Byzantine Sigillography Research Articles

Signed, sealed, delivered – digital approaches to Byzantine sigillography

Abstract In this paper we present a number of digital approaches in the field of Byzantine sigillography conducted in two projects currently running at the University of Cologne. We describe how technologies and methodologies from the Digital Humanities can help overcome some of the limitations in Byzantine sigillography that result from and contribute to its status as a ‘rare subject’. Building on a long tradition and leveraging methods and techniques from the Digital Humanities, this paper describes some important steps already taken towards a digital renewal of the discipline. We are well aware that it takes much more than a locally organised group of scholars to establish any discipline anew, and so this paper aims to be a stimulus to future work.

Образ грифона на византийских печатях (на примере коллекции Государственного Эрмитажа)

In the tenth-century Byzantine sigillography, along with the classical iconographic repertoire (images of the Mother of God, saints, and cross potent), there appeared images of birds, real animals and monsters, and even portraits of the owners of seals. An important place among them belongs to the seals showing griffin, an imaginary monster combining the features of an eagle and a lion. Its images on seals comprise three variants: 1) single image of a griffin, 2) griffin trampling an animal, 3) paired griffins in the flight scene of Alexander the Great. Among the lead seals in the State Hermitage Museum collection, the first variant is represented by the seals of Theophylaktos Argyros, anthypatos patrikios; Stephen, protospatharios, episkeptites and the anagrapheus of the imperial domains protected by God; Constantine, imperial spatharokandidatos and kommerkiarios of Thessalonike; Theophylaktos, patrikios, imperial protospatharios, ἐπὶ τοῦ Χρυσοτρικλίνου and chartoularios of the dromos; Demetrios, imperial spatharokandidatos and ἐπὶ τῆς μεγάλης ἑταιρείας; George; and Theophilus (?). The second variant occurs on the seals of Leo, imperial protospatharios, ἐπὶ τῆς μεγάλης ἑταιρείας, and Staurakios, imperial protospatharios, ἐπὶ τῶν οἰκειακῶν and ἐπὶ τῶν βαρβάρων. The third variant shows a unique seal from the State Hermitage Museum featuring an image of SS. Constantine and Helena on the obverse. Taking the seals from other collections along with the sigillographic monuments from the State Hermitage Museum into account, the author of this paper has run to the conclusion that the appearance of the image of a griffin in the tenth century coincided with the Macedonian Renaissance and was connected mainly with the revival of interest in the antique past. It was the time when this image retained only its apotropaic and decorative function. It was placed on the seals of secular officials, civilian and the military persons.

The Digital Enhancement of a Discipline Byzantine Sigillography and Digital Humanities

Byzantine sigillography is intrinsically interdisciplinary. Unlike other sister auxiliary disciplines, such as epigraphy or numismatics, sigillography has not yet benefited from the experience gained within the Digital Humanities. SigiDoc, the newborn encoding standard for Byzantine seals, is the first attempt to bridge this gap. This paper is aimed at investigating the interactive fusion of aspects of interdisciplinarity between Byzantine Sigillography and the Digital Humanities whilst illustrating the ‘digital genealogy’ of SigiDoc in the broader context of TEI, as well as its relationship of reciprocity with open source initiatives and tools, such as EpiDoc and EFES (EpiDoc Front-End Services).

