Byzantine Studies
Fellows
Maria Evangelatou (University of California, Santa Cruz), “Weaving Christ’s Body: Clothing, Femininity, and Sexuality in the Marian Imagery of Byzantium”
The research project I undertook as a Dumbarton Oaks fellow explores the extensive use of spinning, weaving, and clothing as symbols of Christ's Incarnation in Byzantine art and literature, especially in relation to the Annunciation of the Theotokos. I aim to contribute to a better understanding of the rich theological symbolism of Byzantine iconography and to examine the sociocultural function of Marian imagery. This year I focused on the latest scholarly literature on the basic components of my project: Marian iconography, gender studies, and textile production and use. The last is an especially rapidly growing field with numerous publications on the social and cultural functions of textiles and clothing, and familiarizing myself with these topics has broadened the scope of my research with significant comparative material. Another concept that became increasingly important in my analysis is the projection of multivalent and often ambivalent or ambiguous gender ideals in Byzantine iconography, allowing for very different and often contradictory messages to be included or read into the material. This implies that the construction of femininity in Byzantium was a very dynamic process, in which submission and empowerment often went hand in hand. Therefore, exploring the variety of human experience and the coexistence of different ideologies have become central goals in my research. During this year I also developed a new project that focuses on the art of El Greco. This research will culminate in the publication of three articles that will shed more light on the role of the artist's Byzantine background, focusing on the treatment of space, the symbolism of color, and the use of signatures as statements of the artist's mediation in spiritual illumination.
Scott Johnson (Washington and Lee University), “All the World’s Knowledge: Geography and Literature in Late Antiquity”
This year was a magnificent experience in every respect, and I am grateful for the opportunity to make such thorough use of the library, gardens, museum, and the Dumbarton Oaks community generally. My research project on Geography and Literature in Late Antiquity progressed in significant, if unexpected, ways over the year. The range of literature that I am now including in the project is much larger—in particular, I have expanded into high Byzantium and the medieval West through the inspiration of the Fellows and Staff at Dumbarton Oaks this year. Margaret Mullett organized numerous stimulating talks throughout the semester that also gave impetus to my project. In terms of measurable progress, I was able to put together an extensive primary bibliography, including critical texts and translations. I finished an article for Dumbarton Oaks Papers 64, which is the first fruit of my research, and I completed drafts of two chapters for my monograph. In addition, I made substantial progress toward submitting the final manuscript of the Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, of which I am the sole editor. All in all, it was a very productive year which included numerous invaluable benefits to my scholarly work.
Noel Lenski (University of Colorado at Boulder), “Slavery in Late Antiquity”
My project involves the composition of a monograph on the development of slavery in the late antique period (third–seventh centuries) in both the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire. I am grateful to Dumbarton Oaks for allowing me to make great progress on this and several other undertakings.
I came with several different projects in tow and spent the first half of the fellowship working on these. This resulted in the following:
- completion of an article on the Tyche medallions minted on the occasion of the foundation of Constantinople in 330.
- completion of one chapter for a monograph on Constantine which I hope to finish in summer 2010. I chose to write the chapter at Dumbarton Oaks because it was directly related to the Tyche article. It traces pagan elements in the foundation of the new capital.
- completion of three chapters and supporting materials (maps, timelines, glossaries, family trees, art captions) for a coauthored textbook of Roman history to appear with Oxford University Press next fall.
- completion of a translation of the seventh book of the Justinianic Code, my contribution to another coauthored publication to appear with Cambridge University Press.
In the spring I worked almost exclusively on the slavery project and accomplished the following:
- transfer of data on the subject from my extensive preexisting Word files into a searchable database.
- completion of a review of a book on Byzantine slavery.
- completion and delivery of an academic paper on slavery in the Novels of Justinian, which will appear as one of the chapters of the book.
- completion and delivery of an academic paper on slavery in Frankish Gaul, which will appear as one of the chapters of the book.
During this period, I have also expended great effort gathering further primary sources and secondary studies, assimilating these, and entering them into my database. This is a massive project for which the unparalleled library resources at Dumbarton Oaks have been immensely helpful. I am fortunate to have one more year of fellowship during which time I hope to finish the monograph.
Ruth Macrides (University of Birmingham, Spring), “Imperial Ceremonial in Palaiologan Constantinople”
The so-called Treatise on Court Offices by Pseudo-Kodinos, a work of the fourteenth century, is the main textual source for ceremonial in the capital of the Byzantine Empire in the last 300 years of its existence. My research at Dumbarton Oaks from mid-January to mid-May 2010 was based on this text, as the necessary preliminary to any study of ceremonial in Byzantium. My project includes a translation, commentary, and study of the work, its method of composition, date, and its characteristics. I completed the commentary and revised it, filling in bibliographical lacunae; I wrote most of the introductory study on ceremonies, their origins, and their evolution. While I arrived with a good working knowledge of the issues raised by the text, I leave with a much broader and deeper knowledge of its significance. My research was on two levels: the identification of realia, such as clothing, hats, musical instruments, colors, and ceremonies represented in images; and the evolution of the ceremonies.
Dumbarton Oaks was the ideal place to carry out this research, both in terms of physical and human resources. From the lectures and colloquia I attended, both Pre-Columbian and Byzantine, I was put into contact with work in related areas (e.g., architecture and liturgy, epigrams and objects on which they were inscribed). Scholars, both those passing through Dumbarton Oaks and other fellows, shared their knowledge of texts and bibliography. I was able to identify works on ceremony books and ceremony in the medieval west and the Islamic east, and to put Pseudo-Kodinos's text in this broader context. Finally, I have strengthened my knowledge of the character of the text so that I can argue confidently that this is a ceremony book that was more descriptive than prescriptive.
Meaghan McEvoy (British School at Rome/University of Oxford, Fall), “Political Power and Imperial Governance: The Transformation of the Imperial Office in the Later Roman Empire, ca. 367–527”
My semester-long fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks gave me the opportunity to begin my three-year postdoctoral project on late Roman imperial politics, addressing the ways in which the symbolism of imperial power in fourth–sixth centuries was restructured around a push to make acceptable and even normalize the rule of minors, particularly for the powerful senatorial and military elites of the empire, who had a direct stake in the dynastic successions of such young emperors. Fundamental to the process of making child-emperor rule acceptable was the continuing ceremonialization of the imperial office in the context of an increasing emphasis on specifically Christian virtues. These virtues were highlighted as a means of symbolic reassurance of divine support for the ruler, most conspicuously when that emperor was a child. My doctoral project focused on the nature, perception, and presentation of child rulers in the west. The new project expands this focus to encompass the eastern court, in particular during the reign of Theodosius II, and moves the inquiry on through the fifth and into the sixth century.
Apart from beginning the detailed analysis of the relevant literary and other sources, a number of new and important questions and issues have arisen, including how the sharp increase in the translation of relics to Constantinople starting ca. 395 fits into this picture, as well as the changing emphasis of imperial ceremonial in the more urban and civilian (and less military) context of early to mid-fifth-century imperial rule. My semester at Dumbarton Oaks proved invaluable in enabling me to refine the research questions of the project, to more fully assess the relevant secondary literature on the subject, and to begin examining the complex source material.
