Medieval Art Research

New Publication: ‘Phenomenology of the Icon: Mediating God through the Image’ by Stephanie Rumpza

How can something finite mediate an infinite God? Weaving patristics, theology, art history, aesthetics, and religious practice with the hermeneutic phenomenology of Hans-George Gadamer and Jean-Luc Marion, Stephanie Rumpza proposes a new answer to this paradox by offering a fresh and original approach to the Byzantine icon. She demonstrates the power and relevance of the phenomenological method to integrate hermeneutic aesthetics and divine transcendence, notably how the material and visual dimensions of the icon are illuminated by traditional practices of prayer. Rumpza’s study targets a problem that is a major fault line in the continental philosophy of religion – the integrity of finite beings I relation to a God that transcends them. For philosophers, her book demonstrates the relevance of a cherished religious practice of Eastern Christianity. For art historians, she proposes a novel philosophical paradigm for understanding the icon as it is approached in practice.

Find out more about the book here.

About the author

Stephanie Rumpza, Sorbonne Université, Paris
Stephanie Rumpza is a researcher in Philosophy at Sorbonne Université (Paris IV). Her research focuses on the mediation of image, word, and expression and the relation between phenomenological and theological thinking.

PhD Position: Project ‘Holy Networks: Locating, Shaping, and Experiencing Palestinian Loca Sancta (1187-1852)’, University of Fribourg, deadline 15 December 2023

The SNSF Advanced Grant Project ‘Holy Networks: Locating, Shaping, and Experiencing Palestinian Loca Sancta (1187-1852)’, coordinated by Prof. Michele Bacci (Chair of Medieval Art History, University of Fribourg, Switzerland), offers a four-year doctoral position with a focus on the multireligious holy sites in the Jerusalem. The specific topic which the doctoral student will deal with is “The Cenacle Complex on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion as a Multireligious Locus Sanctus”. She/he will be fully responsible for the designated subproject and maintain constant dialogue with the team members and the project’s PI.

The doctoral student will be responsible for the specific research subproject aimed to providing a historical and art historical analysis of the Cenacle Complex, focusing on the dynamics whereby sitebound holiness came to be shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Her/his specific tasks will include the examination of available textual, visual, and material evidence, database feeding, the writing of the thesis, active collaboration with the other team members, the organization of events and workshops and participation in scientific events.

Requested profile:

Applicants should have obtained a MA in art history, history, or literature, and possess linguistic competencies enabling access to sources written in Latin and major Western European languages
A good knowledge of the cultural traditions associated with the Holy Land, as well as familiarity with the historical analysis of holy sites and/or with Medieval and early modern pilgrims’ travelogues will be strongly appreciate.

The application should consist of a cover letter and a detailed CV. The documents should be submitted before December 15th, 2023, via the website of the State of Fribourg: https://jobs.fr.ch/job/Fribourg-CH-PhD-Position-Sari/782792902

Contact person: Prof. Michele Bacci, University of Fribourg, michele.bacci@unifr.ch

For more information, see: https://www.academia.edu/109666380/Job_Announcement_PhD_position_1 and https://www.academia.edu/109666050/Job_Announcement_PhD_position_2

Graduate Position: ‘Notre-Dame in Color’, University of Alabama, deadline 15 December 2023

We seek a graduate student to assist with our NEH funded project to digitally visualize layers of polychrome that once enlivened the sculptures of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. The ideal candidate will have research interests in premodern artistic practices, the meanings of color in premodern societies, and be able to apply new approaches to digital cultural heritage documentation.

Desired technical skills include digital scanning and photogrammetry techniques, digital rendering, and use of SketchFab, WordPress, AgiSoft Metashape, Blender, Adobe Substance Painter, and AutoCAD/Revit or similar platforms.

The assistant will dedicate 20hrs per week to the Notre-Dame in Color project during fall/spring semesters of 2024-2026 and be enrolled in the Interdisciplinary Studies MA, which will include graduate-level coursework in Anthropology, Art History, and Digital Art, culminating in a non-thesis Capstone Project or thesis. Advanced applicants may be considered for entry into the Interdisciplinary Studies PhD.

