Mobility and Materiality in Byzantine-Islamic Relations, 7th to 12th Centuries

Mobility and Materiality in Byzantine-Islamic Relations, 7th–12th Centuries offers a fresh perspective on the medieval Eastern Mediterranean by exploring the movement of people, objects and ideas across boundaries, challenging established views of frontiers, commerce, ideology and identity in Byzantine-Islamic relations. Ranging from foodstuffs, ceramics and mosaics to clergy, artisans and the movement of words across languages, the volume follows the flows of exchange that linked a vast region extending from Constantinople, the Aegean and Anatolia to the Near East and the Mediterranean islands.

Against the background of anthropological theories of exchange, the fourteen contributors examine trade, diplomacy, migration, warfare, and religious and artistic exchange as interconnected processes that often overlapped and reinforced one another. At the same time, they explore mobility as a transformative force that reshaped societies, identities and cultural practices, while also altering the very people, objects and ideas in motion. Equally important is the volume’s engagement with recent approaches to materiality, which treat objects, infrastructures, landscapes and technologies as active participants in processes of interaction and change. Combining theoretical reflection with textual, archaeological, numismatic, sigillographic and art historical evidence, the volume challenges conventional views of Byzantine-Islamic relations as interactions between isolated societies. Instead, it reveals a medieval Mediterranean shaped by exchange, mobility and materiality, which in turn were transformed by cultural frameworks and institutions such as states.

The volume will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of Byzantine Studies, Islamic Near Eastern Studies, Mediterranean Studies, mobility and materiality studies as well as frontier studies