Fellow (Spring 2023), Byzantine Studies
Daniel's project addresses the role of Byzantium as a model for British colonial rule in Late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine (ca. 1860–ca. 1948) and the importance of this legacy in shaping current debates about the former Byzantine provinces of Arabia-Palaestina. In particular, it explores the reception of Byzantium as a historical symbol for environmental transformation and desert greening in the region after 1900 and the strategic significance of Byzantine archaeology to the British Empire following the construction of the Suez Canal. This historiographical research sets the groundwork for a much larger study focused on provincial identity, settlement archaeology, and elite status in Byzantine Arabia and Palaestina ca. 300–ca. 636. This strand of the project will chart the distinct regional texture of daily life in these two provincial areas and their distinct experiences of East Roman imperial governance between the fourth and seventh centuries.
Daniel Reynolds is Senior Lecturer in Byzantine History with research interests in the material and visual culture of the Byzantine empire, the Byzantine and early Islamic Levant (ca. 350–ca. 1099), “iconoclasm,” and the history of peasant and non-elite communities (ca. 400–1000). He is co-director of the project “At the Crossroads of Empires: the Longobard Church of Sant’Ambrogio at Montecorvino Rovella (Salerno, Italy)” and a member of the executive committees of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies and the Palestine Exploration Fund.