Available funding: Academic year 1 is valued at $51,876 (inclusive of out-of-state tuition waiver, course fees, health insurance, and stipend of $15,840). The NEH funded graduate assistantship is renewable for a 2nd consecutive academic year upon satisfactory annual review. Academic year 2 is valued at least at the amount of the previous year—the stipend may increase if rates are increased by the university. The MA is a 2yr degree program. If an applicant is eligible for admission to the PhD track, additional funding support may be available.

To verify eligibility, please notify project director, Dr. Jennifer Feltman, jmfeltman@ua.edu and co-director, Dr. Alexandre Tokovinine, atokovinine@ua.edu no later than December 15, 2023. Review of applications will begin on January 15, 2024.

For more info on the Notre-Dame in Color project is available here.

Minimum requirements for regular admission:

MA: 3.0 undergraduate GPA (or equivalent)
PhD: MA in anthropology, art history, or related field with 3.0 GPA (or equivalent)

Application Documents:

Transcripts
Statement of Purpose 2 double-spaced pages outlining relevant research experience and the necessity of interdisciplinary research for the applicant’s specific research and career goals.
CV/Résumé
Writing Sample
3 Letters of Recommendation
Optional: Sample of Previous Digital Work

Online Conference: ‘New Perspectives on Personifications in Roman, Late Antique and Early Byzantine Art’, LMU Munich, 26-27 January 2024

An international conference on ‘New Perspectives on Personifications in Roman, Late Antique and Early Byzantine Art (200-800 AD)’ takes place at LMU Munich on January 26th and 27th, 2024. We are pleased to be able to support the initiative of Prolet Decheva and Charles Wastiau.

The conference takes place in Katharina-von-Bora-Str. 10 in the large lecture hall (R. 242). The lectures can also be followed via live stream. All times are according to CET.

Find out more here.

Download the conference program here.

To attend online, please register in advance:
Day 1 and Day 2.

The conference is organised by Institut für Byzantinistik, Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte und Neogräzistik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München with the kind support of Spätantike Archäologie und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte e.V and LMU Münchner Zentrum für Antike Welten.

Contact:

Charles Wastiau: Cwastiau@uliege.be
Prolet Decheva: prolet.decheva@ucdconnect.ie

Conference Program

Friday, 26 January 2024

13:15 – 13:30 Introduction

13:30 – 14:00 Anna-Laura Honikel, Goethe University Frankfurt a.M.:
Personifications on Mosaics of the Province Lusitania

14:00 – 14:30 Sarah Hollaender, University of Graz:
Visualizing ‘Manliness’: The Goddess Virtus and Her Transformations in Late Antiquity

14:30 – 15:00 Giovanna Ferri, University of Sassari:
Seasons Personifications in the Decorative Programs of Roman Catacombs and Privately-Owned Hypogea in Late Antiquity: Felicitas Temporum and Heavenly Aeternitas

15:00 – 15:30 Break

15:30 – 16:00 Caroline Bridel, University of Bern:
The Use of Personifications in Late Antique Jewish Spaces: Establishing a Cultural Frame?

16:00 – 16:30 Amélie Belleli, INRAP/University of Limoges:
Late Roman Empresses as Allegorical Figures

16:30 – 17:00 Prolet Decheva, University College Dublin:
Personifications of Abstract Ideas and Proper Names

18:00 – 19:00 KEYNOTE LECTURE: Emma Stafford, University of Leeds:
Nemesis: A Greek Personification in the Later Roman World

Saturday, 27 January 2024

09:00 – 09:30 Annegret Klünker, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin:
Coining Embodied Conditions: The Severan Era as Synopsis for the Visual Emergence of Personifications in Rome

09:30 – 10:00 Charles Wastiau, University of Liège/University of Bonn:
The End of the „Divine Qualities“ on Late Roman Coins

