Propylaeum

Although the archaeology and history of the Byzantine Crimea is a well-researched subject, the results of this research have received little attention outside the Russian-speaking world.
This monograph by the internationally renowned archaeologist Aleksandr I. Ajbabin, the result of a joint project between the RGZM and the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, is intended to help raise awareness of this region, which was essentially characterised by the tense relationship between the steppe peoples and the Byzantine Empire.  
This thoroughly revised and expanded translation of the work, which was first published in Russian in 1999, provides the German public with a comprehensive overview of the find material and its chronology, some of which is difficult to access.

The book’s aim is to make a comprehensive introduction of the Sarmatians, the crucial people in the world of Iranian language speaking nomads.
The first part of the volume deals with the history and archaeology of these tribes starting from their emergence to the Hunnic invasion after which Iranian domination of the steppe belt was replaced by the power of Turkic nomads. Based on literary sources and archaeological material, the second part synthetises the history of the Sarmatians in the Carpathian Basin from the 1^st to 5^th century AD. A special emphasis is put on the steppe relations of the Alföld Sarmatians, innovations brought by new migration waves and, their impact on the autochthonous population. The third part is an outlook to the afterlife of the Sarmatians the traces of which stretch out from Britain to China.

The study of the early medieval settlement (7th-8th century AD) and the pottery finds from the associated cemetery focuses on three main areas: Avar settlement features and settlement structures in the Carpathian Basin, pottery production and use in the Avar period, and Avar traditions in the Zillingtal regarding the burial of pottery vessels.
Among the settlement finds, the early medieval reuse of the Roman ruins is of particular interest. The analysis of the find material focuses on the pottery finds, together with the pottery vessels from the Avar cemetery. Archaeological and archaeometric analyses as well as methods of experimental archaeology are used. The chronology of the pottery and the anthropological data of the burials form the basis for the analysis of Avar traditions in the burial of pottery.

Part 2 here.

Society and environment are complex systems in constant change. This study analyses the structural development of three small southern German regions between the 6th and 13th centuries. Based on archaeological, written and geoscientific sources, individual characteristics and supra-regional commonalities are worked out by a systematic diachronic comparison. Special attention is paid to the changes around the year 1000, a period in which the three micro-studies show a particularly pronounced individuality. Economic, ecological, social and political processes are discussed as causes of these region-specific special paths.

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Animal bones in Avar cemeteries are often interpreted as food offerings for the dead or, more generally, as "sacrifices". But why did the Avars choose certain animals and animal parts to place in the graves of their dead?
Henriette Baron presents the animal bone finds from the Avar cemetery at Csokorgasse in Vienna, analyses burial practices and provides a detailed overview of Avar animal remains from the 7th and 8th centuries - with the aim of gaining new insights into what people actually saw in the animals. It becomes clear that the interpretation as food offerings sometimes falls short; the selected animals and animal parts had deeper meanings. There is also evidence of a change in the practice of offering animals over several generations, which may be linked to fundamental social changes.
On closer inspection, animals are "like a book and a painting" - "quasi liber et pictura" - a mirror of our being, as Alain de Lille wrote in the 12th century.

Between the towns of Andernach on the Rhine and Mayen in the Eifel, there was already one of the large mining areas for mineral raw materials in ancient times. Products made of basalt lava - above all high-quality millstones - became real export hits in Roman times. Traded on a large scale across the Rhine, they found buyers in Britain as well as in the foothills of the Alps.
The study focuses on the millstone quarries at the Bellerberg volcano near Mayen. New excavations and prospections within the framework of the Volcano Park East Eifel Project allow a detailed reconstruction of the production processes and show a high degree of division of labour. Model calculations including all finds and features also from pre- and post-Roman epochs allow quantification of the economic processes. A synthesis of all comparable mining areas in the Old World rounds off the study.