Columba Stewart (Saint John’s University), “Inventing Monasticism”
I spent the fall term surveying the several geographical regions covered by my project on monastic culture, reading widely to build out my conceptual framework. I found myself dissatisfied with the current state of scholarship on the emergence of what we commonly think of as monasticism from the ascetic currents of early Christianity. The conditions and dynamics of this emergence are crucial for my interest in the development of the elements of monastic culture. I have therefore spent most of my time since January focused on observable moments in the emergence of the new monastic paradigm. A particularly observable moment occurs during the tenure of Rabbula, bishop of Edessa in northern Mesopotamia from 412–436. In this time and place the old and new forms of asceticism coexisted, with the traditional form in the towns and the new monastic version up there in the hills or out there in less inhabited regions. Very soon the new model would dominate, and then replace, the older form, a process evident in the manuscript tradition of Rabbula’s regulations, to which I have paid particular attention. As I head to the Middle East for the remainder of my sabbatical year and settle in Jerusalem for several weeks, I will place Rabbula into a diptych with Theodoret of Cyrrhus, who in his much more famous Philotheos Historia surveys an adjoining region but sees and highlights different things. I hope to expand these observable moments into something like a new history of the origins of monasticism.
Martin Wallraff (University of Basel, Spring), “Religion of the Book? Christians and their Books in Late Antiquity, a Cultural History”
Within the framework of a larger project on the book in Late Antiquity, my research this term focused on a highly significant but largely neglected topic: the Eusebian canon tables of the gospels. Although they are part of hundreds of biblical manuscripts and although they are in many cases lavishly decorated, they are rarely studied as a witness to the culture of the book of their time. This complex synoptic system of the four gospels presupposes the tradition of the Alexandrian tradition of philology, a tradition familiar to Eusebius from his background in the school of Origen and Pamphilus. However, the synoptic tables were not only a useful scholarly tool; they also contributed to the beauty of the manuscript. Therefore they mark an important step in the process of the sacralization of the Christian book. Their success for many centuries can be explained by this combination of scholarly, aesthetic and spiritual features.
Despite their importance for New Testament textual criticism, for the history of art, and for the culture of the book, the Eusebian canon tables have been edited on the basis of manuscript evidence only once, and that was in the context of Erasmus’s famous edition of the New Testament five hundred years ago. My research will lead to a new critical edition with full reproductions of several manuscripts. Since these tables of numbers are not just an ordinary text, they require a broader discussion of their production, structure, and significance. The edition is introduced by such a discussion.
Junior Fellows
Sarah E. Insley (Harvard University), “The Formation of Constantinople as a Sacred Center”
This year of fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks has been invaluable in terms of the progress I was able to make on my dissertation, and more generally with respect to my development as a scholar. When I arrived here in September, I had just defended my dissertation prospectus for a project titled “Constructing the Sacred Center: Constantinople as a Holy City in Early Byzantine Literature.” During the fall term, I was able to complete research on primary source material for the first two chapters of the dissertation, drafts of which were finished by mid-February. I spent the remainder of the spring term drawing together sources and completing preliminary research for a third chapter, which I will write in the first part of the summer. Thanks to my year at Dumbarton Oaks, I am on schedule to complete a full draft of the project by the end of the fall term next year, and to finish my degree next spring. Starting a dissertation is a critical, and at times daunting, period in a scholar's career. As I worked through the first stages of my own project, I could not have asked for a better community in which to shape my ideas than Dumbarton Oaks. The rich conversation and helpful suggestions of my fellow fellows; the variety of stimulating talks and events throughout the year; and the vigilance of staff in assuring that all of us had the resources necessary to complete our projects were central in giving me a solid foundation upon which I can finish my dissertation and my degree. My deepest thanks to you all: I will always have the fondest memories of my fellowship year at Dumbarton Oaks.
Florin Leonte (Central European University), “Ideology and Rhetoric in Manuel Ⅱ Palaiologos's Texts”
The fellowship project I undertook at Dumbarton Oaks sought to investigate the political messages embedded in several texts of Manuel Ⅱ Palaiologos (r. 1391–1425). To gain a better understanding of the role of rhetoric in the political transactions of Manuel's reign, I followed three major paths of inquiry.
First, I focused on two of the emperor's texts, The Foundations of an Imperial Education and the so-called Seven Ethico-Political Orations. Their study revealed the author's effort to arrange deliberative topics in a system of moral virtues meaningful for an emperor-to-be. In addition, the multitude of genres employed in the Seven Orations (protreptic discourse, philosophical essays, and homilies) attest to Manuel's will to experiment with different literary forms incorporated in a coherent, unified framework echoing ancient diatribes. If one considers the performance contexts of the orations, it emerges that these texts had a distinct didactic purpose. For instance, the sixth and the seventh orations provided expressis verbis a public criticism of young John, Manuel's son and co-emperor, who apparently did not keep with the conventional mores vis-à-vis other members of the political elite.
Second, based on extant late Byzantine letter collections, I identified the main aspects and functions of the emperor's circle of literati: places of performance (theatra), literary and aesthetic options, and their role as a group in the public affairs of the Byzantine state or diplomacy. I focused on the epistolary collections of Byzantine authors such as John Chortasmenos and Manuel Kalekas, as well as on selected letters of Italian intellectuals in contact with Byzantine scholars.
Third, I approached the emperor's ideological stance in relation to the competing political discourses dominant in late Byzantine society. On the one hand, the ecclesiasts' positions on political issues become visible in the texts of Symeon of Thessaloniki and Joseph Bryennios. On the other hand, Isidore of Kiev or Demetrios Chrysoloras represent a rather traditional political discourse surfacing in panegyrics. In contrast, Manuel seems to have developed a slightly different ideology that advocated reconciliation. In addition, his efforts to circulate his texts not only in Byzantium but also in the Latin West suggest that he consistently asserted the image of an emperor rhetorician.
All in all, the emperor's texts reflect three major rhetorical modes employed in late Byzantium for political communication: the dialogic mode, which he used in the Dialogue on Marriage with the Empress Mother; the narrative mode, manifest in the Funeral Oration for his Brother Theodore, Despot of Morea; and the didactic mode, emerging in the Precepts of an Imperial Education and the Seven Ethico-Political Orations.
Alexander Riehle (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich), “Literature and Society in the Reign of Andronikos II Palaiologos: An Examination of the Letter-Collection of Nikephoros Choumnos”
During my eight months at Dumbarton Oaks, I focused on the elaboration and completion of the first two parts of my tripartite doctoral thesis, which includes basic information about the various collections of letters and their author, and a discussion of the literary aspects of single letters. Furthermore, I collected and arranged data for the third part, which deals with the social and political dimensions of the letters. More specifically, I prepared the following chapters:
- a biographical introduction that re-examines and re-evaluates problematic aspects of Nikephoros’s life, e.g., his controversy with Theodoros Metochites and its (supposed) relationship to Nikephoros's retirement;
- a prosopography of the addressees and other persons mentioned in the letters;
- a collation of all surviving textual witnesses for the letters;
- an examination of the collections focusing on their composition and chronology; and
- a stylistic analysis of exemplary letters based on Hermogenes' treatise On Ideas.
The excellent library at Dumbarton Oaks provided me with all the resources I needed and allowed me to work quickly and efficiently. More importantly, my dissertation has been enriched during my stay by the constant exchange with other fellows and visiting scholars whose comments and ideas helped me to consider the methodology and contents of my thesis from a fresh perspective.
