Die Thematic Session widmet sich der Problematik des Zusammenspiels zwischen Grundlagenforschung und deren seriöser Auswertung zu Gunsten der vielversprechenden “Digital Humanities”. Die Beiträge zeigen den Vorrang der Grundlagenforschung und diskutieren den Umgang mit deren Ergebnissen in den verschiedenen Datenbanken.
Undoubtely, we are currently living in the digital age, which has firmly established itself even within the field of the humanities. Nearly all contemporary research proposals in the fields of Byzantine History and Sigillography now aim at and promise the development of databases. The creation of such databases requires collaboration between historians and IT specialists,…
Moins célèbre que celui des Scholes, le corps des Excubites a donc fait l’objet de moins d’attention. Il disposait sans doute d’effectifs moins importants. Il en est de même pour le corps des officiers. Nous connaissons peut-être la majorité des domestiques des Scholes, ce qui est loin d’être le cas pour les Excubites. Le nombre…
The private collection of Zafeiris Syrras is internationally recognized as one of the most important private holdings of Byzantine lead seals. Its significance lies not only in the sheer number of objects but also in the high quality of preservation and the considerable historical and archaeological value of many of the specimens. The formation of…
In the spring of 2024, on the site planned for a new bus station in Sozopol the foundations of a single-nave church with a narthex from the 12th–13th centuries were discovered, with fragments of masterful frescoes, a multi-layered Christian necropolis, as well as the remains of a monastery complex and ritual pits. At these very…
This paper examines the prosopography of philanthropy in Byzantium from the perspective of administrative and institutional history, using sigillographic evidence as its primary source. By analysing the seals of xenodochoi, gerokomoi, nosokomoi, and physicians, it seeks to reconstruct the administrative structures, hierarchies, and modes of appointment within healthcare institutions, as well as their integration into…
This paper aims to address one of the fundamental questions in Byzantine sigillography: who owned a seal and what, in practice, was sealed? It draws on a statistical analysis of a representative and sizeable corpus, the collection of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, which comprises approximately 1,500 lead seals dating from the 5th to the 14th…