The sites around the Burgstallkogel between Großklein and Gleinstätten in western Styria are among the most outstanding of the Early Iron Age in Austria and Central Europe. The centre is the hilltop settlement on the Burgstallkogel, at the foot of which lies the Sulmtal necropolis, with some 700 burial mounds still standing.
On the first river terrace of the Saggau valley, near Kleinklein, the four richest princely burials of the entire eastern Hallstatt district were found. Most of the finds were made in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A successful re-excavation in 1995 in the most recent princely tomb, the so-called Kröllkogel, provided the impetus for the present new treatment and re-evaluation of this magnificent tomb. To achieve this goal, the Joanneum Universal Museum in Graz and the RGZM joined forces and organised an interdisciplinary group of researchers to examine all aspects of the find.

The fortunes of Byzantine Constantinople have always been inextricably linked to the sea. The topographical, demographic and economic development of the city and its networks are reflected in the history of its harbours. This volume offers an exhaustive study of Constantinople’s Byzantine harbours on the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn, as well as nearby European and Asian landing stages. The fifteen chapters by eleven contributors here present a broad synthesis of the current state of research using written, pictorial and archaeological sources.

Jerusalem is a city holy to three world religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. From the early Byzantine period, Christian pilgrimage here and to other holy sites became a »mass phenomenon«. Thousands of Christians set out to holy sites in Palestine, Egypt and other places in order to physically experience salvation history and seek divine intervention in their lives. Numerous travel reports, pilgrim guides and other written sources highlight important aspects of pilgrimage. In addition, many well-preserved churches, monasteries, hostels and other buildings, as well as rich archaeological findings, provide us with a vivid and synthetic picture of the history of pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

The empire of the Persian Sassanids (AD 224-651) extended over the area of modern-day Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even the Caucasus regions lay under their political influence. Many elements of Sassanian art and culture can be found in neighbouring lands, such as the Byzantine Empire and Christian Caucasus, and, following the fall of the Sassanids, continued in those areas under Islamic control which had developed on their former territory.
In order to investigate the continuing role of the Sassanian Persians and their culture, in September 2017 an international conference was held in the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz. The papers given by academics from various disciplines are published in the present volume.

In 2018, the Roman-Germanic Central Museum Mainz presents in cooperation with the Schallaburg, the splendid Renaissance castle near Melk (Lower Austria), the exhibition »Byzantium & the West: 1000 forgotten years «.

Both Byzantium and the European West spring from the Roman Empire, but as early as Late Antiquity experience different developments.  While the Roman Empire continued to exist in the East and passed seamlessly into the Byzantine Empire of the Middle Ages, pagan took its place in the West: the kingdoms of the Goths, Vandals, Anglo-Saxons, Lombards and Franks. Although Byzantium was respected or accepted as a major power by the other European entities for at least 800 years, territorial conflicts, disputes, and cultural differences quickly emerged. In addition, communication became increasingly difficult - in the "orthodox" East, Greek was the common language, while in the "Catholic" West, Latin was the lingua franca. Differences in liturgy and questions of belief intensified the disparities or were even (religio-) politically underlined to emphasize dissimilarity. But one still continued to admire "wealthy Constantinople" and the Byzantine treasures - among them the magnificent silks, ivory reliefs, technical marvels, plentiful relics and magnificent buildings.

The change came in 1204 with the conquest and plunder of Constantinople by the Crusaders. For the already weakened Byzantine Empire, this catastrophe meant a completely new situation as an empire in exile, whose emperor and patriarch had to flee to Asia Minor. Across much of the former European Byzantine Empire, crusader states spread; Venice and Genoa, which had previously been strongly present as trade powers under special treaties, became major determinants of the western powers in the East.

On the occasion of this exhibition, two accompanying volumes with a total of 41 contributions concerning the varied and changing relationships between the Latin West and the Byzantine Empire are being published. The volumes are structured according to the media of communication: people, images, language and things. They collect contributions from renowned scientists with archaeological, art historical, philological and historical priorities. Several overviews and detailed studies are drawn from research projects of the Leibniz- ScienceCampus Mainz: Byzantium between Orient and Occident, as well as the focus on Byzantine and medieval research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

The fortunes of Byzantine Constantinople always have been intrinsically tied to the sea. Topographical, demographical and economical development of the city is reflected in the history of its harbours, which for the first time is concerned in its entirety in this volume.
Twelve studies regarding the harbours and landing places of the city at the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn – but as well regarding those in their European as in their Asian surroundings – are creating a synthesis of the current state of research by analysis of written, pictorial and archaeological sources.