Jennifer Westerfeld (University of Chicago), “In the Shadow of the Sphinx: Pharaonic Sacred Space in the Coptic Imagination”
As a Junior Fellow in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, I completed a substantial portion of my dissertation, which I will defend in September 2010. My research at Dumbarton Oaks was largely focused on a new edition and analysis of a corpus of Byzantine graffiti from the mortuary temple of the Ramesside pharaoh Seti I at Abydos, in Upper Egypt. These inscriptions were written by a group of female ascetics during the period from ca. 600–900 CE, and they provide exceptional epigraphic evidence for female monasticism in Byzantine and early Islamic Egypt. Although the Christian graffiti from the site have long been taken as evidence for the establishment of a monastery within the temple precinct itself, I argue that the women's community was actually based in the nearby village of Bardis and that the temple was used only intermittently by that group. The graffiti written by these monastic women on the temple walls offer an interesting counterpoint to the rather polemical literary representation of that structure in the sixth-century Coptic Life of Moses of Abydos, and they suggest that by the early seventh century the temple's connection to pagan cultic practice had been largely overwritten by Christian activity in the area.
Throughout the course of the year, my research has benefited greatly not only from the tremendous resources of the Dumbarton Oaks library and the generosity of its staff, but also from conversations and exchanges with Fellows and Readers across different fields. The support of the Dumbarton Oaks community was also extremely helpful to me as I negotiated the job market this year, and I will leave Washington to begin my career as a professor in the History Department at the University of Louisville.
Summer Fellows
Jan Willem Drijvers (University of Groningen), “Helena Revisited: Cross and Myth”
I had a fruitful and very stimulating six-week fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks. In the first days of my fellowship, I finished an article entitled “Decline of Political Culture: Ammianus Marcellinus' Characterization of the Reigns of Valentinian and Valens,” to be published (hopefully) in the conference volume Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity VⅢ: Shifting Cultural Frontiers (Ashgate). I also wrote an entry on the emperor Julian (361–363) for The Encyclopedia of the Roman Army, ed. Yann Le Bohec, published by Wiley-Blackwell. Finally, I wrote the first draft of an article on my principal project Helena Revisited: Cross and Myth. The first part of the article deals with some new perspectives on Helena's biography, in particular her journey to the Holy Land. The second part discusses two texts on the discovery of the Cross: two Syriac poems and Alexander Monachos’s De inventione crucis. The article also gives attention to a rather peculiar and understudied version of the legend preserved in the Six Books' narratives of Mary's Dormition and Assumption.
Ilias Evangelou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), “The Impact of Hesychasm on the Ecclesiastical and Political Life of the Southern Slavs during the Fourteenth Century”
My project, to be published as a monograph, will begin with an introduction to the history of mysticism in Eastern Christianity, followed by chapters covering the distribution of mysticism in the southern Slavic world, the acquaintance of the Southern Slavs with hesychasm in the fourteenth century, and its effect on their spiritual, ecclesiastical, and political life. During my stay at Dumbarton Oaks as a summer fellow, I completed my monograph, writing the last chapter concerning the effect of hesychasm on the ecclesiastical and political life of the Southern Slavs in the fourteenth century. According to medieval sources and my secondary bibliography, which I had the opportunity to study in the library of Dumbarton Oaks, hesychasts occupied important positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy and promoted the idea of the unity of the Orthodox Christian people of the Balkans. Initially they restored the schisms between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Orthodox Church of Bulgaria and Serbia, and afterward they promoted political and diplomatic unity in order to confront the Ottoman Turks, the biggest threat to the Christian people of the region. The rich library of Dumbarton Oaks helped me to check the footnotes of the entire study and to supplement it with a relevant bibliography.
Aglae Pizzone (University of Milan), “Hellenistic Phantasia and Its Iconophile Offspring”
Starting from one of Theodore Studites' epistles to his pupil Naukratios (380 Fatouros), I studied the Byzantine views on the soul, image apprehension, and cognitive processing of visual stimuli during the iconoclastic struggle. Basing my research on Theodore's statements about the imaginative faculty of the soul (phantasia), I focused on the subtle but strong ties that link gaze and representation, as well as on the theoretical foundations legitimating the perception, comprehension, and reworking of religious images by their beholders. I envisaged the cultural role played by phantasia in this area as a legacy of Greek and Roman aesthetics. Resting upon the dissemination of the Hellenic cultural heritage during Late Antiquity, Byzantine culture shaped a body of symbolic landmarks through which the collectivity defined its behavior toward visual stimuli and imagination. In this process, the passage from sight to faith, from paganism to Christianity, left its unmistakable traces. Thus, the naïve and emotional approach to arts, banned as unsophisticated by imperial elites, became in Byzantine times an essential precondition to devotion. Although according to Theodore Studites and John of Damascus phantasia had a relevant role in promoting intellectual contemplation, emotional involvement was also seen as necessary to catch a glimpse of the divine mystery. Finally, I tried to outline how iconophile authors selected and highlighted different theoretical constructs from late antique Christian psychology and anthropology (Cappadocian Fathers and Nemesius of Emesa, above all), with a new emphasis on human ability to process both physical and mental images.
Catherine Saliou (Université de Paris 8), “Research on Sources Relating to the Topography of Ancient Antioch in Syria”
The aim of my project is to assemble and analyze textual sources that allude to or deal with the topography and urban landscape of ancient Antioch in Syria in order to prepare the way for a topographic dictionary of the city and to study the relationship between urban space, urban identity, and collective memory. Due to the historical importance of the city, the sources are so rich that in 1839, C. O. Müller was able to draw a map of the city based on these documents alone. An impressive amount of work on the topography of ancient Antioch was done by Glanville Downey in his book published in 1961 and in his numerous papers. However, some of his conclusions are questionable or false. Consequently, a complete revision of Downey's work, through a critical and systematic study of the sources, is required. Essential antique sources include the works of Libanios, the ecclesiastical historians, the historical works of Procopius, the Chronography of Malalas, and a number of hagiographical texts. Medieval sources are also very important, not only for knowledge of the topography of the city in medieval times, but also for a better understanding of the development of urban narratives. My fellowship gave me the opportunity to improve my knowledge of the sources and to write two articles devoted to the names given to the mountain that rises above the city of Antioch (to be published in Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph), and to the textual evidence relating to the palace district.
Larysa Sedikova (National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos), “Trade Connections of Chersonesos (Cherson) in the Eighth–Fourteenth Centuries on the Basis of Ceramic Finds”
The ancient city of Tauric Chersonesos, founded by the Greeks in the fifth century BC, is one of the most famous Antique and Byzantine sites of the Black Sea North Region. The study of mass finds, primarily pottery, allows the tracing of the cultural and economic connections of the city in the medieval period. My research focuses on imported transport-ware and tableware excavated in Chersonesos. My search for analogies was substantially successful through the study of new literature from the Dumbarton Oaks Library.
