In 2015 the Office of Art and Archives focused on adding more art and archival content to the History, Art & Archives website (http://history.house.gov/). The website is a collaborative effort: curators and archivists in the Office of Art and Archives and Office of the Historian staff work on and contribute content. The Office of Art and Archives…[Read more]

In the history of old Romanian painting, the icon of Saint John the Baptist with scenes from his life from Budești‑Josani occupies a very important place due to its exceptional artistic quality, as well as the Slavonic inscription with the master’s signature and date. The inscription, in a very poor state of preservation, has already been part…[Read more]

This study identified the icon of Virgin Moscovita and the icon of the Holy Mandylion, described in Konstantinos Dapontes’ writings, with the icon of the Virgin and the icon of the Holy Mandylion preserved in his family monastery Evangelistria in Skopelos island. We can now retrace the “biography”of these two artefacts, the history of their creat…[Read more]

La découverte d’une inscription slavonne dans le narthex de l’église du monastère de Râmeț (comté d’Alba) en 1966, sa relecture avec des moyens techniques spéciaux en 1978 et sa publication officielle en 1985 ont porté à l’attention des historiens le nom du peintre (Mihul du Criș-Blanc), le nom de l’évêque fondateur (archevêque Gélase),…[Read more]

This article delves into the intriguing ΦΧΦΠ cryptograms on the west facade of the St. George Church in Staro Nagoričino, shedding light on their connection to the era of King Milutin and their profound theological significance. It explores the convergence of architecture and symbolism, focusing on these cryptograms as a representation of the “Tru…[Read more]

This article explores the King’s Church of Studenica, and its connections to the Byzantine Chora Church in Constantinople. By examining the architectural and artistic elements of the King’s Church, the article argues that King Stefan Uroš II Milutin sought to create a choral experience for the viewer, immersing them in a world of divine beau…[Read more]

This paper surveys potential counterparts of the ancient Egyptian concept of mAat (maat) from other cultures and summarises such cross-cultural studies as have already been completed. Its scope ranges from antiquity to the present day and across Europe, Africa, the Near East, India, China, Australia and the Americas. Paradigms that appear to…[Read more]

The article is published in the official Journal of The Institute of Science and Technology (ISSN 2040-1868)

The act of classification has the widest implications for scholarship. Whatever the format, it involves the totality of our being. The use of our eyes indicates that decisions about whatever it is that we observe have already been made. Yet the interaction between the mechanical act of seeing and the mind or memory has rarely been registered. An…[Read more]

Some thoughts on Boris Eldagsen’s Image, well ‘photograph’, an AI generated image.

Review of the literature on pictograph sites in the Canadian Shield with specific reference to those found in the Lake of the Woods, in north-western Ontario, Canada.

This article investigates several discussions of “chemistry,” understood as an analysts’ category referring to theories and practices dealing with the structure and transformation of matter. By reading these texts (a treatise defending kīmiyāʾ by al-Fārābī, the famous passage from Ibn Sīnā’s Shifāʾ on transmutation, Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwā…[Read more]

The term “alchemy,” born out of early modern professional polemics among chemists, is problematic as a historical category. The present article shifts away from asking what pre-modern alchemy “really” was, to asking how medieval scholars writing in Greek and Arabic thought about the practice of treating and combining naturally occurring substan…[Read more]

This booklet serves as documentation and manual for the app Creative Museum, the new participatory platform of the Badisches Landesmuseum. The goal of the app is to create a digital space for debate. Museum employees, experts and citizens are invited to get into conversation with each other and share their contributions on equal terms. The topics…[Read more]

This publication is part of the project “Ricontrans – Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda. Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th to Early 20th Century)”, funded from the European Research Council (erc) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant…[Read more]

Elements of Christian visual culture appeared in
various media in monumental and applied art during the late
antique period, from painted decoration in the catacombs,
through funerary monuments, to utilitarian objects such as
jewellery and lamps. The paper analyses the symbolic meaning
of fish and maritime motifs in the context of the late…[Read more]

On a number of pilgrimage objects from Late Antiquity, St Thecla, a highly revered saint, also known as Thecla the Protomartyr, is shown accompanied by St Menas, whose tomb in Egypt was the pilgrimage centre associated with healing miracles. The saintly couple appear in ad bestias compositions or in a simplified variant as two saints with a cross.…[Read more]