The collection of the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe contains an extensive inventory of Late Antique and Byzantine objects, previously only partially accessible in publications. The artefacts and artworks are mainly small-scale objects, some of great scholarly value. They belong to both the sacral and secular spheres and convey a wide spectrum of everyday life as well as artistic and cultural production in the late Roman and Byzantine Empire. In the collection catalogue, the 268 objects made of bone, ivory, glass, ceramics, metal and stone, some bearing inscriptions, are thoroughly documented, interpreted and categorized in terms of their cultural history.

In 2018, the Roman-Germanic Central Museum Mainz presents in cooperation with the Schallaburg, the splendid Renaissance castle near Melk (Lower Austria), the exhibition »Byzantium & the West: 1000 forgotten years «.
Both Byzantium and the European West spring from the Roman Empire, but as early as Late Antiquity experience different developments. While the Roman Empire continued to exist in the East and passed seamlessly into the Byzantine Empire of the Middle Ages, pagan polities took its place in the West: the kingdoms of the Goths, Vandals, Anglo-Saxons, Lombards and Franks. Although Byzantium was respected or accepted as a major power by the other European entities for at least 800 years, territorial conflicts, disputes, and cultural differences quickly emerged. In addition, communication became increasingly difficult - in the "orthodox" East, Greek was the common language, while in the "Catholic" West, Latin was the lingua franca. Differences in liturgy and questions of belief intensified the disparities or were even (religio-) politically underlined to emphasize dissimilarity. But one still continued to admire "wealthy Constantinople" and the Byzantine treasures - among them the magnificent silks, ivory reliefs, technical marvels, plentiful relics and magnificent buildings.

The change came in 1204 with the conquest and plunder of Constantinople by the Crusaders. For the already weakened Byzantine Empire, this catastrophe meant a completely new situation as an empire in exile, whose emperor and patriarch had to flee to Asia Minor. Across much of the former European Byzantine Empire, crusader states spread; Venice and Genoa, which had previously been strongly present as trade powers under special treaties, became major determinants of the western powers in the East.

On the occasion of this exhibition, two accompanying volumes with a total of 41 contributions concerning the varied and changing relationships between the Latin West and the Byzantine Empire are being published. The volumes are structured according to the media of communication: people, images, language and things. They collect contributions from renowned scientists with archaeological, art historical, philological and historical priorities. Several overviews and detailed studies are drawn from research projects of the Leibniz- ScienceCampus Mainz: Byzantium between Orient and Occident, as well as the focus on Byzantine and medieval research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

At that time, the Roman cemetery of Halbturn I belonged to the western part of Pannonia; the ancient city of Carnuntum was about 30 km away. The cemetery was completely investigated by systematic excavations, which is unusual for this region. 

The finds show a great variability in burial customs, which can be seen in the positioning of the burials and the buried, as well as in the different efforts invested in the construction of the tombs. These characteristics depend, on the one hand, on the chronological period in question (2nd-5th century) and, on the other, on the personal status of the deceased (according to age at death, sex and physical disabilities). Particularly unusual are the numerous infant and child graves. 

In addition to the archaeological-typological evaluation, the monograph offers important insights into life at the time: for example, a child's amulet is the oldest evidence of Jewish faith in Austria to date. Nutrition, diseases and injuries - whether caused by agricultural activities or domestic violence - are also described in detail, as well as considerations on animal breeding and husbandry, cultivated and wild plants, stone monuments, etc. Last but not least, the site, which was previously recorded by aerial archaeology, geophysical prospection and systematic field surveys, offers numerous further insights into the associated agricultural holdings.

The Rum Seljuk Empire had emerged after the devastating Battle of Manzikert in 1071 in the previously Byzantine Anatolia. Until its dissolution in early 14^th century it was the Byzantines’ most important neighbor on their Eastern border. The Rum Seljuk Empire combined Seljuk and Greek-Orthodox populations. Thus it was in close contact with Byzantium: Especially trade, the exchange of artists and marriages defined these relations. These social and political links as well as the ethnic and religious tolerance that shaped the coexistence of different groups in the Rum Seljuk Empire built the foundation for great art. At the same time we only know little about the Rum Seljuks and their interaction with the Byzantines so that the impression, that there had not been any cultural exchange between them, still prevails.