Thus, according to pottery finds, Constantinople and its environs along with the Don River and Azov Sea regions were the main trade areas for Cherson in the eighth-eleventh centuries. The Middle East is represented by individual finds. From the twelfth century through the first half of thirteenth century, while metropolitan pottery still predominated, a considerable percentage of imported wares came from the Aegean region. In the early thirteenth century, a collection of Asia Minor pottery, probably Syrian, appeared in Cherson. Part of pottery also originated from the Muslim countries. It is possible that imported fourteenth-century finds associated with Constantinople, Trebizond, and eastern Crimea reached Cherson through the neighboring Genoese fortress of Cembalo. The discovery of new regions exporting pottery to Cherson allows broader consideration of the nature of its cultural and economic relations during the eighth–fourteenth centuries. The results of this research will be published in a series of articles.
Werner Seibt (Austrian Academy of Sciences), “Byzantine Seals with Family Names in Dumbarton Oaks”
My summer fellowship arose from an invitation to serve as coeditor of the Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art, volumes 7–9 (focusing on seals with family names; forthcoming) with John Nesbitt, which I accepted. In order to publish Dumbarton Oaks's collection of seals of family names, John Nesbitt first must identify the relevant seals and then pull the seals cards on which their transcriptions are recorded. From the cards he types two lists: a list of seals grouped alphabetically according to family name, with notation of accession number and negative number, and a list of seals grouped according to accession number, with notation of negative number and family name. The first list allows one to exercise control over the names being published. The second list allows one to identify in a methodical fashion the negatives which have to be pulled and given to Joe Mills (Dumbarton Oaks's photographer) for reproduction and transfer to CD. To date, John Nesbitt has compiled lists of seals with family names beginning with the letters "A," "B," "CH," D(oukai), K(omenos), and K(ontostephanos). So far, the total number of seals identified and listed amounts to 1,131 specimens. The number excludes seals that are cross-referenced with earlier publications. Before my arrival, John Nesbitt sent me these lists along with 1,131 photocopies of the cards on which the seal inscriptions are transcribed.
Using these lists, I focused on identifying seals with unusual, strange, or surprising names (according to initial transcriptions; all the readings on the cards are first impressions which need to be verified or refined). This work plan proved profitable since after my arrival at Dumbarton Oaks and my personal inspection of the seals I was able in a number of cases to propose alternate readings and corrections. The results will be checked in Vienna against my phototheke, the largest in the world.
Because the seals room closed in the early evening, I found that I had time to devote to two other projects. The first was the history of the metropolis of Caucasus in the fourteenth century (located presumably in the region east of Alania, an area occupied by the ancestors of the modern Os(s)etians, where Christianity was first introduced by the Georgians in the twelfth–thirteenth centuries). The second project was a study of the continuation of Byzantine power in Iberia and Kars, at least during the first years of the reign of Alexios Komnenos, as confirmed by newly discovered seals. I have been pondering if the dux Alousianos mentioned on the seals could have been identical with the Alousianos who was governor of Antiocheia for the Seljuks and before the occupation of Antiocheia by the crusaders. Sigillography can throw much needed light on conditions in the eastern Byzantine provinces after the battle of Mantzikert. Some of my studies of this issue are already published, while others are in press.
My wife, the recipient of a postdoctoral stipend during the time of my fellowship, worked primarily on checking the readings of some 300 metrical seals that John Nesbitt had pulled and segregated in the seals safe prior to our arrival. She is near completion of a project that involves compiling a corpus of all metrical legends on seals, both published and unpublished. We are pleased to say that she was able to examine all 300 seals (and quite a few more before her departure). Many metrical verses include family names, so her studies also help to advance the progress of DOSeals 7–9.
Stephen J. Shoemaker (University of Oregon), “The Earliest Life of the Virgin: The First English Translation from the Old Georgian”
During my fellowship period, I began work on an English translation of the earliest complete Life of the Virgin, a text originally written in Greek that now survives only in Old Georgian. Although it has been long overlooked by scholarship, this seventh-century Marian biography exercised a determinative influence on numerous Mariological writings of the Middle Ages. My translation, the first into English, will make this pivotal text more widely available to scholars and students of ancient and medieval Christianity, and should advance our understanding of the formation of Marian piety considerably.
The project has proven more difficult than I had initially anticipated, insofar as the critical edition of the text is often unreliable. The edition contains frequent misprints and other more serious errors in reading the manuscripts, and consequently translation has required regular consultation of the manuscript tradition in order to determine the text. Thus, my translation will also serve as something of a corrected edition of this important text. Despite these circumstances, I was able to translate roughly one-third of the text (about sixty pages) during the fellowship period. This is more than I had originally planned, an outcome that was greatly aided by the excellent resources of the library's Byzantine collection. While in residence, I focused my work particularly on sections of the text that were especially influential on the subsequent Byzantine tradition, in order to make the best use of the library's resources. The final result of this project will be a book-length translation of the complete text together with critical notes and an extended introduction to the Life and its broader cultural significance, and I anticipate its completion within the next year and half.
Garden and Landscape Studies
Fellows
Luisa Elena Alcalá (NYU in Madrid, New York University, Fall),
“Converging Landscapes: The Representation of Place in Latin American Colonial Painting”
My time at Dumbarton Oaks has been spent researching the representation of landscape in Latin American colonial painting of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Part of the fellowship was used to assess the historiography. As suspected, not much has been written about this topic. This is partly because this field is young and many topics remain unexplored, and also because pre-established assumptions coming from European art about what landscape is and does in a painting are not applicable to Latin American works. On the other hand, colonial studies dealing with other geographies (and images of them) provide interesting parallels and paradigms for consideration. In sum, this preliminary research will be extremely helpful as I compose a book manuscript on landscape images in Latin America during the coming years.
The rest of my time was used to complete research and write an article on a single painting that caused me to think about landscape in Latin America in the first place. This work, Conquista y Reducción de los Indios Infieles de Pantasma y Paracas (Museo de América, Madrid), raises important questions about the way in which landscape ideas and forms circulated on both sides of the Atlantic. In the article, I pursue the thesis that landscape codified certain political and religious ideas, which converged in the Spanish monarchy. This common landscape language informed the production as well as reception of many images so that landscape was not merely a background and secondary element as is often assumed.
Grey Gundaker (Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary),
“Wild Flowers: African and African Diaspora Landscapes and the Politics of Gardens”
Finding support for new projects is difficult, since help usually comes only after the work is well advanced. Thus, I am especially grateful for the opportunity to begin a new venture here at Dumbarton Oaks, the best possible vantage point on the history and developmental trajectory of the field of garden and landscape studies, with much-appreciated guidance from Coco Alcalá, Elsa Lam, Stephen Whiteman, Thomas Zeller, Michael Lee, John Beardsley, and fellow Fellows in other departments.
This year enabled me to check all major journals and garden-related publications systematically to assess how and where African and diaspora landscapes were represented, if at all. I also studied all textbooks and general histories of garden and landscape design in the Dumbarton Oaks collections. As a result I can now confidently advance the claim that Africans and their descendents are invisible in this literature. On the more positive side, this grounding in the breadth and aspirations of the field is reassuring in that Garden and Landscape Studies clearly aims for worldwide scope and welcomes fresh perspectives. Thus, future projects at Dumbarton Oaks on African and diaspora landscapes promise to have great impact. More specifically, this year allowed time to take stock of the contours of the project. As a result, I have split my initial idea for one book into two, outlining chapters of the first, which will keep the title Wild Flowers, and writing a good chunk of the introduction. With continuing help from Dumbarton Oaks's wonderful library staff and selective use of interlibrary loan, I have also blocked out the second book. It will investigate design links and disjunctions between African diaspora and African landscapes at several levels of scale: forest and settlement, ritual and residential landscapes, and landscapes designed by individuals. Thanks to preparatory research at Dumbarton Oaks and support from John Beardsley and others here, my application to continue the project next year at Harvard was successful.