10:00 – 10:30 Pavla Gkantzios Drápelová, Czech Academy of Sciences:
The Last Echoes of Tyche Poleos on Byzantine Coins: Several Cases from the 6th Century

10:30 – 11:00 Break

11:00 – 11:30 Amel Bouder, Freie Universität Berlin/Deutsches Archäologisches Institut:
The Multiple Personifications of Saturnus the African God and his Assessors: an Allegory between the River God and the Master of the Universe

11:30 – 12:00 Julian Hollaender, Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg:
Greetings from the Jordan River: The Anthropomorphic River in Early Christian Baptismal Representations

12:00 – 12:30 Natalia Turabelidze, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University:
Classical Prototypes in Medieval Georgian Mural Painting: The Evidence of Ateni Sioni Murals

12:30 Conclusions

New Publication: ‘ Représenter et nommer la Grèce et les Grecs (XIVe-XVIe siècle)’, edited by Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas

The first collective volume of the ERC AGRELITA, Representing and naming Greece and the Greeks (14th-16th centuries) , edited by Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, has just been published by Brepols.

What do Greece and the Greeks represent for authors and artists of the 14th to 16th centuries in Western Europe? This volume explores this question from the perspective of spatial and geographic perception and imagination. It thus concerns the representations of Greek space, ancient and “modern” from the 14th to 16th century.

By favouring Latin, French and Italian works, written mainly in Italy, France, the Burgundian Netherlands and Greece, it studies how authors and artists represent textually and visually the geography of Greece / space or Greek spaces(s). The difficulties in defining, naming and representing Greece as a territorial entity were numerous during these centuries, marked by very profound upheavals, with the collapse of the Byzantine Empire on the Greek side and, on the Western European side, numerous developments in geographical, historical and also linguistic knowledge, as well as in textual and iconographic forms of expression. The perception of a spatial, geographical identity of Greece is all the more delicate as several temporalities are at stake: that of ancient Greece, that of Greece contemporary to the authors, and that of medieval Greece before the 14th century. The studies brought together question the different perceptions and representations of Greek space, in its unity and/or its diversity, which are expressed and renewed during these three centuries, as well as on the naming of Greek places and the Greece who accompany them.

Find out more about the book and order here.

Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Explorer la réception de la Grèce ancienne sous l’angle de la représentation de l’éspace

I. Connaissances savantes et expériences personnelles

Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Les savoirs hérités sur les espaces grecs : les autorités antiques connues dans l’Europe occidentale médiévale

Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Images du monde, encyclopédies et traités en langue française (XIIIe -XIVe siècle) : reprises et renouvellements des représentations de l’éspace grec

Emmanuelle Vagnon, Cristoforo Buondelmonti et ses sources dans sa représentation de la Grèce

Constantin Bobas, Imaginaire occidental et réalités orientales de l’espace grec : en voyageant à Rhodes aux XVeet XVIe siècles

Edith Karagiannis-Mazeaud, Géographie du Péloponnèse, aperçu par Belon, Thevet et Nicolay, voyageurs français du XVIe siècle

II. Géographie et histoire grecques

Marilynn R. Desmond, Topographie troyenne dans la Grèce franque du XIIIe siècle

Valeria Russo, Le continuum historique des espaces grecs : les représentations géographiques dans la Fleur des histoires de Jean Mansel (version courte)

Valeria Russo, Retrouver la Grèce dans le temps et dans l’espace : la Mer des histoires face à la création d’un passé antique

Gilles Grivaud, La Chorograffia d’Etienne de Lusignan : sources et propositions

III. Écritures fictionnelles

Corinne Jouanno, Quelle place pour la Grèce dans la littérature romanesque byzantine (XIIe-XVe siècle) ?

