You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
In Architecture and Asceticism Loosley Leeming presents the first interdisciplinary exploration of Late Antique Syrian-Georgian relations available in English. The author takes an inter-disciplinary approach and examines the question from archaeological, art historical, historical, literary and theological viewpoints to try and explore the relationship as thoroughly as possible. Taking the Georgian belief that ‘Thirteen Syrian Fathers’ introduced monasticism to the country in the sixth century as a starting point, this volume explores the evidence for trade, cultural and religious relations between Syria and the Kingdom of Kartli (what is now eastern Georgia) between the fourth and seventh centuries CE. It considers whether there is any evidence to support the medieval texts and tries to place this posited relationship within a wider regional context.
This book is the first full-length work concerning the restoration and excavations carried out at Qal’at Sem’an in Syria in the twentieth century. It was written by the notable architect and archaeologist Georges Tchalenko based on his notes, plans, photographs and sketches as he undertook the work in the years before and during the Second World War. Left unpublished at the time of his death during the Lebanese Civil War, it is published here for the first time in the original French with an English translation. The text is richly illustrated throughout and accompanied by a biographical essay by John Tchalenko and an introduction to the historiography of Qal’at Sem’an and Symeon Stylites by Emma Loosley Leeming.
In the final decades of the last millennium, a Jesuit from Italy came across the ruins of an abandoned monastery in the Syrian Desert. It was to be the start of a forward-thinking Catholic religious community called Al-Khalil that would celebrate hospitality and friendship as its guiding pillars, bringing together Christians and Muslims from across the region during troubled times. Father Paolo Dall’Oglio and the interfaith dialogue he promoted in the monastic outpost of Deir Mar Musa near Damascus would attract people from all walks of life. The outbreak of war in 2011, powerful governmental and religious opposition, and the mysterious disappearance of the politically outspoken Father Pao...
A revealing history of Islamic architecture's influence on Europe's cathedrals, palaces and public buildings.
This is the first multidisciplinary volume whose focus is on the barely accessible highlands between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and their invaluable artistic heritage. Numerous ancient and mediaeval monuments of Artsakh/Karabagh and Nakhichevan find themselves in the crucible of a strife involving mutually exclusive national accounts. They are gravely endangered today by the politics of cultural destruction endorsed by the modern State of Azerbaijan. This volume contains seventeen contributions by renowned scholars from eight nations, rare photographic documentation and a detailed inventory of all the monuments discussed. Part 1 explores the historical geography of these lands and their architecture. Part 2 analyses the development of Azerbaijani nationalism against the background of the centuries-long geopolitical contest between Russia and Turkey. Part 3 documents the loss of monuments and examines their destruction in the light of international law governing the protection of cultural heritage.
First published in 2003 this is a new edition of a work that remains the only study of the nave platform known as the Syrian Bema to utilise an interdisciplinary approach. By combining archaeological and architectural research with a study of the Syriac Liturgy to explore how worship evolved on the Syrian Limestone Massif in Late Antiquity, this volume proposes a solution to the long debated question of why only approximately 50 of these bemata have been discovered amongst many thousands of late antique churches in Syria. It charts the evolution of the early liturgy in Syria and seeks to explain how the location of the Limestone Massif in the hinterland of Antioch may have affected the development of worship in the region.
This is the only book currently on the market that attempts to construct a global perspective of Christian-Muslim interaction in a post-9/11 world.
The Middle East is the birthplace of Christianity and the home to a number of Eastern Churches with millions of followers. This book provides a comprehensive survey of the various denominations in the modern Middle East and will be of interest to a wide variety of scholars and students studying theology, history and politics.
Messiah and Mahdi explains the formation of the Safavid capital at Isfahan from a new angle by looking at Shah `Abbas I's expansion of the city from the point of view of his Christian subjects. By blending field work in Isfahan with contemporary academic evaluations of the rule of `Abbas and his successors, it is hoped that this book will offer some insight into Christian-Shi`a relations in seventeenth century Iran and offer new ways of interpreting the relationship between the Safavid court and the shah's Christian subjects in the field of material culture.