Dumbarton Oaks’ world famous collection of Byzantine objects is equaled in importance and diversity by its collection of Byzantine coins and medallions. It comprises more than 12,000 specimens and covers the entire history of the long-lived empire. Although the collection includes some representative examples from the third century, comprehensive documentation begins with Constantine the Great (r. 306–337), who founded Constantinople in 324 CE, and continues through all the imperial rulers, many empresses, and even a number of usurpers up to the last legitimate ruler, Constantine XI (r. 1449–1453), who died defending the capital city against the Ottoman Turks.

There are examples of all the denominations struck at different times in the economic history of Byzantium, including gold, silver, bronze, electrum, and copper issues that, in five major catalogues, have been interpreted and made available to the scholarly and interested public.

The featured example below (BZC.1949.5) is a medallion of Constantine II (Caesar, 317–337; Augustus, 337–340) and was issued in Thessalonike in the year 326 or 327. Its diameter of 32 mm (1 ¼ inches) and weight of 13.5 grams speak to its outstanding value. It is a special coin, a multiple of the solidus—the standard gold coin weighing 4.5 grams minted for commercial transactions—struck as a commemorative medallion to mark an imperial anniversary. This three-solidi medallion celebrated the tenth year (decennalia) of Constantine II as Caesar.

The outstanding coin has a very well documented long record of ownership. It was purchased by Dumbarton Oaks from the J. Pierpont Morgan Library Collection in 1949; previously it was in the Consul E. F. Weber Collection (sold in 1909); and before that in the Vicomte Ponton d’Amécourt Collection (sold in Paris in 1887).

A considerable number of late Roman coins of the fourth century, together with a substantial number of medallions from the same period, form a significant part of the numismatic collection. The medallions were published in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1958) by Alfred R. Bellinger and the gold and silver coins of the late third and fourth centuries in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 18 (1964) by Alfred R. Bellinger et al.

The most recent article discussing imperial medallions distributed as largesse is soon to appear in J.-M. Spieser, E. Yota, ed., Donation et donateurs à Byzance, Réalités byzantines 14 (2012): 25-46, written by Dumbarton Oaks’ Numismatics Advisor Cécile Morrisson.

Museum plans for the near future include adding a ‘timeline of Byzantine emperors’ to our website that will present all the Byzantine rulers from Constantine the Great to Constantine XI, each illustrated by a coin from the collection, and presenting the entire collection online, modeled after the Byzantine Seals Online Catalogue.

Obverse (left): Bust of Constantine, a son of Constantine the Great, facing left with a laurel crown, wearing a paludamentum (military cape) and holding a globe surmounted by a Victory in his right hand and an eagle-topped scepter or sword in his left. Inscription: CONSTANTINVS IVN NOB CAES.

Reverse (right): Two genii facing each other and holding a garland of flowers. Inscription: VOTIS DECENN D N CONSTANTINI CAES. In the exergue (below the ground line): SMTS.

Organized by Dorothée Imbert, the symposium provided a critical historical framework for today's urban agriculture by discussing the multiple scales, ideologies, and contexts of productive landscapes, from allotment gardens to regional plans. Topics included the production and distribution of food in relation to human settlement and urban form, from German Siedlungen to Italian Fascist new towns, and Israeli kibbutzim to contemporary Tokyo. The conference placed particular emphasis on the efforts of modern and early-modern landscape architects, garden designers, and architects/planners to reconcile the demands of feeding cities and regions with the exigencies of urban expansion.

Dumbarton Oaks 2012 Summer Fellows

Patrick Andrist, Université de Fribourg
Byzantine Studies
“Critical Edition with Commentary of the Dialogue of Athanasius and Zacchaeus”

Massimo Bernabò, Università degli Studi di Pavia
Byzantine Studies
“The Illustrations of the Arabic Gospels of Infancy (Firenze, Biblioteca Laurenziana cod. Orientale 387)”

Matthew Briel, Fordham University
Byzantine Studies
“Translation and Commentary of George-Gennadios Scholarios's Tracts on Predetermination”

Duncan Campbell, Australian National University
Garden and Landscape Studies
“The Dumbarton Oaks Anthology of Chinese Garden Literature”

Lori Diel, Texas Christian University
Pre-Columbian Studies
“The Codex Mexicanus on the Mexica of Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco”

Krzysztof Domzalski, Polska Akademia Nauk
Byzantine Studies
“A New Look at the History and Material Culture of the Pontic Region in the Early Byzantine Period: The Evidence of Fine Pottery”

Wolfram Drews, Universität Münster Historisches Seminar
Byzantine Studies
“Christians Beyond the Border:  An Item on the Agenda of Byzantine Emperors?”

