Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition at the Met Through some 300 works of art, the exhibition reveals the artistic and cultural adaptations and innovations that resulted during the initial centuries of contact between the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world at the start of the seventh century.
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 14 – July 8, 2012
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art / theartwolf.com
In the seventh century, major trade routes along the Silk Road connected Europe and Asia. The Byzantine Empire’s territories around the Mediterranean were linked by land to China in the north; and by water—through the Red Sea past Jordan—to India in the south. Although Orthodox Christianity was the official religion of the Byzantine state, many other religions remained active in its southern provinces, including various Christian and Jewish communities. Great pilgrimage centers, such as Qal’at Sem’an in present-day Syria south through Jerusalem to Alexandria and the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt attracted the faithful from as far away as Yemen in the east and Scandinavia in the west.
Byzantium and Islam is organized around three themes: the secular and religious character of the Byzantine state’s southern provinces in the first half of the seventh century; the continuity of commerce in the region even as the political base was transformed; and the emerging arts of the new Muslim rulers of the region.
“Byzantium and Islam will contribute immeasurably to the intellectual legacy that was established by the Met’s previous three widely acclaimed exhibitions on the Byzantine Empire”, said Thomas P. Campbell, Director of the Metropolitan Museum.
The works at the exhibition are drawn primarily from the collections of the Metropolitan, the Benaki Museum, Athens, and the collections under the Department of Antiquities of Jordan. Many of these as well as loans from other institutions in North America, Europe, and the Middle East have never been shown before in the United States.
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