Daisy Delogu, Paysages palimpsestes : les espaces imaginaires grecs dans l’églogue du XIVe siècle

Pascale Mounier, La Grèce de Thésée d’après la Teseida de Boccace et ses adaptations françaises

Clarisse Évrard, « Ancrer sa galee » en Grèce : stratégies textuelles et dispositifs visuels dans l’Histoire de Jason et le Recueil des histoires de Troie de Raoul Lefèvre

IV. Figurations visuelles

Ilaria Molteni, Imaginer et représenter l’espace grec en Italie au Moyen Âge : le laboratoire de l’Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César

Ilaria Molteni, L’espace grec à la cour de France (1380-1422) : de l’Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César à l’Épître Othéa

Clarisse Evrard, Représenter la Grèce et les Grecs par le prisme flamand : le cas des manuscrits enluminés de la bibliothèque de Louis de Bruges

Marie Jacob-Yapi, L’usage du costume byzantin dans les manuscrits parisiens de matière antique au début du XVe siècle

New Publication: ‘Out of Bounds: Exploring the Limits of Medieval Art’, Edited by Pamela A. Patton and Maria Alessia Rossi

Pamela A. Patton, and Maria Alessia Rossi, eds. Out of Bounds: Exploring the Limits of Medieval Art. Signa: Papers of the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University. Penn State University Press, 2023.

Find out more and buy the book here.

Where are the limits of medieval art as a field of study? What happens when conventionally trained art historians disregard the chronological, geographical, or cultural parameters that both direct and protect their scholarship? Beginning with Thelma K. Thomas and Alicia Walker’s acute assessment of the need for a “medieval art history for now,” the essays in Out of Bounds ask what happens when the study of medieval art disregards boundaries that it once obeyed. The volume focuses on questions surrounding the production of knowledge and on how scholarly investigation beyond the conventional thematic boundaries of medieval art history is changing, demonstrating how the field can address the ethics of scholarship today by positing a global turn in response to growing demands for socially responsible medieval studies. Collectively, the contributors demonstrate how “going out of bounds” can transform modern understanding of the people, traditions, and relationships that gave rise to medieval works. As such, this book argues for the necessity of reshaping scholarly discourse about the nature and significance of medieval art and generates fresh scholarly interpretations and important new critical tools for teaching and researching the Middle Ages.

The contributors to this volume are Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Michele Bacci, Jill Caskey, Eva Frojmovic, Sarah M. Guérin, Christina Maranci, Alice Isabella Sullivan, Thelma K. Thomas, Michele Tomasi, and Alicia Walker.

“Out of Bounds is a timely and valuable contribution to the growing body of works on global perspectives for the study of art history and on the place of medieval art in this global discourse. It is a welcome addition to the category of anthologies, which are among the most useful resources enabling us to grasp the expanded and reconfigured landscape of the field of medieval art.”
—Eva R. Hoffman, Tufts University, Emerita

“Out of Bounds is a compelling body of essays providing access to new concepts on the breadth of the medieval world in time and place and ways to study it in global, non-Eurocentric terms. Patton and Rossi stress the importance of what can be learned from regions and peoples that were once considered the nearly irrelevant periphery and recognize the challenges in seeking such new understandings.”
—Helen C. Evans, Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator for Byzantine Art Emerita, Metropolitan Museum of Art

1. Shifting Boundaries: Medieval Art History for Now, Thelma K. Thomas and Alicia Walker

2. On Account of the Rotundity of the Earth: Steps Toward an Inclusive Medieval Art, Jill Caskey

3. Medieval Masks? Meditations on Method Out of Bounds, Sarah M. Guérin

4. Along the Art-Historical Margins of the Medieval Mediterranean, Michele Bacci

5. Looking at the “Center” from the “Border”: An Exchange of Franco-Ottoman Gifts and the Perception of Art Around 1400, Michele Tomasi

6. Alexander the Great’s Encounters with the Sacred in Medieval History Writing: From the Shahnameh to the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César, Suzanne Conklin Akbari

7. Fashioning the Gendered, Classed, and White Self: A Sephardi Cultural Project, Eva Frojmovic

8. Beyond Traditional Boundaries: Medieval Art and Architecture in Eastern Europe, Alice Isabella Sullivan

9. “The Summit of the Earth”: What Armenian Texts Can Do for the History of Medieval Art and Beyond, Christina Maranci

Biography of editors

Pamela A. Patton is Director of the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University. She is the author of Art of Estrangement: Redefining Jews in Reconquest Spain and coeditor of The Lives and Afterlives of Medieval Iconography, both published by Penn State University Press.

