SCIBOS · State functionaries in Byzantium: a social and cultural study (7th-9th c.)
Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2024-09-01 → 2026-08-31
- EU contribution
- €195,915
- Participants
- 3
- Scheme
- HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
State functionaries in Byzantium: a social and cultural study (7th-9th c.)
The SCIBOS project (“State functionaries in Byzantium: a social and cultural study, 7th–9th c.”) aimed to investigate the career patterns, social status, mobility, networks and cultural identity of Byzantine officials through the systematic study of sigillographic material, especially Byzantine lead seals. The project combined the analysis of seals with literary, archaeological and prosopographical evidence in order to better understand Byzantine administrative structures and forms of self-representation. The main objectives were to collect and organise a substantial corpus of sigillographic material, analyse career patterns and administrative networks, explore Digital Humanities approaches for the future digital publication of the material, study iconographic and decorative motifs on seals, disseminate the results through publications and conferences, and support the researcher’s training and career development.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This research project will study the career prospects (geographical and institutional mobility, communication networks, length of tenures) of state functionaries in Byzantium between the 7th and the 9th c., and their social and cultural identity through their self-representation, their professional choices, piety, and ethnic origin. Next to the admittedly limited narrative and archival sources, this project will rely as its main source on Byzantine lead seals, a source material that only few scholars in the field of Byzantine Studies have the ability to analyse. One of the primary objectives of the project is to move beyond traditional approaches in the study of Byzantine lead seals. This will be accomplished, first, by demonstrating the potential of this material for the study of a past medieval society and particularly for the fields of social and cultural history. Second, by the introduction of tools from the Digital Humanities, such as SigiDoc that has been developed through another past MCSA project by a scholar of my host institution. There will be a thorough research for relevant material which will be recorded in a standard database that will serve as basis for the further process of the material in order to answer our research questions and to complete all the products of the project. The main products of this study will consist of: 1) an online database on the career of officials; 2) an article on the career and communication networks of officials; 3) online publication of a corpus of unpublished lead seals; 4) a list of decorative and iconographic motifs on lead seals; 5) a monograph with the final overall research results. Several targeted training and research activities (the application of digital tools in Byzantine sigillography, research in Bulgarian archaeological archives, seminars, and courses) have been already planned, aiming at the successful completion of the project and the enhancement of the prospects of my future career.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/101109500
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5194ab457&appId=PPGMS
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e52eae1131&appId=PPGMS
Data: CORDIS, © European Union