Sean V. Leatherbury - Böcker

Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity considers the Greek and Latin texts inscribed in churches and chapels in the late antique Mediterranean (c. 300–800 CE), compares them to similar texts from pagan, Jewish, and Muslim spaces of worship, and explores how they functioned both textually and visually.These texts not only recorded the names and prayers of the faithful, but were powerful verbal and visual statements of cultural values and religious beliefs, conveying meaning through their words as well as through their appearances. In fact, the two were intimately connected. All of these texts – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and pagan – acted visually, embracing their own materiality as mosaic, paint, or carved stone. Colourful and artfully arranged, the inscriptions framed human relationships with the divine, encouraged responses from readers, and made prayers material. In the first in-depth examination of the inscriptions as words and as images, the author reimagines the range of aesthetic, cultural, and religious experiences that were possible in spaces of worship.Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity is essential reading for those interested in Roman, late antique, and Byzantine material and visual culture, inscriptions and other texts, and religious life in the ancient Mediterranean.

Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity considers the Greek and Latin texts inscribed in churches and chapels in the late antique Mediterranean (c. 300–800 CE), compares them to similar texts from pagan, Jewish, and Muslim spaces of worship, and explores how they functioned both textually and visually.These texts not only recorded the names and prayers of the faithful, but were powerful verbal and visual statements of cultural values and religious beliefs, conveying meaning through their words as well as through their appearances. In fact, the two were intimately connected. All of these texts – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and pagan – acted visually, embracing their own materiality as mosaic, paint, or carved stone. Colourful and artfully arranged, the inscriptions framed human relationships with the divine, encouraged responses from readers, and made prayers material. In the first in-depth examination of the inscriptions as words and as images, the author reimagines the range of aesthetic, cultural, and religious experiences that were possible in spaces of worship.Inscribing Faith in Late Antiquity is essential reading for those interested in Roman, late antique, and Byzantine material and visual culture, inscriptions and other texts, and religious life in the ancient Mediterranean.

This book presents six articles published in the 1980s and 1990s by the Dutch scholar Mab van Lohuizen-Mulder, an early proponent of the contribution of artists from Egypt to Late Antique and Early Islamic (Umayyad) building projects around the Mediterranean. These articles examine the role of traveling Egyptian artists—mosaicists, painters, stone carvers, and stucco workers—in the decoration of now-famous buildings and objects, from San Vitale and the Orthodox Baptistery in Ravenna, to the Umayyad ‘desert castle’ of Qusayr ‘Amra and the Great Mosque in Damascus, to the Early Christian throne now in San Marco in Venice. Van Lohuizen-Mulder’s original articles are used as a springboard to reconsider how we examine the varied contributions of local and international artists to some of the most expensive and significant churches, mosques, and palaces of the period. In addition to an introduction that contextualises van Lohuizen-Mulder’s work, each chapter features new high-quality images and a ‘recent work’ section in which the editor summarises the state of scholarship on the subject. This book is a key resource for students and researchers interested in arts of Late Antique and Early Islamic Egypt, as well as those engaged more generally with travel, mobility, and exchange in the ancient and medieval Mediterranean.