Maria Alessia Rossi is Art History Specialist at the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University. She is the coeditor of Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages and Late Byzantium Reconsidered: The Arts of the Palaiologan Era in the Mediterranean.

CFP: ‘Wisdom as Purpose: Ways of Learning, Skill Acquisition, and Knowledge Visualisation in the Middle Ages’, deadline 31 January 2024

6th ARDIT International Congress (15th-17th May 2024, Barcelona University, Barcelona)

With its many ways of expression, knowledge has led, since the dawn of humanity, to the transformation of society. Discovering, understanding and trying to reconstruct, from a broad and diverse perspective, the way in which individual and collective learning situations occurred in the Middle Ages is the purpose of this meeting. In this sense, it aims to become an opportunity to find answers and to learn new points of view on fundamental questions such as who were the transmitters of knowledge, how and where this transmission took place, or who were the receptors.

Starting from these wide conceptions of knowledge and learning, on this occasion, we consider the presentation of proposals related to the following thematic clusters:

Studies about the institutions involved in the dissemination of knowledge in the Middle Ages
Research regarding the organization of regulated and/or secular learning
Education in the Muslim world and in Hebrew communities
Tools and methodologies for measuring knowledge
Literacy and illiteracy in society
Issuers and receivers of knowledge
Materials and ways of knowledge
Educational training of women

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We welcome all researchers interested in the various ways of manifesting knowledge and learning during the Middle Ages to take part in the 6th edition of the ARDIT International Congress. Those who wish to participate need to indicate their target thematic cluster, send a 250-word-limited summary of their proposal, and a short curriculum vitae not exceeding 100 words before January 31st, 2024. All proposals for papers should be sent to the following email address: arditcongress2024@gmail.com.

Contributions will be sent in Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Italian and Portuguese will be accepted. Feedback on abstracts will be communicated by the Organizing Committee to all participants before the 29th February 2024.

Find more information here.

Organizing Committee:

Anahí Álvarez Aguado
Helena Casas Perpinyà
Tamar Mejías Guillén
Carlos Prieto Espinosa

Lecture: ‘The Power of Blue: Didactic models in text and image in Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othea’, Dr Charlotte Cooper-Davis, University of York, Wednesday 6 December 2023, 6-7pm (GMT)

History of Art Research Seminar

Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othea is a unique work: each of the 100 sets of glossed verse imparts a lesson through an exemplary figure or didactic model and is accompanied by an image that was created in collaboration with the author. The 101 images featured in one of the Othea author manuscripts (British Library, Harley MS 4431) were prepared by a master known as the Master of the City of Ladies and, although copied from an earlier source, the images in this manuscript set out to enhance women’s power in a way that the earlier manuscript did not. This talk will analyse some of this artist’s depictions of the didactic models who are present in the text to reveal his predilection with representing female didactic figures in blue, especially in verses evoking wisdom, chastity, and motherhood. The Master of the City of Ladies thereby creates a network of intervisual connections that enhance the power of the individual women represented, and of women as a collectivity.

About the speaker

Charlotte Cooper-Davis has carried out extensive research into the visual programme of Christine de Pizan’s manuscripts and the relationship between text and image in manuscripts of her works. She is the author of the biography, Christine de Pizan, Life, Work, Legacy (Reaktion 2021) and of Christine de Pizan: Empowering Women in Text and Image (Arc Humanities, 2023).

Event location: In-person only; Room BS/005, Berrick Saul Building, Campus West, University of York (Map)

Find out more and register here.

