Publication of “Talisman or Conduit? Beliefs about Statuary and Miracles” in The Christian and the Supernatural in Late Antiquity

The volume The Christian and the Supernatural in Late Antiquity, edited by Ryan Denson and Charlotte Spence, has been officially published digitally this month – physical copies are scheduled to be printed shortly. The editors have brought together a great collection of contributions exploring the topic. Here is their description of the project:... Read more 26 Oct 2026 - 3 minute read

PICERAN Post 2: : Ibn Buṭlān’s account of Antioch

When proposing PICERAN, I knew that there was Arabic material for the Roman Duchy of Antioch. As it has turned out, the works of Ibn Buṭlān have been both more and less than I had hoped. Less, in the sense that only fragments of his travel epistles survive, but more in the sense that some of the fragments which survive are highly relevant to the... Read more 25 Sep 2026 - 17 minute read

PICERAN Post 1: introducing the project

This is the first blog post of a project titled the “The Prosopography of the Imperial Church of the Empire of the Romans in Antioch during the time of Nikon of the Black Mountain, circa AD 950-1100” (PICERAN, ID # 101208459). The project is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (Horizon-MSCA), based at the University of Cologne, lasting twenty-four m... Read more 24 Jun 2026 - 7 minute read

Review of Religion in den Bergen in Orbis Terrarum

My review of Michael Kasper, Robert Rollinger, Andreas Rudigier, and Josef Wiesehöfer (eds.), Religion in den Bergen. Sakrale Orte, Heiligtümer, Performanz, Mythos und Alltagsleben (2023) has just been published. It appears in Orbis Terrarum vol. 22 (2024). The reviewed volume contains the proceedings of a 2021 conference on Religion in the Moun... Read more 25 Jan 2025 - less than 1 minute read

IHAC 7th International Byzantine Seminar

This year we are holding the seventh international Byzantine seminar series at the Institute for Ancient History (IHAC) at Northeast Normal University, Changchun, Jilian Province, China. The event is organized in collaboration with the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Cologne and the Department of Historical ... Read more 30 Sep 2023 - less than 1 minute read