Heather Hunter Crawley, University of Bristol
Byzantine Studies
“A Sensory Archaeology of the Riha Hoard”

Robert Kitchen, Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Byzantine Studies
“Ethiopian Monastic Translation: Dadisho Qatraya from Syriac to Ge’ez”

Cynthia Kristan-Graham, Auburn University
Pre-Columbian Studies
“A Marketplace of Ideas at Chichén Itzá: The Mercado and the Group of the Thousand Columns”

Elisa Mandell, California State University–Fullerton
Pre-Columbian Studies
“Representing Death and Decomposition in Costa Rican Funerary Masks”

Naama Meishar, The Hebrew University
Garden and Landscape Studies
“Politics and Ethics in Landscape Architecture: Spacing, Expression, and Representation in Jaffa's Slope Park”

Miranda Mollendorf, Harvard University
Garden and Landscape Studies
“The World in a Book: Robert John Thornton's Temple of Flora (1799–1812)”

Katherine Rinne, California College of the Arts
Garden and Landscape Studies
“The Source of the Soul: Water for Villa Waterworks in Renaissance Rome”

Erick Rochette, The Pennsylvania State University
Pre-Columbian Studies
“The Price of Prestige: Examining Classic Maya Jade Artifact Use and Economic Organization”

Terre Ryan, Loyola University Maryland
Garden and Landscape Studies
“Setting Liberty’s Table”

Manuela Studer-Karlen, Université de Fribourg
Byzantine Studies
“Byzantine Church Iconographic Programs and the Liturgy: The Case of Christ Anapeson”

Jeffrey Walker, University of Texas–Austin
Byzantine Studies
“Joseph Rhakendytes’ Synopsis of Rhetoric:  Translation and Commentary”

Martin Wallraff, Universität Basel
Byzantine Studies
“The Canon Tables of the Gospels by Eusebius of Caesarea (Fourth Century):  Critical Edition and Commentary”

Xiangpin Zhou, Tongji University
Garden and Landscape Studies
“An Imagination of the Chinese Shangri-La in a Western Way: Zhang Garden in Shanghai (1882–1918)”

I am writing my dissertation on the emergence and development of the Slavic world between Byzantium and Latin Christendom during the ninth and tenth centuries. My research is in large part a philological and archaeological analysis of Slavic borderlands: Byzantium’s northern frontier on the one hand and the Carolingian/Ottonian eastern frontier on the other. I take a two-pronged approach. First, I investigate how Byzantines, Slavs, and Latin westerners imagined and understood borders and space in their written works, how this imagination developed over time, and how it differed across the languages of my sources: Greek, Slavonic, and Latin. Second, I am studying the ninth- and tenth-century archaeological remains of the area to trace movement, contact, and confrontation in the borderlands. I am spending 2011–2012 as a visiting scholar at the Institute of Archaeological Sciences at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main. Early in the fall I worked briefly on the excavation of Tarquimpol, a fortified city near the late antique Roman border in France. The library of the Römisch-Germanische Kommission has provided a great environment especially for my archaeological research. I continue to build geodatabases of archaeological finds in the Slavic borderlands, including Byzantine coin finds in ninth- and tenth-century Bulgaria, a subject I began to investigate at the Dumbarton Oaks Coins & Seals Summer School in 2011.

The De administrando imperio, compiled by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century, is one of the most important historical documents surviving from the middle Byzantine period, containing a wide variety of information on foreign relations and internal administration. A companion to the critical text edited by Gyula Moravcsik and translated by Romilly J. H. Jenkins (Dumbarton Oaks Texts 1), the Commentary was written in 1962 by a team of eminent scholars led by Jenkins. It remains the most thorough and authoritative study of this significant medieval text. In addition to extensive commentary on the historical, geographical, and philological nuances of the Greek text, this volume contains a bibliography, map, genealogical charts, and indexes.

Other recent publications:

Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library
Apocalypse: An Alexandrian World Chronicle, edited and translated by Benjamin Garstad

Joel Kalvesmaki’s article “The Epistula fidei of Evagrius of Pontus: An Answer to Constantinople” was published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Early Christian Studies (20, no. 1 [Spring 2012]: 113–39). Joel is Editor in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks.

October 14 & 15, 2012

Among the most esteemed wind players in the United States, the ten members of the Wind Soloists of New York perform masterworks by Rossini, Salieri, Mozart, Gounod, and Beethoven, for flute, French horn, clarinet, oboe, and bassoon.

