The Twenty-first International Congress of Byzantine Studies adopted ‘Display’ as its overall theme and was organized into three main sections: plenary papers, panels and short communications. Within each of the three sections, there was further subdivision under eight headings – Empire, Works and Days, Infrastructures, Words, Texts, Orthodoxy, Byzantium as Display and Futures of the Past – with additional substructures imposed on the second and third sections, resulting in a total of some sixty-four thematic elements. This complex arrangement caused different kinds of problems, which the editors briefly refer to in the very short forewords to the volumes. International and National Byzantine Committee members were responsible for the choice of plenary speakers and panel organizers, whilst the short communications were subject to open competition. A significant weakness of the publication, not directly mentioned in the forewords, applies right across the three sections, which is the failure of a considerable number of speakers to submit their abstracts. Given the complexity of the organization of the papers, the reader would have been greatly assisted by detailed lists of contents for each volume. Yet the reader of volumes ii and iii has no idea what these volumes actually contain, for they only provide the general pagination of the eight headings outlined above. In place of a conventional list of contents, the reader is offered an alphabetical list of speakers (without their titles) in an index at the end and is bereft of an overall picture of the scope of the Congress, or an instrument for cross-referencing titles within the complex divisions imposed by the organizers. Given these difficulties, this reviewer hopes to provide a useful overview of the nature and scope of the Congress, and to consider the academic contribution of the publication to the field of Byzantine studies as a whole.

From the published papers and abstracts, one may discern that the aim of the Congress was to illustrate how diverse were the opportunities for ‘Display’ of Byzantine culture, institutions and traditions across, and indeed beyond, the boundaries of the Empire. In the opening address Herrin distinguishes educational traditions and learning (written display), from secular or religious ceremonial and ritual (visual display), and from oral transmission (popular display). She also points out the influence of such display abroad.

The aim of the plenary papers, under the eight thematic headings set out above, was to present an overall yet selective view of several issues. Shepard and Falkenhausen separately look at the Empire in a wider geographical context; Mango and Popovic individually examine some aspects of the contribution of archaeology to a wider understanding of material culture issues in Byzantium, partly as relating to displays of ‘the hope of human salvation’ after death. The factual session on ‘Infrastructures’ usefully lists the number of aids to study available through electronic systems, though showing how slow has been the progress made by some of these ventures (eg lexicographical projects lasting decades). Under ‘Words’ and ‘Texts’, questions include how the Byzantines, as distinct from modern Byzantine scholarship, perceived Byzantine literature. There are calls for the broadening of traditional research methods to take into account the motives of the author, the constraints of context and the nature of the reception of texts. Roueché, in her paper on epigraphy, suggests that written displays moved away from public into sacral space from Late Antiquity into the Byzantine period. Kreuger deals with forms of display of piety and formats of reflexive scrutiny behind self-presentation and self-disclosure in early Byzantium. Markopoulos questions knowledge of Latin in Byzantium in relation to the use of Latin law, and Reinsch observes that quotations found in Byzantine literature were generally used in a way distinct from their original context, partly because individual authorities needed to justify their own position. ‘Byzantium as Display’ considers books and images on display. The three papers of this section, usefully accompanied by clear illustrations, emphasize the luxury quality of visual display in certain manuscripts, and the relevance of this to the liturgy and to the expression of dogma. The influence of imperial settings and ceremonial upon religious imagery is also tackled.

Volume ii contains the panel papers, divided into the same eight themes, with each of these further divided into eight subsections whose topics suggest the organizers’ intended scope of the Congress, although all the papers given may not have proved, in practice, to conform to their aims. ‘Empire’ embraces Byzantium in the context of rival empires and the Byzantine theory of empire, including East/West issues. Among the institutions of empire, law receives prominence. Byzantine identity before and after 1204 and the question of evangelization outside the Empire are two more areas for consideration. The ‘Art of the Empire’ is given its own heading. ‘Works and Days’ covers space and the natural world, landscapes and society, health and death, and the economy and transport systems. The ‘Infrastructures’ section continues discussion in the vein of the plenary papers, adding information about technology, teaching and academia, as well as incorporating information about the current state of research across the fields of sigillography, numismatics, prosopography and ‘science’. ‘Words’ explores the different contexts of words, whether written, inscribed, spoken in ritual or otherwise displayed. ‘Texts’ deals not only with different types of text writing (historiography and chronography, ‘true stories’), but also with emotion and fantasy as expressed in literature, and with questions of ceremony and display of knowledge. The medieval translation of Byzantine texts across cultures, and also the contemporary editing of Byzantine texts are further areas of concern. Under ‘Orthodoxy’, the relationship of philosophy to theology, and of both of these to Orthodoxy and to Orthodox art is questioned. Monasteries, sacred space, cult and pilgrimage are also discussed. ‘Byzantium as Display’ looks at display in different settings – palace, city, village – at home and abroad, and in the form of dress and of portable objects. The final theme, ‘The Future of the Past’, considers issues around heritage and exhibitions, collections and fakes, conservation and restoration, and the fate of Sinai and Athos, and of other sites in Georgia as great repositories of Byzantine heritage.

