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Over the past century, exploration and serendipity have uncovered mosaic after mosaic in the Near East--maps, historical images, mythical figures, and religious scenes that constitute an immense treasure of new testimony from antiquity. The stories these mosaics tell unfold in this brief, richly informed book by a preeminent scholar of the classical world. G. W. Bowersock considers these mosaics a critical part of the documentation of the region's ancient culture, as expressive as texts, inscri...

This publication is an entirely new study of the Armenian people from the late 5th to the early 20th century. Taking as its starting point the internationally important collection of Armenian illuminated manuscripts in the collection of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, the authors have selected over 20 of the rarest and most beautiful of these to tell the history of the Armenian people, their art and literature.

Splendours of Qur'an Calligraphy and Illumination reproduces the formal excellence of colors and texture that distinguish these artistic masterpieces. In all, 180 openings are displayed, carefully chosen from the greatest collections of Qur'an manuscripts in the world.

The first Renaissance did not take place in Europe, but in Mesopotamia: Arabic-Islamic culture functioned as a mediator between classical antiquity and the early modern age in Europe. This volume, edited by renowned theorist Siegfried Zielinski, explores the rich and fascinating world of the automata that were developed and built during the golden age of the Arabic-Islamic cultures, the period from the early 9th to the 13th century. These machines, built to glorify God, draw mainly on the tradit...

The Byzantine era was a time of the formation of the Abrahamic religions and a battleground for people's hearts and minds. This book shows that, during the time of the Byzantine Empire, the synagogues in Palaestina developed a visual language adhering to traditional literary sources. Until now, scholars believed that Judaism was oblivious to all art forms, regarding them as mere "decoration." This book shows that, contrary to those beliefs, Jewish art was, in fact, flourishing in this period. Th...

Without any doubt, Arabian geometric ornament is among the most sophisticated forms of design of all eras. For this book, a very large collection of the most beautiful and intricate of such designs have been meticulously re-drawn and digitized. All files are recorded on the accompanying CD-ROM; these files have been made with such precision that the core items can be interlocked, allowing for limitless repetition

In this important and timely publication, top international scholars present current research and developments about the art, archaeology, and history of the ancient city of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Syria. Palmyra became tragic headline news in 2015, when it was overtaken by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which destroyed many of its monuments and artifacts. The essays in this book include new scholarship on Palmyra's origins and evolution as well as deve...

This engaging publication details, via the raw materials of its original programmes, the 11 year history of the Shiraz-Persepolis Festival of Arts which ran annually between 1967 to 1977 and centred on the programming of preeminent music, dance, drama, poetry and film as a showcase of the creme de la creme of the traditional and avant garde. In the mid-1960s Empress Farah Pahlavi's initial proposition for an event of such magnitude was put forward and, in the summer of 1967, formally realised un...

As historical analyses of Diaspora Jewish visual culture blossom in quantity and sophistication, this book analyzes 19th-20th-century developments in Jewish Palestine and later the State of Israel. In the course of these approximately one hundred years, Zionist Israelis developed a visual corpus and artistic lexicon of Jewish-Israeli icons as an anchor for the emerging "civil religion." Bridging internal tensions and even paradoxes, artists dynamically adopted, responded to, and adapted signific...

This beautifully illustrated hardback edition explores all the magic and mysteries of ancient Egypt that continue to fascinate us, in over 500 pages of full-colour photographs and comprehensive text. It covers everything from architecture, sculpture and painting to everyday life, statecraft, society and religion.