Thomas Zeller (University of Maryland),
“Consuming Landscapes: The View from the Road in the United States and Germany, 1920–1970”
During my fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks, I made major progress on my book project, named above. While in residence, I read, evaluated, and organized a wide array of primary sources on the topic which I had collected over the previous years and added some new ones using the superb research infrastructure provided in the library both physically and online. In addition, I wrote chapter outlines and parts of individual chapters. My stay at Dumbarton Oaks was very productive not only because of the research opportunities that are provided here, but also because of the intellectual vibrancy of the Garden and Landscape Studies program. As a historian who specialized in environmental history and the history of technology, I found entry into the world of landscape studies because my colleagues John Beardsley, Grey Gundaker, Coco Alcalá, Michael Lee, Elsa Lam, and Stephen Whiteman allowed me to join their community. Over lunches, during and after public talks, we discussed many different approaches to landscape, but were always able to find common ground. I have to say that seeing such a catholic approach to landscape studies in action was not merely witnessing an effort at being inclusive. It showed, to be blunt, why landscape studies matter to the larger world. This is a memory that I will cherish for a long time and actively use in my teaching and research.
Junior Fellows
Elsa Lam (Columbia University, Spring),
“Wilderness Nation: Building Canada’s Railway Landscapes, 1884–1929”
My fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks has been invaluable for the advancement of my doctoral research. My project examines a series of landscape-scaled projects undertaken by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. In addition to constructing and operating the railway itself, the Company created a wide array of infrastructures to encourage tourism and settlement, ranging from luxury mountain resorts to ready-made farmsteads. Presented to the public as wilderness areas, the resulting landscapes became influential during a period of growing nationalistic sentiment.
The library resources at Dumbarton Oaks have helped me in researching two new chapters of my dissertation, as well as drafting an introduction to the study. The large scope of the collection within the broad discipline of landscape made it a unique resource for my research. While at my home institution this project necessitates constant trekking between libraries, here everything I could desire was close at hand. More importantly, the community and atmosphere within Garden and Landscape Studies have been a huge support for my work. Conversations with my Director of Studies, John Beardsley, as well as my companion fellows and invited guests have led me to ask new questions of my research, and have given it a renewed sense of clarity. The gardens themselves have been a daily source of personal as well as professional inspiration. Dumbarton Oaks truly lives up to its billing as anacademic paradise, and I feel lucky and honored to have sojourned here.
Stephen Whiteman (Stanford University),
“Creating the Kangxi Landscape: Gardens and the Mediation of Qing Imperial Identity at Bishu Shanzhuang”
During my extraordinary term at Dumbarton Oaks, I have focused primarily on completing my dissertation, which explores the role of landscape and garden building in the formation of imperial identity in the early Qing dynasty. Although distracted at times by an extensive (and ultimately successful) job search, nonetheless I have accomplished a great deal during my appointment.
Thanks to the efforts of library staff and the unparalleled electronic resources available through Harvard, I have been able to delve much more deeply into primary sources, particularly texts, prints, and maps. I have also written substantially, finishing two full chapters and parts of three more, as well as creating numerous maps, completing several substantial annotated translations, and starting a growing database of site-specific data. Collectively, this volume of work, made possible through the support of Dumbarton Oaks, will permit me to defend my dissertation this coming fall. Most importantly, Dumbarton Oaks has provided me the opportunity to think deeply about my work, to conceive of new connections, to formulate and reformulate ideas. The program in Garden and Landscape Studies offered me something I had not previously enjoyed, colleagues who are deeply knowledgeable about the history and theory of landscape and who were eager to share their expertise with me. Thanks to their input, advice, and criticism, as well as that of many others at Dumbarton Oaks, the scope and depth of my project have been greatly expanded.
Summer Fellows
Nicole Jeanne Cuenot (Columbia University),
“The Force of Flowers: Bringing the Outdoors In at Versailles”
During my time at Dumbarton Oaks, I achieved my goal of attaining a better understanding of the flower and landscape information and images that circulated in Europe during the seventeenth century. This was accomplished predominantly through accessing resources of the Rare Book Collection, which filled an essential and indispensable role in my research. For example, I had previously examined a copy of Claude Mollet's Theatre des plans et jardinages dedicated to Nicolas Fouquet in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dumbarton Oaks' volume, however, was Fouquet's personal copy, thereby validating my assertion that it was grand seigneurs and courtiers, not just professional gardeners, who would have collected and read these materials. Additionally, many volumes contained period annotations, providing documentation of how contemporary readers perceived and interacted with these texts through augmentation or correction. While I benefited most from Linda Lott's knowledge of the collection, I was delighted to occasionally supplement the Rare Book Collection's files with pertinent references—such as the Bibliotheque nationale's catalogue entries for a print in Nicolas Robert's Recueil de plantes gravées—that ultimately provided revised publication dates for two books. Perhaps the most important aspect of my time here was the unique opportunity to benefit professionally, academically, and personally from the scholars and staff. Their convivial interest and critiques have undoubtedly ensured a more rigorously conceived and executed product, and I am immensely grateful for their contribution in enriching my work and personal life.
Thomas F. Hedin (University of Minnesota, Duluth),
“The Gardens of Versailles during the Early Reign of Louis ⅩⅣ: Three Studies”
In my application for a summer fellowship, I staked out three areas of research on the gardens of Versailles during the reign of Louis ⅩⅣ. First and foremost was my ongoing research on a book-length manuscript, The Latona Fountain: Louis ⅩⅣ and the Premier Versailles (revised title), which took a new, more promising direction in the third week of my stay. I owe this positive development to conversations with colleagues at Dumbarton Oaks, and to the discovery of the identity of the author of a key archival document in Paris. My book now covers a shorter period of time, but paradoxically, it will be more substantial and lengthier than originally intended. A tangential project, dealing with some unpublished papers in the Archives Nationales, Paris, also moved forward during the summer, and it overlaps in important ways with my book on the Premier Versailles. The papers allow me to revise the conventional dating of almost all the early fountains in the gardens. This detailed dating bears heavily on their relationships as well as their meanings, which were being determined at a time when the king began thinking of expanding Versailles from a modest country house to a more suitable residential retreat. My article on the archival papers is nearly complete. My third study, which focuses on Andre Le Notre's idea of symmetrical analogy in the gardens, took a backseat to the others, and although I put a few dents in the research, it suffered as a consequence of my (entirely rewarding) decision to rework the outline of my book. I hope to return as a Reader in a few years to complete this article.
Developing my arguments in the tranquility of Dumbarton Oaks (not to mention the precious sources in the Rare Book Collection and the stacks outside my office), has been a luxury. I am deeply appreciative to the administration, staff, and fellows of the Garden and Landscape Studies program for an inspiring, thoroughly enjoyable summer.
