The research project sets out from the notion that the material culture of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires offers crucial information for our understanding of these societies, which by their interaction with the West played such a vital role in the formation of Early Modern Europe. However, at this moment both Byzantine and Ottoman archaeology still require an up-to-date typo-chronological framework as well as a solid social and historical perspective.

Research interests

• The project intends to develop a new approach to the material culture of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. These empires succeeded each other, were closely interwoven, and played throughout the centuries an important role as the ‘East’ in relation to Western Europe.
• The project aims to use the study of objects as a means to advance the understanding of historical developments and social change in a real long-term and diachronic (longue durée) perspective. So, archaeology is used to obtain more knowledge on historical developments, on social changes as well as on cultural continuity and discontinuity in the period between the 7th and 20th centuries. 
• The focus of the project will be on the dynamics of material culture in Byzantine and Ottoman societies, especially on the relation between changing shapes and functions of artefacts in relation to wider socio-economic developments. Thus besides to advance the diagnosis and dating of artefacts (especially ceramics), the projects aims to contribute to the understanding of material culture in broader contexts. Examples are the complex relations between changing pottery production and trade patterns, between changing cooking and dining habits and social identities (e.g. the emergence of outsiders, such as Western Crusaders in the Byzantine world; or new elites, such as bureaucrats at the Ottoman Court).

• The project includes inter-regional comparisons. Data from four major urban centres as well as from various rural regions in the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires will be studied in a comparative perspective. The urban centers are Butrint in Albania, Athens in Greece, Ephesus in western Turkey and Tarsus in eastern Turkey; the archaeological data from these cities will be compared with the data from rural sites and areas in the countryside.
• The study of the data is multidisciplinary. Archaeological artefacts (ceramics, glass and cutlery) as well as written texts and pictorial evidence will be used as sources of information. Earlier research by the project leader suggests that this line of research has a very high potential of providing new insights on long-term regional and cross-cultural developments in material culture in the widest sense during Byzantine and Ottoman times.

Contact

Dr. J.A.C. Vroom (Project leader)
j.a.c.vroom@uva.nl
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.a.c.vroom/


Dr. F. Kondyli (Post-doctoral researcher)
f.kondyli@uva.nl
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/f.kondyli/

Events

A conference will be organized as the ‘First Amsterdam Meeting on Byzantine and Ottoman Archaeology’ in the third weekend (21-23) of October 2011 with the title Fact and Fiction in Medieval and Post-Medieval Ceramics in the Eastern Mediterranean – Are we on the right track? Details of this conference will appear in Autumn/Winter 2010.  

In combination with this conference a small exhibition will be organized in the ‘Bijzondere Collecties’ and in the Allard Pierson Museum of the University of Amsterdam during Autumn/Winter 2011. Details of this exhibition with the title Life among Ruins: The Eastern Mediterranean in Word and Image (ca. 700 - 2000 AD) will appear in Autumn/Winter 2011.