Viewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World

Cambridge University Press, 4/20/2015
EAN 9781107092419, ISBN10: 1107092418

Hardcover, 275 pages, 25.3 x 17.7 x 2.2 cm
Language: English

Inscriptions convey meaning not just by their contents but also by other means, such as choice of script, location, scale, spatial organisation, letterform, legibility and clarity. The essays in this book consider these visual qualities of inscriptions, ranging across the Mediterranean and the Near East from Spain to Iran and beyond, including Norman Sicily, Islamic North Africa, Byzantium, medieval Italy, Georgia and Armenia. While most essays focus on Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, they also look back at Achaemenid Iran and forward to Mughal India. Topics discussed include real and pseudo-writing, multilingual inscriptions, graffiti, writing disguised as images and images disguised as words. From public texts set up on mountainsides or on church and madrasa walls to intimate craftsmen's signatures, barely visible on the undersides of precious objects, the inscriptions discussed in this volume reveal their meanings as textual and visual devices.

Introduction
viewing inscriptions Antony Eastmond
1. Text, image, memory, and performance
epigraphic practices in Persia and the ancient Iranian world Matthew P. Canepa
2. Prayers on site
the materiality of devotional graffiti and the production of early Christian sacred space Ann Marie Yasin
3. Erasure and memory
Aghlabid and Fatimid inscriptions in North Africa Jonathan Bloom
4. Textual icons
viewing inscriptions in medieval Georgia Antony Eastmond
5. Pseudo-Arabic 'inscriptions' and the pilgrim's path at Hosios Loukas Alicia Walker
6. Arabic inscriptions in the Cappella Palatina
performativity, audience, legibility, and illegibility Jeremy Johns
7. Intercession and succession, enlightenment and reflection
the inscriptional and decorative program of the Qaratay Madrasa, Konya Scott Redford
8. Remembering Fernando
multilingualism in medieval Iberia Tom Nickson
9. Displaying the word
words as visual signs in the Armenian architectural decoration of the monastery of Noravank (fourteenth century) Ioanna Rapti
10. Written in stone
civic memory and monumental writing in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa Stefania Gerevini
11. Place, space, and style
craftsmen's signatures in medieval Islamic art Sheila S. Blair
Afterword
re-viewing inscriptions Antony Eastmond.