November 4 & 5, 2012

Pianist Alessio Bax has won audiences around the globe with his lyrical playing, dazzling facility, and deep musicality. First prizewinner at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu (Japan) International Piano Competitions, he was also awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant, one of the most prestigious prizes in classical music. His program includes works by Brahms and Rachmaninov.

December 2 & 3, 2012

Recognized by Fanfare as the “premier men’s vocal ensemble in the United States,” Cantus offers an evening of high energy and beautifully blended sonorities. The nine singers perform music spanning many centuries and styles, from chant to contemporary works, to art song, world music, and, of course, seasonal favorites.

January 13 & 14, 2013

In its Washington, D.C. début, the period-instrument ensemble Quicksilver—two violins, cello, bassoon, theorbo, and harpsichord—has been praised by the Boston Globe for “fresh, technically assured, and rewarding performances.” The ensemble, led by violinists Robert Mealy and Julie Andrijeski, explores the extravagant and virtuosic chamber music of the German seventeenth century, by composers such as Johann Kaspar Kerll, Matthias Weckmann, David Pohle, and Antonio Bertali.

February 10 & 11, 2013

The distinguished Brazilian-born guitarists and brothers, Sergio and Odair Assad, return to the Music Room with works by French and South American composers, including Debussy, Ravel, Gismonti, Jobim, and S. Assad. The Assads’ exceptional artistry and uncanny ensemble playing promise to delight.

March 17 & 18, 2013

Among the finest of Czech string quartets performing today, the Škampa Quartet has represented its country in major concert halls and music festivals around the world for twenty years. Mentored by the legendary Smetana Quartet, this award-winning ensemble will perform music by Martinů, Beethoven, and Smetana.

April 21 & 22, 2013

A protégé of maestro Christoph Eschenbach and winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition (2009) and the Yehudi Menuhin Competition (2008), Ray Chen is among the most compelling young violinists today. Invited to perform at the 2012 Nobel Prize Concert in Stockholm, he is known for his beautiful tone, vitality and lightness. Chen closes the season playing works by Mozart, Brahms, Ysaÿe, and Saint-Saëns.

Programs are subject to change. For subscription information, please contact the Friends of Music.

For information about performing at Dumbarton Oaks, please contact Valerie Stains, Artistic Director and Music Advisor.

Historical and archaeological research into the ancient and medieval periods of the Maghreb must confront the legacy of nineteenth-century colonialist enterprises. In honor of the Byzantine spring symposium, "Rome Re-Imagined: Byzantine and Early Islamic North Africa, 500-800," a rare-book exhibition in the Library invites viewers to reflect on the nineteenth-century authors and publications that contributed to this legacy.

Featured item

Captain Robert Murdoch Smith (1835–1900) and Commander Edwin A. Porcher (1824–1878), History of the recent discoveries at Cyrene: made during an expedition to the Cyrenaica in 1860-61, under the auspices of Her Majesty's Government. London: Day & Son, lithographers to the Queen, 1864.

Cyrene is one of the most famous ancient cities of North Africa. It was founded around 630 B.C.E. and abandoned sometime after the Arab conquest of 643 C.E. The extensive ruins of the city and its necropolis left a distinctive mark on the landscape. The ancient name for the surrounding territory, Cyrenaica, was still in use in the nineteenth century, when the region was nominally controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The visible ruins of the famed city attracted a handful of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European travelers, who described the necropolis and fountains, produced paintings and book illustrations, and dug in various spots for collectible antiquities. Robert Smith and Edwin Porcher were the first team to approach Cyrene with the expressed purpose of "scientific" exploration and mapping of the ancient city. The British government and the British Museum sponsored their project during the years 1860 and 1861. The museum received many of the finds from their excavations.

Porcher himself produced the drawings and watercolors that were later lithographed by T. Picken and produced for publication by Day and Son—it is worth noting that Day and Son, lithographers to the Queen, was the same lithographic firm (soon to become Vincent Brooks, Day & Son) that in 1852 produced the chromolithographs in Gaspare Fossati's Aya Sofia, Constantinople: as recently restored by order of H. M. the sultan Abdul-Medjid, also in the collection of Dumbarton Oaks Research Library. Porcher's original watercolors are now in the collection of the British Museum. The published chromolithographs (one of which is reproduced here) are valuable archaeological documentation of the site before the many excavations and restorations that followed. They also typify the picturesque quality of nineteenth-century images, frequently featuring small details that would increase their charm to casual viewers. In addition, the team used a camera, supplied by the British Foreign Office, but their publication includes only a few black-and-white photographs of statues which were found at the site.