Open Collections

Schmidt, Ethan

Database of Religious History (DRH)

The Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai is an eighth or ninth century patriographic text which records brief notes on the examples of monumental Greco-Roman statuary of Constantinople and the numinous powers imputed to them. The exact circumstances and date of its composition, the identity of its author (or authors), and its purpose and genre remain subjects of contention among scholars. It preserves an image of Constantinople at a particular time in its history; the landscape which emerges is a scarcely-inhabited ruin, overgrown and dotted with enigmatic images invested with power in an antique time, and often filled with curious ex votos; tablets with riddlesome inscriptions, skeletons, strange figurines. Nevertheless, it arguably offers the student of Byzantine religion an opportunity to study the beliefs and powers imputed to GrecoRoman Statues in the medieval period. Moreover, as a text likely composed during the period of Iconoclasm (or just before it) it is notable that it concerns images, and, indeed, argues for their potency and importance (it is notable that even in the case of statues which work maleficent magic, the text cautions against destroying or molesting them). Furthermore, the wholesale reproduction of the Parastaseis in the widely-circulated tenth-century Patria, attests to continued engagement with the text as the centuries wore on.

Other

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0438234

Non UBC

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/