This conference volume presents the results of an interdisciplinary congress that took place October 1.-3, 2010 in the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz. The congress intended to discard this impression and initiate a discussion about problems concerning the Byzantine-Seljuk relations.

The Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz owns a collection of Byzantine goldsmith's work, only a small part of which has been published so far and is therefore widely unknown. Since this collection of jewellery and insignia of rank contains not only individual finds but also remarkable ensembles and, in addition, some copies of valuable, unfortunately destroyed originals, it is now being made accessible to the general public for the first time. The objects are listed in 49 catalogue numbers. They come predominantly from the core areas of the Byzantine Empire, but also occasionally from regions beyond its borders and, moreover, from a long period of time stretching from the late 5^th to the 14^th/15^th century.
Particularly noteworthy are two treasure finds, among them even a coin-dated one from Asia Minor or the Syro-Palestinian region, several necklaces made of elaborately openwork gold medallions, a gold bracelet ring from Syria also decorated with the finest opus interrasile and moreover with the most valuable precious stones, the only surviving decorative strip of a woman's crown cap, the richly chiselled pocket lid of a man of presumably royal rank, and an ensemble of Roman glass vessels, probably made in Constantinople in the 8^th/9^th century. They could be antiques from the imperial palace there.
In addition to a short catalogue with concise information on each object in the collection, the book contains an antiquarian appreciation of these goldsmith's works and the numismatic treatment of the coin-dated treasure find. In addition, one finds a detailed description of all applied goldsmithing techniques, which two experienced goldsmiths and restorers examined in the RGZM workshops. Overall, the catalogue is much more richly illustrated than comparable publications with new master photos of all the precious objects and countless detailed photos as well as drawings.

This volume takes a detailed look at a period of the Carpathian Basin that has so far not been known at all, or only scarcely known at all: the eastern expansion of the Carolingian Empire - those scarcely 100 years that lie between the fall of the Avar Khaganate and the emergence of the Hungarian principality.
Pannonia, the new eastern province of the Carolingian Empire, comprised most of Transdanubia and the Sava-Drava interfluve, where smaller counties were established from the middle of the 9th century. The best known of these was the county in Lower Pannonia with its centre Mosaburg, which Priwina and his son Chezil developed into Zalavár-Vársziget (Castle Island) from the 840s. In Lower Pannonia, which belonged to the missionary district of the Salzburg archbishopric, up to 30 churches were built between 840 and 870, five of which are already considered archaeologically identified today. Constantine (Cyril) and his brother, Methodius, who was appointed Archbishop of Pannonia, were briefly active in Mosaburg. At the end of the 880s, a royal palace of Arnolf of Carinthia, the East Frankish king, stood here. He left Mosaburg to Duke Braslav in 896, who surrounded the settlement with a strong rampart construction.
Thanks to the excavations that have continued for over 70 years, we now have a reliable picture of the history of the settlement, the architectural and artistic monuments, the social hierarchy, the ethnic composition and the cultural connections of the Mosaburg county.

Tiny golden animal figures, mixed creatures, human and divine figures: Around 450 AD, a sophisticated pictorial language circulated in northern Europe. Deciphering this code allows deep insights into a past that is often mysterious.
As exquisite pieces of jewellery of the highest quality, the three Swedish gold neck collars are technically and iconographically the top products of their time. Although they were found as early as the 19th century and have fascinated researchers and laymen alike ever since, this is the first major scholarly monograph with outstanding illustrative material on these "imperial jewels". The focus is on questions concerning their manufacture, their bearers and their purpose. Above all, however, the significance of the many hundreds of figurative miniatures is explained, thus opening up access to the imaginary worlds of the Germanic peoples in pre-Christian times.