More than 400 communications are presented in volume iii (plus two short area studies: ‘History of Byzantine Studies’ and ‘Posters’), arranged under the eight main themes, although these are not then further subdivided like the panel papers. This suggests that communications were not received in all these areas, implying a degree of variation between what the organizers considered imperative for the detailed study of ‘Display’ and what type of research the academic community is engaged upon. In the space of this review it is not possible to cover all the issues raised in the communications but it is useful perhaps to highlight some important points. It is evident that there was a great degree of specialization across the communications, with rather less emphasis on placing detailed research into a wider context, which would have allowed for some broader picture of Byzantium, its identity, beliefs, institutions, culture and traditions, to emerge. The need for an inter-disciplinary approach is evident within areas newly emerging in Byzantine studies, such as landscape archaeology and material culture studies. In text-based studies, however, there appeared to be talk only of ‘revisiting earlier conclusions’ – essentially using tried methods but with new research questions.

Using the theme of ‘Empire’ as an example, some more general observations can be made. Among the communications on ‘Empire’ and ‘Theories of Empire’, there is a great deal of factual information, although detailed working of parts of the analysis of the theory of empire as discussed in Panel 1.2 does not appear. Speakers are concerned with Byzantine defence issues, and with interaction between rival empires. They also look at such questions as the ‘right of succession’ and whether or not Byzantium was ever a ‘city state’ rather than a centralized imperial entity. Issues of centralization versus regionalization, and of governance through different instruments of the law are touched upon, as are the processes of the integration of Greek communities under foreign occupation. The section on art largely looks at the influence of Byzantine art abroad and at the amalgamation of East/West elements in later Byzantine art. The communications on ‘Evangelization’ include archaeological excavations, which, in material culture terms, supplement the evidence of written sources and yield information on gender, for example, that moves beyond the evidence of the written sources. Byzantine ‘identity’ issues across time are not tackled. Rather it is the later Byzantine persona that is explored. Geurts’s communication is refreshing in that it directly addresses issues of identity in relation to display. The author explains that ‘display functions as an identity carrier that is used by people according to their cultural needs’ and that in display meaningful objects are used for (re)telling stories.

The theme of ‘Works and Days’ relates better to the panel section, both in subject matter and in the nature of discussion of method involved. Panel papers and communications rejoice at the introduction of ‘landscape archaeology’ into mainstream Byzantine ‘history’. The place of settlement archaeology in Byzantine studies is discussed, as is the role of these ‘archaeologies’ in the inter-disciplinary integration of non-textual evidence into textual-based Byzantine studies. In the panel papers, Gregory emphasizes method along these lines, whilst in communications Kondyli stresses the need to combine evidence from the field with documentary sources. These attitudes are key to Byzantine material culture studies and they have been well explored and published elsewhere by specialist object-based scholars working with both textiles and ceramics. In general, one may suggest that object-based specialists were not represented adequately in the congress. There are only a few communications on ceramics, which introduce general issues concerning the material aspects as against the materiality issues surrounding the artefacts. These papers stress the need for scientific analysis of materials and the importance of an understanding of technology not only of clays and glazes but also of glass used for objects and for windows. For example, spectrometry and ED XRF and EPMA analysis are discussed in relation to establishing the optical properties and chemical compositions of materials, and as a consequence understanding of ‘luminance’ in Byzantine buildings using glass.

In a congress on ‘Display’ a greater emphasis might have been expected on the visual aspects of display in the communications. The subsection, ‘Byzantium as Display’, in general illustrates the tendency of art-historical researchers to concentrate on individual monuments or objects without sufficient reference to the symbolic messages that some may carry, or their wider significance in individual historical contexts and social settings. In the plenary papers under the same theme, however, it is refreshing to notice that a broader outlook pertains: Dzurova deals with the visualization of dogma, and Maguire enquires about the possibility of the depiction of ‘virtual space’ in Byzantine religious art. In the panel papers, the use of new methods is advocated by Tronzo in relation to mosaic floors. Piotrowski presents novel views on the use of light as an aid to non-verbal thought in Byzantium, whilst advocating digital techniques for the analysis of the effects of light in the churches. Kilerich tackles the subject of the aesthetics of marble and concludes that in Byzantium, as in Late Antiquity, it was viewed in terms of ‘colour and movement’.

The final communications theme, ‘The Future of the Past’, provides some interesting additions to the panel papers on the same topic, which deal with more general issues of heritage and display. The speakers are clearly working closely and at first hand with the monuments and objects under discussion, and some of them present unpublished materials sited in Turkey, Greece and Albania.

This third volume covers a vast array of topics, which provide a valuable guide to areas of current research across the academic community as represented at all levels. They emphasize the place of object-based material culture studies alongside textual, historical and art-historical research within Byzantine studies, and demonstrate its very wide geographical reach across the world. The publication of the communications and the panel abstracts would have been improved by the inclusion of more references to back the speakers’ arguments. It would also be a good idea for future organizers to provide guidance as to the general structure of abstracts: a great many failed to reveal the research questions being posed.

As for the contribution of this publication to academic Byzantine studies, it raises important questions about the benefits and drawbacks of such international gatherings of up to 1,000 delegates. It highlights the responsibilities of the organizing committee, as well as the logistics of the organization of the research themes, and the difficulties of adequate publication of the proceedings prior to the event itself. Given all the potential problems, the editors are to be congratulated on achieving a synthesis of their fragmented and extremely diverse material. The publication demonstrates the wide and varied range of research themes that exist across Byzantine studies. It also illustrates the need for the re-evaluation of tried methods, particularly in the field of textual analysis, and the necessity for combining textual and archaeological evidence. The development of fresh inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary methods to embrace other new and emerging areas of research (many broadly set within the sphere of ‘Byzantine Material Culture studies’) is equally apparent.