Sally O’Halloran (University of Sheffield),
“The Serviceable Ghost: The Forgotten Role of the Gardener in England from 1600 to 1730”
I had a very clear plan set out before I came to Dumbarton Oaks, which was to use the published horticultural literature in the Rare Book Collection to interpret my archival material on gardeners in seventeenth– and eighteenth-century England. What I did not plan for were all the hidden resources at Dumbarton Oaks that have made my six weeks even more valuable and productive than I could have possibly imagined. To begin with, the staff could not have been more helpful, in particular Linda Lott in the Rare Book Collection. Her suggestions provided additional references, which I had missed in my preparatory research, that will add support to my research arguments. Through our lively lunchtime discussions, the other garden and landscape fellows shared tips on effective research methods, possible relevant contacts to meet in America, and gardens to visit. One of these discussions led to an extremely worthwhile meeting with Dr. Therese O'Malley, Associate Dean at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Through our daily contact, the other fellows and I have formed friendships that I am sure will be sustained for many years to come. I am leaving Dumbarton Oaks with visible results in the form of two chapters written for my dissertation, but, just as importantly, with the establishment of strong professional and international relationships.
Priyaleen Singh (School of Planning and Architecture),
“Conservation of Historic Gardens in India: The Florence Charter on Historic Gardens Illustrated, Expanded, and Critiqued”
It has been an intellectually rewarding experience spending a summer at Dumbarton Oaks. I came here essentially looking for the space and time to write a manual on the Florence Charter on Historic Gardens and its applicability to the Indian context. While working on the topic, I was able to gather many analytic details of famous historic gardens in India, which I am adding as brief case studies in the larger narrative of the manual. Old maps of Delhi—which show all the gardens of the city (many of which have been lost to mindless urbanization), and which Linda Lott so promptly discovered for me in the Rare Book Collection—are additional pieces of valuable information I shall be using. Visiting the National Parks Service office and accessing many of their publications in the Dumbarton Oaks Library added significantly to my understanding of the management of historic gardens. Walking around the gardens of Dumbarton Oaks itself has helped add nuances to the text of the manual, which focuses on both the technical aspects of conservation as well as the means for giving historic gardens a new lease on life by connecting them seamlessly with the contemporary world—as Dumbarton Oaks does so well.
In addition to the progress in my writing, I am taking back a treasure trove of material that is difficult to find in India. The magic of HOLLIS, unraveled so patiently by Sheila Klos, has opened up for me many new fields of interest and research in the subject of landscape design in India. I hope I will be able to explore all these topics more fully in the future.
Pre-Columbian Studies
Fellows
Elizabeth Arkush (University of Virginia),
“War, Violent Spectacle, and Political Authority in the Pre-Columbian Andes“
Dumbarton Oaks has been a wonderful place to explore the interplay of warfare, violent display, and the changing nature of political authority in the pre-Columbian Andes. During the fellowship, my project reshaped itself from a synthetic history into a series of essays on specific moments in the Andean sequence, bound together by the insight that war-related iconographies and spectacles followed a trajectory that was largely independent of the intensity and frequency of warfare. My conversations with fellows and visitors have helped me gain insight and perspective.
I spent the first part of my fellowship term assembling reports of skeletal trauma to, which yielded a measurable and comparable index of the rate of interpersonal conflict among specific Andean populations. I also researched the cultural logic of violent display in the early parts of the Andean sequence, tracing how it was informed by the meaning of dead body parts and the fierceness of predatory supernaturals. More recently, I have been going through published survey reports to assess defensive settlement patterns and fortification, and pairing this with the skeletal trauma to arrive at an honest record of the threat Andeans were under in different times and places. During this fellowship, I've also had the time and mental space to take care of related publications. I made final revisions and copyedits to a book on Titicaca Basin hillforts, submitted two chapters to edited books, and wrote most of a journal article; all have to do directly or tangentially with Andean conflict and violence.
Marco Curatola-Petrocchi (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú),
“The Shape of God’s Voice: A Study of Form, Organization, and Functioning of the Oracles in the Ancient Andean World”
I spent the academic year at Dumbarton Oaks fully engaged in my research project, and was able to complete the advanced drafts of the first two chapters of a book on this subject. The first one thoroughly examines Greek oracles in order to establish their main characteristics and to evaluate, by comparison, if true oracular shrines were present in the land of the Incas at the time of the Spaniards' arrival. The conclusion reached, based on an exhaustive analysis of the accounts left by the first Spanish soldiers who entered the Central Andes, was that Pachacamac and the other major pre-hispanic sanctuaries shared the same basic features with Greeks oracles like Delphi and Dodona. The second chapter seeks to answer a misleadingly simple question: what was the name Andean peoples gave to an oracle? In doing so, this chapter shows that in ancient Peru oracles were not just a widespread institution, they also were the essential core of the Andean religious systems, possibly since the time of the Chavín culture. Furthermore, I was able to establish a series of archaeological indicators that can be used to identify oracular shrines in the absence of documentary sources. Additionally, I compiled an extensive bibliography on ancient Greek oracles and religion, the nature of oral and literate societies, and the structure of ancient empires, that it will be useful when preparing the remaining parts of my book. Thanks to the wonderful library and the other research facilities at Dumbarton Oaks, to its thoughtful organization, and to its enriching scientific community, I was able not only to make significant progress in my research, but also to have what was by far one of the most stimulating (and enjoyable) years in all of my academic life.
Jean-Pierre Protzen (University of California, Berkeley, Fall),
“Tambo Colorado: A Coastal Inca Settlement”
I applied for a Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship because I wanted to peruse the resources of the Dumbarton Oaks Library to clarify and refine, if not resolve, a number of issues pertaining to my research on the Inca site of Tambo Colorado. One of the issues I now have a firm hold on is the history of previous work at and on Tambo Colorado. Several references I found at Dumbarton Oaks and at the American Museum of Natural History during a short visit to New York have helped me consolidate this part of my research. Another issue I was able to clarify is the chronology of the conquest of the Pisco Valley (wherein lies Tambo Colorado). Rereading several of the Spanish chroniclers and comparing their accounts, I am now fairly confident that a reasonable argument can be made that conquest happened in the early phases of the expansion of the Inca Empire under the reign of the Inca Pachacuti. Other readings helped to confirm the broader chronology for the occupation of the Pisco Valley dating back to about 800 BCE and revealing several phases of occupation and abandonment in pre-colonial times.
Several researchers have proposed that the various colors on the walls of Tambo Colorado were more than simple decorations, that they had some symbolic meaning. Although I have not found any means to decipher this symbolism, I have come upon several passages in various sources that colors played an important role in ritual offerings, social relations, and as identity markers. I re-surveyed the literature on Inca architecture and site planning in search of comparative Inca settlements and identification of building types. Yet the function, or functions, Tambo Colorado fulfilled in the Inca conquest and administration of the conquered territories still eludes me. I have a good grip on the architecture and the organization of the site, but this does not answer my questions. Was Tambo Colorado a tampu (way-station), an administrative center, or both, or something entirely different? It is my current view that this issue, if it can be resolved at all, will require systematic archaeological excavations, a task which I have to relegate to other researchers.
