This volume sets Asinou’s art and architecture in the context of the surrounding area’s changing fortunes under Byzantine, Lusignan, Venetian, and Ottoman rule.

Archaeological illustrations are often treated as neutral representations. This volume considers them instead as products of time and place that actively shape the construction of knowledge. Taking the visual presentation of the Pre-Columbian past from the fifteenth century to today, these essays explore the culture of archaeological illustration.

Whether threatened by habitat destruction or climate change, many wild animals have failed to thrive in the company of humans. The essays in Designing Wildlife Habitats explore how landscape architects and garden designers are drawing on the insights and practices of conservation ecology to create productive ecosystems and promote biodiversity.

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 65/66 includes “Bishops and Territory: The Case of Late Roman and Byzantine North Africa”; “A Conflicted Heritage: The Byzantine Religious Establishment of a War Ethic”; “Hoards and Hoarding Patterns in the Early Byzantine Balkans”; “Light, Color, and Visual Illusion in the Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus”; and other essays.

Viewing the Morea focuses on the late medieval Morea (Peloponnese), beginning with the bold attempt of Western knights to establish a kingdom on its soil. The authors explore how the groups of this contested region—Crusaders, Orthodox villagers, and Venetians—interacted, asserted identity, and recollected the ancient history of the Peloponnese.

Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World investigates the complex structure of economic systems in the pre-Hispanic Americas, with a focus on the central highlands of Mexico, the Maya Lowlands, and the central Andes. Essays examine the use of marketplaces, the role of merchants and artisans, and the operation of trade networks.

A window into the complex world of competing church factions, imperial powers, and the papacy, The Life of Patriarch Ignatius is the vivid account of two major ecclesiastical struggles of the ninth century. Critically edited with annotations, maps, and indexes, this important historical document is here translated into English for the first time.