Urban Life After Antiquity: The Byzantine City between Heraclius and the Fourth Crusade, lecture by Luca Zavagno (Bilkent University), ANAMED Talks, Koç University via Zoom, April 21, 2022, 6:30 pm (Turkey)

For this month’s talk, ANAMED will feature Luca Zavagno. Moderated by Nikolas Bakirtzis. Their talk will focus on the Byzantine city and the changes it went through from 610 to 1204. Throughout this period, cities were always the centers of political and social life for both secular and religious authorities, and, furthermore, the focus of the economic interests of local landowning elites. In this light, the talk examines the regional and subregional trajectories in the urban function, landscape, structure, and fabric of Byzantium’s cities, synthesizing the most cutting-edge archaeological excavations, the results of analyses of material culture (including ceramics, coins, and seals), and a reassessment of the documentary and hagiographical sources. The transformation the Byzantine urban landscape underwent from the seventh to thirteenth centuries can afford us a better grasp of changes to the Byzantine central and provincial administrative apparatus; their fiscal machinery, military institutions, socio-economic structures, and religious organization.

Luca Zavagno is Associate Professor of Byzantine Studies in the Department of History at Bilkent University.

Nikolas Bakirtzis is Associate Professor and Director of the Andreas Pittas Art Characterization Laboratories (APAC Labs) at the Cyprus Institute in Nicosia.

Advance registration required.