In addition, I have been revising and restructuring the outline of my planned book, written drafts of three out of six chapters, and very rough drafts of the remaining three. In conclusion, my stay at Dumbarton Oaks has been very productive and I am confident that I will be able to finish writing my book knowing that I have covered all the bases to the best of my knowledge.
Calogero Santoro (Universidad Tarapacá de Arica),
“Chinchorro in the Context of the Cultural and Environmental History of the Pre-Columbian Arica Region”
The opportunity to enjoy reading, thinking, and writing was enriched by the magic of Dumbarton Oaks through its staff, research infrastructure, and interactions with a broad spectrum of fellows from the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East. This intellectual milieu helped to deepen and widen my research plans, which have developed into an ambitious book proposal for Cambridge University Press, currently under review. This book will be a comprehensive overview of the prehistory of the Atacama Desert in the southern Andes, focusing on the Chinchorro culture. Preliminary research for the book has already taken shape in the form of six co-authored articles published since September. These journal articles and chapters in edited volumes address such topics as the peopling of the Atacama (13,000 years BP); the introduction of new populations, cultigens (manioc), and prestige goods such as feathers from the Amazonian tropical forest (ca. 4,000–2,000 years BP); and the interactions of the local population with imperial expansionist states such as the Tiwanaku and Inka, covering the last 2000 years of the cultural processes in the Atacama. I also submitted two grant proposals, the results of which are still pending. Aside from my research report, I presented three talks at U.S. universities, and a final lecture will be delivered at the Chilean Embassy just a few days before my departure. This wonderful experience was enhanced by friendships with people at Dumbarton Oaks, which will last forever like my memories that are already part of a vivid past that I am starting to miss.
Barbara Stark (Arizona State University, Spring),
“Comparative Analysis of Ancient Urban Greenspace”
During my time at Dumbarton Oaks I was able to complete a paper draft concerning “Comparative Perspectives Concerning Urban Green Space in Archaeological Complex Societies: A Review.” After examining concepts about green space, I focused on gardens and parks (including groves). To understand the social roles of these urban green spaces in premodern states and empires, the activities, contents, and contexts of gardens and parks are approached by assembling and discussing comparative data from twenty societies summarized in three tables. The paper also evaluates biases in current data (including weak coverage on political economy and a focus on elites), and the implications of the data for archaeological practice. Three interpretive topics are examined in more detail: the role of social competition in garden and park elaboration, the role of garden symbolism for states and empires, and the implications of private, semi-public, and public access to gardens and parks in relation to theoretical approaches involving collective action theory.
A second paper draft called “Peripheral Urban Green Space in a Mesoamerican Capital: Cerro de las Mesas” addresses reserve spaces (no residential features detected) around the periphery of an archaeological capital in Veracruz, Mexico. These are evaluated as green spaces forming part of the boundary of the settlement. The boundary is more appropriately conceptualized as a transition zone because of the peripheral mosaic of installations and land uses at urban margins. Comparative data provide examples of peripheral urban gardens and parks and the reasons for their locations; the comparative cases point to possible archaeological interpretations of the reserve spaces at Cerro de las Mesas.
Junior Fellows
Ana Pulido Rull (Harvard University),
“Land Grant Painted Maps: Native Artists’ Agency and Defense of Communal Heritage in Sixteenth-Century New Spain”
During my year as a junior fellow at Dumbarton Oaks I worked full time on my doctoral dissertation, a project on colonial maps made by the indigenous population of New Spain. I have finished the first two chapters, and I have created a detailed, thirty-page, annotated outline that is the basis of the entire project; this will allow me to continue working on the remaining four chapters during the next academic year.
When I arrived to Dumbarton Oaks last September, I had recently finished research at the archives in Mexico City and was just entering the writing stage of my project. I spent the first months here analyzing the material I had gathered and organizing it into a structured project. I selected the ten maps that would constitute my main corpus and did thorough research on the historical context of the towns where each map was produced. The splendid library resources of Dumbarton Oaks allowed me to find books, articles, and journals on the history of: Coatlinchan, Tetzcoco; Huapalteopan, Coatepec; Pahuatlan, Puebla; Coatepec, Estado de Mexico; Ystlahuacan, Tetzcoco; Maravatio, Michoacan; Yzquyluca, Tenayuca; Cosamaloapa, Veracruz; Quamantla, Tlaxcala; and Ocuytuco, Morelos. This research is now the foundation for each one of the chapters; the chapter on Pahuatlan and Coatlinchan was completed during my stay.
The fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks placed me in a unique working environment, not only because of the library resources and space for thinking it provided, but also because of the opportunity to share my thoughts daily with bright scholars from my field and other disciplines. The introductory chapter of my dissertation owes a significant part of its current shape to the conversations I have had with the fellows. When I first started to write this chapter, I was unsure how to present the main characteristics of this corpus of maps from colonial Mexico, but the conversations I had with the fellows who work on Mesoamerica, as well as other viceroyalties in the Andes, made me realize which features make these paintings unique within the field of colonial studies.
Kim Richter (University of California, Los Angeles, Fall),
“Religion and Political Legitimacy: A Stylistic, Iconographic, and Contextual Analysis of Postclassic Huastec Sculpture”
My dissertation project is an analysis of Postclassic sculptures (dating from about 900–1521 AD) from the Huasteca region, located along the Gulf Coast of northeastern Mexico. The Huasteca is usually perceived as peripheral to and isolated from greater Mesoamerica, however I hope to demonstrate that the region was connected with other areas, most likely serving as a strategic stop along long-distance trade routes. I argue that the sculptures were inscribed with a regional variant of the Postclassic international style and symbol set, a pictorial language shared by multi-ethnic elites throughout Mesoamerica in order to signal their membership in the Postclassic elite network. The sculptures are primarily figural representing both men and women often dressed in elaborate costumes. The difficulty in interpreting the iconography of these sculptures is the lack of archaeological and primary written sources. Although usually interpreted as images of deities, I focus on their historical specificity and potential political function, and I aim to reconstruct their context through a stylistic and iconographic analysis.
While at Dumbarton Oaks, I wrote drafts of two chapters for the dissertation, which I will file this year. I also examined and photographed the Huastec sculpture at Dumbarton Oaks, which is prominently featured in one chapter focusing on the headdress iconography of female sculptures. In addition, I photographed twelve Huastec sculptures during a visit to the Museum Support Center (the storage facility of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History) further adding to my image database of over 500 Huastec sculptures.
Summer Fellows
Lisa DeLeonardis (Johns Hopkins University),
“Kamayuq in the Service of Capac and Crown”
A remarkable case of the movements and activities of Inca occupational specialists or kamayuq is evidenced by the Cachicamayos of the Pisco Valley, Peru. Sixteenth-century documents reference the group, and they are acknowledged by Fernández de Palencia in his account of the rebellion of Francisco Hernández Girón (ca. 1554). Long after they were relocated to the reducciones of urban Pisco, and their presence erased from colonial maps, they continued to be named in administrative records well into the eighteenth century.
My research examined the Cachicamayos within the critical context of the Inca-Colonial transition and probed the nature of kamayuq organization. I evaluated the role of salt (cachi) and documented the interplay between indigenous strategies and viceregal protocol that led to the Cachicamayos's success and eventual demise. This inquiry contributes to the foundations of the regional history of Pisco and enhances our understanding of local social interactions—what Ramírez (2005) alludes are the small traditions of Inca provincial peoples that survived into the eighteenth century. On a broader scale, it speaks to the question of historical memory of the Pre-Columbian past and to the Incaic principles that survived for centuries thereafter.
