Byzantine iconoclasm: an Icon of St. Nicholas (Russia) Byzantine iconoclasm By the early 700s AD, the Roman Empire had seen four hundred years of religious arguments about what or who Jesus Christ was. The Arians believed that [...]
Empress Theodora on a gold coin, with her son and daughter on the other side. With Theophilus dead, in 842 AD the Empire again had a woman in charge. The empress Theodora, [...]
Maybe the skull cup was something like this? Nicephorus deposed the Empress Irene in 802 AD and made himself emperor. He refused to pay tribute to the Islamic caliph, and therefore lost still more Roman [...]
Leo the Isaurian (ca. 720 AD, Louvre museum, Paris) Anastasius II When Justinian II's assassin Philippicus turned out to be a worthless party animal, other Roman officials killed him. In 713 [...]
Russian Icon of Saint Nicolas, 13th - early 14th century, tempera on wood. Our knowledge of Russian art begins with the Scythians and other Central Asian art. But what most people think of [...]
A Late Antique ivory carving Roman art, German art, and Islamic art mixed together in Europe in the Early Middle Ages to create a new form, which we call medieval art. Art historians divide medieval [...]
Artemis, carved in ivory in Constantinople (now in the Cluny museum, Paris) The art of Rome continued in an unbroken tradition from the days of the Republic down to the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman [...]
Tomb of Ali, the first Imam and the fourth caliph, in Iraq (it was rebuilt about 1500 AD by the Safavids) Where did Islam come from? Medieval Islam was closely related [...]
Ghaznavids: A minaret in Ghazni (Afghanistan), from about 1000 AD Abbasid soldiers Beginning in the 850s AD, the Abbasid caliphs of the Islamic Empire were looking for soldiers they would be able to trust, who [...]
Islamic art: Mosaic from the Great Mosque in Damascus (about 710 AD) Umayyad art: no people or animals As soon as the Islamic Empire formed, under the Umayyad dynasty, artists began exploring the [...]
