Encounters: in 50 Objects – serie

From the late eleventh to the late thirteenth century, during the existence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other crusader states, Latin Christians did not only frequently encounter Muslims on the battlefield, but also engaged in unprecedented commercial and cultural exchanges with the Muslim, Eastern Christian, and Jewish inhabitants of the Middle East. Through a focused analysis of fifty objects, this volume examines what material culture can tell us about interpersonal, interfaith, cross-cultural, and trans-regional encounters during this period.This richly illustrated volume explores a variety of Latin Christian, Eastern Christian, Muslim, and Jewish objects, including sculpture, glassware, metalware, manuscripts, textiles, painting, coins, and seals. Addressing the themes of Belief, Conflict, Exchange, Power, and Memory, the essays examine the conception of these objects and the uses to which they were put throughout their history. As a result, there emerges a picture of the Middle East as a place of profound cultural diversity and of multiplicity of encounters between different communities.The book stands as a valuable resource for students and scholars of the medieval crusades, the medieval Middle East and Europe, as well as all those interested in archaeology, art history, global history, and religious studies more broadly.

From the late eleventh to the late thirteenth century, during the existence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other crusader states, Latin Christians did not only frequently encounter Muslims on the battlefield, but also engaged in unprecedented commercial and cultural exchanges with the Muslim, Eastern Christian, and Jewish inhabitants of the Middle East. Through a focused analysis of fifty objects, this volume examines what material culture can tell us about interpersonal, interfaith, cross-cultural, and trans-regional encounters during this period.This richly illustrated volume explores a variety of Latin Christian, Eastern Christian, Muslim, and Jewish objects, including sculpture, glassware, metalware, manuscripts, textiles, painting, coins, and seals. Addressing the themes of Belief, Conflict, Exchange, Power, and Memory, the essays examine the conception of these objects and the uses to which they were put throughout their history. As a result, there emerges a picture of the Middle East as a place of profound cultural diversity and of multiplicity of encounters between different communities.The book stands as a valuable resource for students and scholars of the medieval crusades, the medieval Middle East and Europe, as well as all those interested in archaeology, art history, global history, and religious studies more broadly.

This book consists of fifty case studies and offers an innovative approach to the study of Medieval Islamic history, concentrating on the analysis of physical objects from the seventh to the eighteenth centuries and across most of the regions that make up the pre-Modern Islamic world.These include a wide range of objects from portable items like coins, vessels and books to major constructions, including mosques, tombs, castles, dams, and canal systems. The central argument is that the interdisciplinary study of physical objects provides invaluable perspectives that can deepen or challenge the evidence in the written record. Object-based study can also shed light on the lives of social groups who are seldom discussed in Islamic texts written before the modern period. To demonstrate these points, each case study focusses on a single object or small group of related objects. The case studies combine close analysis of the material and visual characteristics with a discussion of the wider context in which such objects were commissioned, made, used, adapted and exchanged.The book is intended as an introduction to the historical study of Islamic objects, employing perspectives from the fields of art history, archaeology, numismatics, ethnography, and epigraphy. Written with a minimum of technical language and supported by a critical introduction, an extensive glossary, a timeline and guide for further reading, the book is aimed at students and general readers who are interested in the political, economic, social, cultural, religious and intellectual histories of the Islamic world.