Lead Seals in Byzantine Thrace (6th-12th c.) - Συλλογικό έργο

Εκδόσεις Σταμούλης Αντ. - Lead Seals in Byzantine Thrace (6th-12th c.) - Συλλογικό έργο

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This volume was published in the framework of the research project: "Lead Seals in Byzantine Thrace (LSByT): Re-examination of data, mapping the distribution of findings and tracing the communication networks (6th-12th c.)" funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) for three and a half years. The host institution of the project was the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the collaborating institutions were the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen (Bulgaria).

The project focuses on Byzantine lead seals, or molybdoboulla, a primary source of Byzantine history, which enrich our knowledge of Byzantine administration and social structures, as well as the prosopography and historical geography of the empire. Although seals can be used to trace communication networks and the circulation of written information in the medieval period, until now this aspect of the material has not been systematically studied. The project examines 2.909 Byzantine lead seals found in Bulgarian and Romanian areas that correspond mainly to the Early Byzantine Thracian provinces of Rhodope, Thrace, Haemimontus, Moesia Secunda and Scythia Minor and the Middle Byzantine themata of Thrace, Macedonia and Paradounavon.

The first part of the book contains the papers presented at the International Conference: "Lead Seals in Byzantine Thrace. Sigillography meets Historical Geography" co-organised with the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna on 19 April 2023. The second part includes some of the results of the LSByT research programme: firstly, certain highlights of the systematic revision of the sigillary material from the 6th to the 12th century as regards its dating and reading and secondly, a set of thematic maps, which depict the geographical distribution of lead seals in Byzantine Thrace, accompanied by the corresponding tables of seal data. The main results of the research project are also disseminated in the website http://www.lsbyt.web.auth.gr/. (From the publisher)