Eugenia Ibarra (University of Costa Rica),
“Exploring Warfare and Slave Capturing on Period VI in Lower Central America”
I explored aspects of warfare and the taking of prisoners in lower Central America during Period Ⅵ through the analysis of ethnohistorical and archaeological results found in bibliographical materials held at Dumbarton Oaks. I focused on the meaning of warfare, prisoner capture, and the processes that led to a differentiation between a prisoner and a slave. I also considered the role human teeth displayed in warfare and slavery contexts as well as other body parts like heads, scalps, fingernails, and hands. Animal teeth collars are also mentioned in association with prestige and hunting practices. A regional perspective, in the long durée, on the movements and rythms of the Spanish conquest with its different timings and impacts on the different societies included, provided a processual perspective on warfare. The reconstruction of the historical context of chiefdoms at the end of the fifteenth century and during the sixteenth century made it necessary to account for the continuing impact of the migration of the Mesoamerican groups after 800 AD on the area at that time. Warfare in lower Central America is contrasted to that of South America and parts of the Antilles. The conclusions of this project must be considered in order to understand the sociopolitical structures, their dynamics, and an approach to an Amerindian way of perceiving war in lower Central America. I also mention the mosquito Indians of Caribbean Honduras and Nicaragua's exchange of captives for goods in the eighteenth century.
Matthew Looper (California State University, Chico),
“Gender Performances in the Initial Series Group at Chichén Itzá”
My project explored aspects of gender performance at the Maya site of Chichén Itzá, Yucatan, Mexico, specifically as represented in architectural sculpture programs of the Initial Series Group. This major Late Classic to Early Postclassic period complex features a profusion of sculptures that relate to this theme, including a series of tenoned phalli and extensive narrative friezes that depict males performing ritual dance and genital autosacrifice. In the Initial Series Group, many of the figures engaged in bloodletting are Pawahtuns, aged deites associated with the earth, mountains, and rain, as well as patron gods of Chichén Itzá's rulers. Other reliefs include references to emergence and fecundity as well as the acquisition of luxury trade items as a result of the deities' ritual performances. These images emphasize the symbolism of publicly performed male bloodletting dances as a means of achieving lineage continuity, fertility, wealth, and supernatural blessing. The construction of a dance platform as part of this group demonstrates that male dancers actually impersonated these gods in performance. This platform provided the focal point for rites of royal accession and annual renewal that took place in association with adjacent structures. The sculpture programs of the Initial Series Group commemorated the ceremonies of divine intervention through sacrifice that supported the power of the resident patrilineage of the Initial Series Group. I am currently finalizing this essay (co-authored with Laura Amrhein) for inclusion in an edited volume on sacred space in Mesoamerica.
Victoria Lyall (Los Angeles County Museum of Art),
“Picturing Place: Terminal Classic Mural Painting in the Northern Maya Lowlands”
My 2009 Dumbarton Oaks Summer Fellowship afforded me the opportunity to complete the first two chapters of my dissertation, which explores Terminal Classic period mural painting (850–1050 AD) from several Pre-Columbian sites in the Yucatan peninsula. This period, following the demise of the southern Maya urban centers, witnessed the dramatic upheaval of established political and social structures, but the florescence of the Northern Lowlands during the Terminal Classic speaks to the singular history of this area. The dearth of local hieroglyphic texts, however, has prevented accurate reconstructions of regional history for this epoch. The explosion of mural painting during this period, executed in a new visual language, offers an alternative avenue to examine and will shed light on the region's development during a two hundred year period. My project's objectives include documenting and drawing the remains of ninth and tenth century mural programs throughout the peninsula. On-site visual analysis and comparative archival research has allowed me to examine the aesthetic shift in Maya artistic practice during this period. Although sites such as Ichmac, Chelemi, Chacmultun, Dzula, and Mulchic have been the subject of individual studies (Thompson 1904; Staines Cicero 1994; Walters and Kowalski 2000), no investigation has addressed these paintings collectively as a corpus produced in the same area within a discrete period. Moreover, the paucity of inscriptions in the northern lowlands has prevented scholars from piecing together local histories as has been done for the southern lowlands. These murals depict scenes of sacrifice, moments of tribute, battles, and military processions, events firmly rooted in lived history and open a window into this historical moment. Little information on these sites and their murals is available in the published record and much of what can be found is out of date or incomplete. I hope that this project will make available new avenues for understanding the history of the region during the Terminal Classic period.
Federico Navarrete Linares (Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México),
“Maya Conceptions of History in a Mesoamerican Perspective”
During my summer fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks I reviewed the most recent scholarship on Maya epigraphy and history to propose new perspectives of analysis for Maya conceptions of time and of history. My aim is to identify the different chronotopes contained in Classic period inscriptions and Colonial texts and images—the ways in which they represented and materialized time and space, as well as the ways in which the Maya conceived the relationship between past, present, and future and the role of human agency in the flow of history.
I have identified the following key problems, which are also objects of debate among contemporary scholars:
- To what extent and in what manner did the highly complex Maya conceptions of time and its many cycles influence or determine their behavior and actions?
- What were the relationships between specific events and individuals and the historical and supernatural precedents with which they were related in Maya histories? Was it a question of cyclical repetition, of ritual reenactment, or of rhetorical analogy?
- What are the continuities and differences between the historical conceptions of the Classic period, centered on the Long Count chronological system, and those of Postclassic and Colonial times, centered on the Katun cycle?
To address these problems, we need to read beyond the explicit meanings of Maya epigraphic and alphabetic texts, seeking to understand the cognitive and historical premises that informed them, and the political and ideological messages they were trying to convey.
Jorge Gamboa Velásquez (University of Montreal),
“The Architecture of Social Encounters: Plazas and Platforms in the Southern Moche State”
Access to the extensive documentation at the Dumbarton Oaks Library allowed me to make great progress in my work on the design variability of southern Moche public architecture. This research is an inter-valley comparative analysis of architectural planning and use of space in ceremonial centers built on the north coast of Peru between 500 and 750 AD. Carrying further a short version already published, I noticed that the regional diversity in configuration of Moche public buildings could be related to the fragmented nature of the sociopolitical landscape and to temporal hegemonic periods of some paramount centers. Pañamarca and Guadalupito, the major southernmost sites, did not emulate architectural canons from the sites of the Moche and Chicama valleys, such as Huaca de la Luna and Cao Viejo. These last two buildings became progressively similar in relation to their architectural planning and mural art. This process was impaired by the gradual empowering of the former over its counterpart at Chicama. Relations between both sites were probably complementary and competitive, as expresed by common material culture and distinctive iconographical programs. However, ca. 600 AD their interaction changed toward a stronger asymmetry in favor of Huaca de la Luna. The main results of my work will be published in a peer-reviewed journal in the near future.
My time at Dumbarton Oaks was made even more beneficial thanks to the exchange of ideas with colleagues studying pre-Columbian societies from different viewpoints. In this scholarly exchange lies the value of the Library—in addition to preserving bibliographical resources, it creates a space for the inception of interdisciplinary perspectives on the sociopolitical processes of ancient America.