CFP: ‘Connecting stucco in the Mediterranean (c. 300 BCE – 1200 CE): Methodological approaches and the state of research’, deadline 31 January 2024

Bilkent University, Ankara, 16th-18th May 2024

Organisers: Dr Agnieszka Lic (Polish Academy of Sciences), Dr Flavia Vanni (Università degli Studi di Salerno) and Dr Luca Zavagno (Bilkent University).

The use of plaster reliefs (stuccoes) as architectural decoration is a well-known phenomenon in the Mediterranean, with roots already in ancient Egyptian architecture. However, it has been mainly studied within the boundaries of specific disciplines and chronological specialisations. While this allowed scholars to recognise the relationship of stucco with specific architectural traditions and technologies, it did not allow to spot long-term trends and cross-cultural interactions. This is due to the lack of coordination of scholarship on the study of stucco, which appears to develop at different speeds and aim at different goals depending on the field of study. For example, in the field of Islamic art and archaeology, stucco has mainly been studied in terms of stylistic and iconographic aspects in order to spot cultural exchanges within the Islamicate world; the technological aspect has only recently started to be addressed with archaeometric analyses. At the same time, research on Western Medieval stuccoes benefitted from a more holistic approach, which started to answer the changes in iconography, style, and technologies from the Late Antique to the Early Medieval period. However, the last comprehensive publications on the subject date to the early 2000s and little has been done since then, especially on the archaeometric analyses and their interpretation. The study of stucco makers, their legal and social status have been analysed for Roman stucco and partially for the Western Medieval world, while it is largely missing for the other fields of study on stucco in the period of interest here. The knowledge of Byzantine stucco is still in its infancy, lacking archaeometric analysis and not going beyond the single case studies, except for a limited number of studies.

Despite this dispersed character of research on stucco, many important studies on this material have been produced in the recent decades and the academic community has had multiple occasions to discuss stucco at various conferences and workshops. Therefore, we feel it is time to connect these efforts and address common questions that can help to see long-term phenomena and cross-cultural exchanges in the Mediterranean.

We encourage papers submission on the following (but not exclusively) topics:

Technology and makers: what do we know about the technology of stucco production and how it differed in various regions and throughout time? Did technological advances spread from one region to another? Who were the stucco workers? What was their place in past societies, and how did their status change through time?
Patterns of transmission: to what extent did stucco workshops, styles, iconographic motifs, and formal features overcome geographical, political, and confessional boundaries? How knowledge about stucco-making was transmitted? What was the relationship between stucco produced in the Mediterranean with stucco traditions of other regions, such as the wider Iranian world?
Perception by past societies: What was the perception of stucco by past societies? How did people perceive it in relation to marble and other media? Was it perceived as a material worthy of preservation? Was it considered a cheap material?
Stucco and modern discipline boundaries: does stucco production fit modern boundaries of academic discourse? For example, do we have “Byzantine” and “Islamic” stucco production? How does it relate to other materials (marble, limestone, wood), and what do we know about workshops? Did stuccoists work alongside stone sculptors, whitewashers, and/or painters?
The state of studies: What is the place of research on stucco in modern academia? What are the practices related to excavations, displays, publishing, etc.? Does it have a place on its own, or is it seen as a part of studies on sculpture or architectural decoration? What are the methodological approaches used to date and study stucco?

We encourage an in-person presence to facilitate the discussion and dissemination of knowledge, even though the conference will be available in hybrid form.

Papers of approximately 20 minutes are welcome. We also invite posters on specific case-studies.
The language of the conference is English.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words byWednesday 31st January 2024 to: connectingstucco@gmail.com.

Find out more here.

Timeline:

Applicants will be notified of selection by Thursday 29th February 2024.
For posters, please send an abstract of the topic of no more than 250 words by Wednesday 28th February 2024.
Applicants will be notified of selection by Sunday 31st March 2024.

If you need a letter by the Organising Committee for visa purposes, please state it in your application.
For any questions please contact: connectingstucco@gmail.com. Publication of the conference proceedings is planned.

