History of the Caucasus

History of the Caucasus PDF Author: Christoph Baumer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755639693
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
"Rich and illuminating." Literary Review A landscape of high mountains and narrow valleys stretching from the Black to the Caspian Seas, the Caucasus region has been home to human populations for nearly 2 million years. In this richly illustrated 2-volume series, historian and explorer Christoph Baumer tells the story of the region's history through to the present day. It is a story of encounters between many different peoples, from Scythians, Turkic and Mongol peoples of the East to Greeks and Romans from the West, from Indo-European tribes from the West as well as the East, and to Arabs and Iranians from the South. It is a story of rival claims by Empires and nations and of how the region has become home to more than 50 languages that can be heard within its borders to this very day. This first volume charts the period from the emergence of the earliest human populations in the region – the first known human populations outside Africa - to the Seljuk conquests of 1050CE. Along the way the book charts the development of Neolithic, Iron and Bronze Age cultures, the first recognizable Caucasian state and the arrival of a succession of the great transnational Empires, from the Greeks, the Romans and the Armenian to competing Christian and Muslim conquerors. The History of the Caucasus: Volume 1 also includes more than 200 full colour images and maps bringing the changing cultures of these lands vividly to life.

History of the Caucasus

History of the Caucasus PDF Author: Christoph Baumer
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755639693
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Rich and illuminating." Literary Review A landscape of high mountains and narrow valleys stretching from the Black to the Caspian Seas, the Caucasus region has been home to human populations for nearly 2 million years. In this richly illustrated 2-volume series, historian and explorer Christoph Baumer tells the story of the region's history through to the present day. It is a story of encounters between many different peoples, from Scythians, Turkic and Mongol peoples of the East to Greeks and Romans from the West, from Indo-European tribes from the West as well as the East, and to Arabs and Iranians from the South. It is a story of rival claims by Empires and nations and of how the region has become home to more than 50 languages that can be heard within its borders to this very day. This first volume charts the period from the emergence of the earliest human populations in the region – the first known human populations outside Africa - to the Seljuk conquests of 1050CE. Along the way the book charts the development of Neolithic, Iron and Bronze Age cultures, the first recognizable Caucasian state and the arrival of a succession of the great transnational Empires, from the Greeks, the Romans and the Armenian to competing Christian and Muslim conquerors. The History of the Caucasus: Volume 1 also includes more than 200 full colour images and maps bringing the changing cultures of these lands vividly to life.

Sanctity, Gender and Authority in Medieval Caucasia

Sanctity, Gender and Authority in Medieval Caucasia PDF Author: Nikoloz Aleksidze
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474498639
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
From the early fourth century, the veneration of saints and relics spread rapidly across Christendom from the British Isles to Iran. In late antique Caucasia, the cult of the saints was immediately integrated into Armenian and Georgian identity and political discourses. It was used to legitimise royal rule, sanctify domains and dynasties, define political realms and justify political decisions. This book is the first systematic study of this history. Discussing a wide variety of sources from Armenia, Georgia, Byzantium and Russia which have not been examined together before, it investigates the interaction of sanctity, holy relics, gender and politics in the medieval Caucasus, with a particular focus on Georgia. Nikoloz Aleksidze analyses three chronological eras: the first section focuses on late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, when the cult of the relics was formed in Caucasian writing; the second explores the medieval era, when the Bagratids ruled in Georgia and the cults of figures such as St George, the Mother of God and Queen Tamar were shaped and politicised; and the third navigates a similar entanglement of sanctity, gender and political rhetoric in Russian Imperial and Georgian national discourse.

Eastern Medieval Architecture

Eastern Medieval Architecture PDF Author: Robert Ousterhout
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190272740
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
The rich and diverse architectural traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and adjacent regions are the subject of this book. Representing the visual residues of a "forgotten" Middle Ages, the social and cultural developments of the Byzantine Empire, the Caucasus, the Balkans, Russia, and the Middle East parallel the more familiar architecture of Western Europe. The book offers an expansive view of the architectural developments of the Byzantine Empire and areas under its cultural influence, as well as the intellectual currents that lie behind their creation. The book alternates chapters that address chronological or regionally-based developments with thematic studies that focus on the larger cultural concerns, as they are expressed in architectural form.

The Medieval South Caucasus

The Medieval South Caucasus PDF Author: Ivan Foletti
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN: 9788021083226
Category : Albania
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The volume serves as an introduction to what its editors have chosen to call the "artistic cultures" prevalent during the Middle Ages in the region of the South Caucasus. Although far from comprehensive in terms of material, chronology and geography, the volume intends to raise awareness of a region whose artistic wealth and cultural diversity has remained relatively unknown to most medievalists. Stretching from Eastern Anatolia and the Black Sea in the West to the Caspian Sea in the East, and from the snow-capped Great Caucasus mountain range in the north to the Armenian highlands in the south, medieval southern Caucasia was originally divided into the kingdom of Caucasian Albania, Greater and Lesser Armenia, and western and eastern Georgia, that is, the kingdoms of Lazica (Egrisi) and Iberia (Kartli) respectively. Together, these entities made the South Caucasus a true frontier region between Europe and Asia and a place of transcultural exchange. Its official Christianization began as early as in the fourth century, even before Constantine the Great founded Constantinople or had himself been converted to Christianity. During the subsequent centuries, the region became a well-connected and strategic buffer zone for its neighboring and occupant Byzantine, Persian, Islamic, Seljuk and Mongol powers. And although subject to constantly shifting borders, the medieval kingdoms of the South Caucasus remained an internally diverse yet shared and distinct geographical and historical unity. Far from being isolated, these cultures were part of a much wider medieval universe. Because of the transcultural nature and elevated artistic quality of their objects and monuments, they have much to offer the field of art history, which has recently been challenged to think more globally in terms of transculturation, movement and appropriation among medieval cultures.