Seal of Nikephoros, the Metropolitan πάσης Ῥωσίας, from Byzantine Cherson

This research republishes an interesting sigillographic find from Byzantine Cherson (Shumen, 2011), which first attribution was tentative, suggesting subsequent clarifications and corrections. Oleksandr Alf’orov has provided a new reading of the place-name on the seal reverse, thus indicating the necessity of setting aside the initial attribution of the seal to one of the bishoprics in Bulgaria and allowing one to relate the find from Cherson with the metropolis of Rus’. Now the obverse legend has been successfully reconstructed, uncovering that the seal certainly shows not the traditional image of St. Nikephoros, but rather that of the homonymous saint, the glorified patriarch of Constantinople in the ninth century. The image of St. Nikephoros is among the rarest pieces of Byzantine sigillography, though the image of St. Patriarch Nikephoros of Constantinople does not meet with any analogies. The chronology of the seal depends on the specific script and abbreviations in the legend, typical of the period from the twelfth to fourteenth century. Taking stylistic and epigraphic features of the find from Cherson and the term πάσης Ῥωσίας (“of all Rus’) used in the legend into account, there are reasons to consider that, among two metropolitans of Kiev bearing the same name in the twelfth century, the owner of the seal in question was Nikephoros (Nikifor) II who headed the Rus’ian Orthodox church in the late twelfth and the very early thirteenth centuries. The new attribution of this seal clarifies the list of church figures who received letters from Byzantine Cherson in the Late Byzantine period and uncovers this seal’s role of a source valuable and important for the history of the region, which testifies to the existence of inter-church connections between Cherson and Rus’ at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth century.

Image of St. George as Dragon-Slayerr on the Seal M-8759 from the State Hermitage Museum Collection

This paper addresses the history of research of a Byzantine seal dating from the twelfth century and analyzes of its iconography. In 1884, Gustave Schlumberger first published an anonymous Byzantine seal from his private collection in the famous Byzantine Sigillography (p. 502). Between 1905 and 1910, Nikolai P. Likhachev acquired a part of G. Schlumberger’s collection. This anonymous seal attracted Likhachev’s special attention, as evidenced by the inventory card written by his hand that survived. When entering the State Hermitage Museum collection, this seal got the number M–8759. Later on, it became a subject of the research by Valentina S. Shandrovskaia. According to the legend on the reverse, the seal belonged to an official of unknown name with the rank of protospatharios ἐπὶ τοῦ Χρυσοτρικλίνου, who held the position of the domestikos tes ypourgeias (δομέστικος τῆς ὐπουργείας) at the Christ-loving despotes (i. e. emperor). The front side of the seal features St. George spearing a dragon. It has been noticed that the scene showing this saint performing the feat rarely occurs on the tenth-to-twelfth century Byzantine seals with similar iconography.

For the Iconography of Holy Riders – Warrior Saints in Byzantine Sigillography: St. George

The article publishes a Byzantine lead seal from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum with the image of the holy rider – warrior saint. Images of holy riders – warrior saints are known in Byzantine sphragistics in several iconographic types: a horseman with a spear in his hands and a cloak fluttering behind his back; a triumphant sitting on a solemnly walking horse with a spear in his hands; an armed or unarmed rider on a horse galloping. The author suggests that the published seal depicts St. George. The image of St. George is known both in the variants of the iconographic types described, and in the rarest type of dragon warrior to date, apparently not too popular in Byzantium. Discussing the question of the appearance of this iconography saint warriors-riders, the author of the article notes that the published seal can be dated not to the X century, but to the XI century, or it should be recognized that our ideas about the linear and sequential development of iconography of the warrior saints are incorrect and all iconographic images types of warrior saints existed at the same time.

The Iconography of the Composition on the Seal of Constantine Mesopotamites (Worshippers’ Images in Byzantine Sigillography)

К иконографии композиции печати Константина Месопотамита (образы адорантов в византийской сфрагистике) - Institutional repository of Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N.Yeltsin

Recent Studies on Byzantine Sigillography in TurkeyRecent Studies on Byzantine Sigillography in Turkey

This paper will focus on the recent studies on Byzantine sigillography which are taken place in Turkey. Although, Turkey should be considered as one of the heirs of Byzantine Empire, the studies which focus on byzantine lead seals are extremely rare. First part of this paper will summarize on the history of sigillography in Turkey which gained a new momentum for the last five years. Studies on the subject became very popular among young scholars mainly after the lecture that was given by French scholar Jean-Claude Cheynet from Sorbonne University. Cheynet’s lecture on Byzantine sigillography was presented in 2008 and the international project called SigiDoc started after it. This project aims to create a database which can be accessible by every scholars. Within this project the first publication is on Istanbul Archeological Museum’s lead seal collection was published in 2012. During the preparative and editorial unfortunately we came across the poor conservation conditions of this important collection. The last part of the present paper will give brief information on the latest studies through the world on sigillography which are computer-based. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n10p13