The custom of giving metalworking tools to a deceased person in the grave has been known since the Copper Age and is widespread in Europe, Asia and Africa. This volume attempts to trace this practice, taking into account the spiritual culture of the respective epoch. The picture of the archaeological legacy is completed by written and pictorial sources.
The work gives an overview from the Copper Age to the Middle Ages of all the graves in which forging tools were found. A few selected examples from the early Middle Ages are treated in more detail in individual studies.
In addition to the archaeological findings, epigraphic, iconographic, documentary and historical sources provide the basis for a new interpretation.

Volume 2, s. here.

What do we know about the environments in which the Byzantine Empire unfolded in the eastern Mediterranean? How were they perceived and how did man and the environment mutually influence each other during the Byzantine millennium (AD 395-1453)? Which approaches have been tried up until now to understand these interactions? And what could a further environmental-historical research agenda look like?
These questions were the focus of an interdisciplinary conference that took place on 17 and 18 November 2011 in Mainz. The present conference volume brings together contributions from researchers who have approached these issues from very different perspectives. They focus on the explanatory power of traditional as well as »new« sources and the methods of Byzantine Studies and Byzantine archaeology for this hitherto little-explored sphere. In this way, we see how closely environmental history is interwoven with the classical topics of Byzantine research – be they of an economic, social or culture-historical nature.

Die Speere von Schöningen belegen als die ältesten Jagdwaffen der Menschheit die Nutzung der Ressource Holz durch die Menschen vor etwa 300 000 Jahren. Es besteht eine hohe Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass eine breite Artenvielfalt von Pflanzen für die Schöninger Jäger großes Nutzungspotential hatte von der Nutzung kohlenhydratreicher Wurzeln im Winter bis zur Medizinalpflanze. Gerlinde Bigga hat in ihrer hier vorgelegten Dissertation die Pflanzenfunde der Ausgrabungen von Schöningen auf ihr Nutzungspotential für den Menschen hin untersucht und zeigt die vielfältigen Ressourcen auf, die den Urmenschen zur Verfügung standen. Auch wenn für diese Forschungen archäologische Nachweise schwer zu erbringen sind, kann sie mit dem Rückgriff auf ethnologische Untersuchungen und Berechnung des Energieverbrauchs die Nutzung von Pflanzenressourcen aufzeigen. Ihre Arbeit ist ein wichtiger Baustein, um das komplexe Verhältnis zwischen Mensch und Natur zur Zeit der Schöninger Speere besser zu verstehen und die damaligen Menschen nicht nur als Jäger kennenzulernen.

The final international conference of the project "For Salvation and Happiness: Byzantine Pilgrimage and its Roots", held in December 2015, gathered scholars from the disciplines of archaeology, Byzantine studies, art history, historical sciences, religious history, epigraphy and historical geography, who addressed the phenomenon of pilgrimage in the Byzantine Empire. The contributions consider the connections of Byzantine pilgrimage to pagan and Jewish pilgrimage. Above all, they present and discuss the practice of pilgrimage between "cult and commerce" in the sacral-topographical and landscape context of individual regions and locations in the Byzantine Empire from Egypt to Bulgaria and from southern Italy to the Holy Land.

In recent years, interest in the study of maritime installations and networks in the Roman and Byzantine Mediterranean has increased considerably, as documented by various projects and publications.
The conference »Seasides of Byzantium. Harbours and Anchorages of a Mediterranean Empire«, from which the papers collected in the present volume emerged, took place in Athens in 2017 as part of a cooperation between the DFG-funded Special Research Programme (SPP 1630) »Harbours from the Roman Period to the Middle Ages« and the National Hellenic Research Foundation. It united historians, archaeologists and geoarchaeologists to explore harbours and anchorages as core maritime infrastructure to the Late Roman and Byzantine Empire.
General phenomena such as the organisation of the Byzantine navy and its operations or lighthouses are discussed in this volume as well as new geoarchaeological research methodologies in harbour archaeology. Most contributions in the present volume examine case studies for the most important maritime core region of the Byzantine Empire, the Aegean. This sea connected the remaining provinces of the empire in Southeastern Europe and Asia Minor after the loss of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa to the Arabs in the 7^th century AD. In addition to technical and geographical aspect, the studies in this volume make clear that we need to explore more and more the social embedding of the seasides of Byzantium to understand their dynamics in all their complexity.