Byzantium in the Popular Imagination

Byzantium in the Popular Imagination PDF Author: Markéta Kulhánková
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755607309
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
What is the contemporary cultural legacy of Byzantium or The Eastern Roman Empire? This book explores the varied reception history of the Byzantine Empire across a range of cultural production. Split into four sections: the origins of 'Byzantomania' in France, modern media, literature, and politics, it provides case studies which show the numerous ways in which the empire's legacy can be felt today. Covering television, video games and contemporary political discourse, contributors also consider a wide range of national and geographical perspectives including Russian, Turkish, Polish, Greek and Hungarian. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of the reception and cultural history of the Byzantine Empire.

Seljuqs and their Successors

Seljuqs and their Successors PDF Author: Canby Sheila Canby
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474450377
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Rising from nomadic origins as Turkish tribesmen, the powerful and culturally prolific Seljuqs and their successor states dominated vast lands extending from Central Asia to the eastern Mediterranean from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. Supported by colour images, charts, and maps, this volume examines how under Seljuq rule, migrations of people and the exchange and synthesis of diverse traditions-including Turkmen, Perso-Arabo-Islamic, Byzantine, Armenian, Crusader and other Christian cultures-accompanied architectural patronage, advances in science and technology and a great flowering of culture within the realm. It also explores how shifting religious beliefs, ideologies of authority, and lifestyle in Seljuq times influenced cultural and artistic production, urban and rural architecture, monumental inscriptions and royal titulature, and practices of religion and magic. It also presents today's challenges and new approaches to preserving the material heritage of this vastly accomplished and influential civilization.

Georgia As a Bridge Between Cultures

Georgia As a Bridge Between Cultures PDF Author: I. Foletti
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN: 9788021098886
Category : Acculturation
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
Contents:00- Georgia as a Bridge between Cultures: Dynamics of Artistic Exchange;0- (introduction to A. Palladino?s translation of H. Belting);0- Belting from Belting. From Moscow to Constantinople, and to Georgia;0- (translation of H. Belting?s article) ;0- The Painter Manuel Eugenikos from Constantinople in Georgia, translated from Hans Belting.00Articles:00- The Khakhuli Dome Decoration;0- Liturgy and Architecture: Constantinopolitan Rite and Changes in the Architectural Planning of Georgian Churches;0- Altars in Medieval Georgian Churches: Preliminary Notes on their Arrangement, Decoration, and the Rite of Consecration;0- Liminal Spaces of Memory, Devotion, and Feasting? Porch-Chapels in Eleventh-Century Georgia;0- The Monastery of the Transfiguration in Zarzma: At the Intersection of Biblical Narration and Liturgical Relevance;0- The Theme of the Last Judgment in Medieval Georgian Art (Tenth?Thirteenth Centuries).

The Notion of Liminality and the Medieval Sacred Space

The Notion of Liminality and the Medieval Sacred Space PDF Author: Katarína Dolezalová
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788021094536
Category : Architecture, Early Christian
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
The thematic frame of this issue is the anthropological notion of liminality, applied both to physical as well as imaginary places of transition in medieval art. The volume is thus dedicated to the phenomenon of the limen, the threshold in medieval culture, understood mainly as a spatial, ritual and temporal category. The structure of the book follows the virtual path of any medieval visitor entering the sacred space. While doing so, the visitor encountered and eventually crossed several "liminal zones" that have been constructed around a series of physical and mental thresholds. In order to truly access the sacred - once again both physically and metaphorically - many transitional (micro)rituals were required and were therefore given particular attention within this volume. The volume was published as proceedings of the Liminality and Medieval Art II conference, which was held in October 2018 at the Masaryk University in Brno. Authors were supposed to conceive their contributions in pairs in order to reflect on the selected topics with an interdisciplinary approach. In the end, the very same pattern was also maintained for the final publication.

The Archaeology of the Caucasus

The Archaeology of the Caucasus PDF Author: Antonio Sagona
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107016592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 563

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Book Description
This conspectus brings together in an accessible and systematic manner a dizzy array of archaeological cultures situated between several worlds.

Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia

Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia PDF Author: Library of Congress. Federal Research Division
Publisher: Federal Research Division Library of Congress
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
One in a series of books analyzing the political, economic, social and national security systems and institutions of a range of countries, and how they are shaped by cultural factors. Here, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are examined both as they existed before and during the Soviet era, and how they have developed since 1991. The marked relaxation of information restrictions, which began in the late 1980s and accelerated after 1991, has allowed the reporting of nearly complete data on every aspect of life in the three countries.