Propylaeum

The Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum has one of the world's largest collections of Byzantine belt buckles, most of which come from the centre of the Byzantine Empire. Even as individual pieces without a find context, they provide important insights into the form and decoration of this piece of clothing, which was mainly worn by men - especially soldiers - on their waistbands. As insignia, they still allow us to infer the rank or social status of their wearer and to guess at their spiritual imagination.
Part 1 of the catalogue, first published in 2002 and slightly corrected in this new edition, presents 224 typical belt buckles from the 5th to 7th centuries in their variety of forms and former distribution. In addition, the chronological table at the end of the volume makes it easier to quickly identify and date new finds. The reader will also find a guide to distinguishing typical Byzantine belt buckles from contemporary variants made in workshops in the Empire's neighbouring countries.
The second edition is a revised and updated version, with 33 new pieces.

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The Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz currently owns 363 Byzantine belt buckles and fittings dating from the 7th to the early 11th century. Most of them come from the centre of the Byzantine Empire, where there are few cemeteries with grave goods and therefore few finds. These buckles therefore fill a major gap in our knowledge of this type of clothing accessory, even though they are all single pieces without any context.

Part 2 of the catalogue also shows the characteristics, dates and distribution areas of the various buckle types, and a chronological table makes it easier for the reader to date new finds. The analysis considers issues such as the history of craftsmanship, trade and costume, as well as the search for former owners. These were mainly men who used buckles not only to fasten their waist belts but also as a sign of rank, recognisable by the metal and decoration. For the first time, there is also evidence that women began to wear belt buckles in a gender-specific manner in the 9th century at the latest.
In a separate article, the conservator M. Fecht describes the results of her research into the manufacturing technique and the - mostly lost - colouring of Byzantine belt buckles from the 8th century.
As a supplement to Part 1, a catalogue of 33 subsequently acquired finds has also been included in this volume.

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The 8^th century was the peak of an intellectual movement that had led many highly educated men as well as some women from Anglo-Saxons to emigrate to the continent. Their aim was to win the pagan population - especially Frisians and the tribally related Old Saxons - for Christianity or to improve their religious education. Especially in the northern and eastern Frankish Empire, they worked throughout their lives as missionaries, priests, monks and nuns, teachers or instructresses, and sometimes also as scholars. Only a few of the participants in the "Anglo-Saxon mission" are generally known today, e.g. Archbishop Boniface, who was murdered in Friesland, and the missionary Willibrord of Echternach, because until now it has been almost impossible to obtain a comprehensive picture of this group of people.
In this richly illustrated book, 70 men and 15 women who can be proved to have immigrated from Anglo-Saxons are presented for the first time with their names and dates of life. It also contains floor plans of the churches and monasteries they founded, shows the objects from their possessions that still exist today and documents their graves as well as the unique Boniface tomb in Mainz. Five new distribution maps show not only the location of the immigrants' places of activity and burial places, but also the present-day repositories of works of Anglo-Saxon art and crafts as well as the sites of archaeological objects of Anglo-Saxon origin in the Frankish Empire.

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.

On 12 November 2018, a cooperation agreement was signed in Ingelheim am Rhein between the Kaiserpfalz Research Centre based there and the Roman-Germanic Central Museum, Leibniz Research Institute for Archaeology. With this agreement, the close ties that have existed since the middle of the 19th century between the scientists in Mainz and the researchers of the Imperial Palace in Ingelheim were confirmed in writing. The future cooperation will focus particularly on European economic aspects and topics of supra-regional materials research. The first fruits of this cooperation were presented at interdisciplinary conferences on 12 and 13 November 2018 in Ingelheim and on 28 and 29 November 2019 in Mayen. These events also served as an intensive exchange with scientists from Germany and abroad. The results of both conferences are brought together in this conference volume. In 25 papers, the fundamentals of trade in the Rhineland and its neighbouring regions as well as the processes of the exchange of goods between centres of power, rural regions and production sites in the period from the Roman era to the High Middle Ages are examined from very different perspectives. Both for the large-scale development tendencies and the relationships between different economic regions as well as for the production sites and the marketing routes, the contributions offer trend-setting explanations, fundamental presentations and exceptional descriptions. They form the basis for future research in parts of Europe adjacent to the Rhineland, which is planned within the framework of the cooperation and will be reflected in further conferences.