Conference: ‘New Developments in Dendrochronology and its impact on the study of Vernacular Architecture’, Vernacular Architecture Group, Leicester, 6-7 January 2024

Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th January 2024, College Court Conference Centre, Knighton Road, Leicester, LE2 3UF

There have been significant developments in dendrochronological dating over the past 10 years and much of this has had important implications for vernacular building research. New complementary techniques have opened up opportunities to date other wood types and timbers derived from short-lived trees and increased the number of buildings that can be accurately dated. This has allowed dendrochronology to contribute to vernacular building studies in a wider number of areas, moving beyond the dating of individual buildings to contribute to studies of settlements and regions and contribute to other debates.

The Vernacular Architecture Group winter conference will cover new techniques, dating of other timber types, including imported timbers, and the contribution of dendrochronology to wider studies on vernacular building. The emphasis throughout the conference will be on case studies and practical applications of techniques to vernacular buildings.

Conference Programme

Saturday 6 January 2024

14.00 – Welcome & Introduction

Session 1

14.05 – Nat Alcock (Independent researcher) – The Tree-ring Database: 1978-2023: 4,000 dates and counting
14.35 – Cathy Tyers (Dendrchronologist, Historic England) – Scientific Dating and vernacular architecture
15.05 – Robert Howard (Nottingham Tree Ring Dating Laboratory) – Case study: Calverley Old Hall

15.35 – 16.05 – Tea and coffee

Session 2: Oxygen isotope analysis and Radiocarbon dating

16.05 – Neil Loader (Prifysgol Abertawe/Swansea University) – An introduction to stable isotope dendrochronology
16.45 – Dan Miles (Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory) – Stable isotope dendrochronology. Application to vernacular buildings
17.25 – Alex Bayliss (Head of Scientific Dating, Historic England) – Using radiocarbon dating to understand historic buildings

18:00 – 18:30 – Break

18:30 – Dinner

20.00-20.30 – AGM

Evening lecture

20.40 – Danny McCarroll (Prifysgol Abertawe/Swansea University) – Welsh Houses and the climate of the past

21:30 – Bar

Sunday 7 January 2024

Session 3 – Beyond oak – dating from other wood species

9.00 – Ann Crone (AOC Archaeology Group) and Coralie Mills (Dendrochronologie) – Home and away; the dendrochronology of pine in Scottish buildings
9.30 – Rob Wilson (School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of St. Andrews) – Blue Intensity and historical dating: Not just for conifers!
10.10 – Dr Martin Bridge (Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory) – Elm and dating prospects with additional analysis methods

10.50 – 11.20 – Tea and coffee

Session 4 – Dendro and its application to settlements and areas

11.20 – Steven J Allen (Conservation Dept, York Archaeology) – Dates and the details: Constructing Anglo-Scandinavian Buildings in York
11.50 – Duncan James (Insight Heritage) – Pembridge village, Herefordshire in the light of dendro
12.20 – Stephen Price (Independent researcher) – The impact of dendro on understanding urban development in the Worcestershire towns of Droitwich and Bewdley

13.00 – 14.00 – Lunch

Session 5

14.00 – Ann Crone (AOC Archaeology Group) – American oak imports to Britain and Ireland in the 18th and early 19th centuries; the dendrochronological evidence
14.40 – Vincent Debonne (researcher, built heritage, Flanders Heritage Agency, Belgium) – Towards tree-ring based chronologies of historical building materials and techniques. The example of Bruges (Belgium)
15.20 – Chris Dyer (University of Leicester) – The importance of tree ring dates in changing our understanding of the past

16.00 – Close

Full booking details are being circulated to members during week beginning 13 November 2023, and are also available in the Members’ Area. Booking closes on 15 December 2023.

We are offering two bursaries to assist registered full or part-time students, recent graduates or professionals in the early years of their career to attend the conference; for more information please see the bursary details. The closing date for bursary applications is 8 December 2023.