Papers by Elizabeth Zanghi
Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies, 2025
Byzantine monks had close relationships with time, and they were intimately aware of how it was m... more Byzantine monks had close relationships with time, and they were intimately aware of how it was measured. Using both textual and material sources, this article examines the different ways the designated "timekeepers" of monasteries used time to signal prayer throughout the day and night. Concentrating on Middle Byzantine monasteries from Constantinople, it illustrates the different methods of telling time that would have been available to Byzantine monks and the objects they may have used, and it investigates the complications that came with the changing length of days, nights, and hours throughout the year, as well as the complicated liturgical organization of days and years laid out in typika and horologia. These aspects monastic life demonstrate that the monks understood how to work with time and manipulate it in order to conform to their liturgical and ascetic obligations.
Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies
Byzantine monks had close relationships with time, and they were intimately aware of how it was m... more Byzantine monks had close relationships with time, and they were intimately aware of how it was measured. Using both textual and material sources, this article examines the different ways the designated "timekeepers" of monasteries used time to signal prayer throughout the day and night. Concentrating on Middle Byzantine monasteries from Constantinople, it illustrates the different methods of telling time that would have been available to Byzantine monks and the objects they may have used, and it investigates the complications that came with the changing length of days, nights, and hours throughout the year, as well as the complicated liturgical organization of days and years laid out in typika and horologia. These aspects monastic life demonstrate that the monks understood how to work with time and manipulate it in order to conform to their liturgical and ascetic obligations.
Scandinavian Journal of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2025
The story of Christ’s infancy, an important exegetical narrative that underscores the Virgin’s ro... more The story of Christ’s infancy, an important exegetical narrative that underscores the Virgin’s role in the incarnation and in the salvation of the world, became a common theme in Byzantine church decoration at least by the 9th century. Examining how the pictorial representations of the infancy overlap or diverge from textual ac- counts of the story shows that they are not simply visual representations or reconstitutions of the texts. Rather, they create unique narratives, borrowing, imitating, and drawing from various models, but also often changing and adding new narratological devices that are not present in textual narratives. This article examines one 10th-century iconographical cycle of Christ’s infancy in particular, at the El Nazar Kilise in Göreme, Cappadocia. Using a narratological lens, especially the concepts of order, speed, mode, and voice, it explores how the pictorial narrative transforms and is transformed by the ecclesiastical space in which it is told.
Calls for Papers by Elizabeth Zanghi
In 1981, the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas opened its exhibition, Security in Byzantium: Loc... more In 1981, the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas opened its exhibition, Security in Byzantium: Locking, Sealing, Weighing. The exhibition featured Byzantine objects centered around three "genres" of security, as defined by Gary Vikan and John Nesbitt, including, "locks and keys, sealing and stamping implements, and official weights 1 ". It was a groundbreaking initiative that opened the door to new questions dealing with the materiality of security in Byzantium. Currently, a new exhibition, Byzantine Security: How to Protect an Empire in the Palm of your Hand, is being prepared for the spring of 2027 at the University of Missouri Museum of Art and Archaeology. It aims to build upon questions raised by the Menil Collection exhibition and expand its scope. It will feature objects from both the Byzantine collection and from earlier Mediterranean cultures, and it will combine objects from the three "genres" established by the Vikan and Nesbitt, with other objects used to protect their owners from harmful forces through metaphysical processes, such as amulettes and objects of veneration or ritual that could induce miraculous intervention by gods or saints.
Conference Presentations by Elizabeth Zanghi
Hagioscopes byzantines : Outils de vision et d’observation à destination des saints et des fidèles
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Oct 14, 2022
El Nazar Kilise and Its Community, A 10th Century Church in Cappadocia
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jan 17, 2020
Telling Time in Byzantium : The Importance of Counting Hours and How it was Done
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Sep 24, 2021
Pious After Death: Byzantine Donor Inscriptions in Cappadocia
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), May 9, 2019
The Invisible Icon at El Nazar, a Tenth Century Church in Cappadocia
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Oct 17, 2019
El Nazar Kilise et ses alentours : une église du Xe siècle en Cappadoce et son environnement
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Jan 23, 2020
Waking Up Sleeping Monks: The monastic relationship to time in Byzantium (7th-12th centuries)
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Nov 3, 2022
Other Stylites: Examples of Stylitism in Cappadocia
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Aug 22, 2022
Reading reuse. Image recycling in Egypt and beyond
Cappadocia in central Anatolia is well-known in Byzantine studies; it was notably the birthplace ... more Cappadocia in central Anatolia is well-known in Byzantine studies; it was notably the birthplace of important Church Fathers such as Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzen in the 4th century, and it was the home to many eminent military leaders in the Middle-Byzantine period, including the emperor Nikephoras II Phokas. In material studies, the Middle-Byzantine period is particularly well-known for its numerous fresco-covered churches and other rock-cut edifices. However, the time period between these two eras is typically less studied and certainly less understood. Between the 5th-8th centuries, references to Cappadocia in historical sources are limited, and the churches decorated during this period are far outnumbered by those from the later periods. If we look underneath the painted decorations of the Middle-Byzantine churches, though, we often find evidence of earlier usage.
The rocky nature of the region made the structures perfect for re-use. Whereas built structures can be taken apart brick-by-brick in order to erect new buildings, rock-cut structures are typically not destroyed for re-use. Instead, they are more easily used in the forms in which they are found or slightly altered by cutting deeper into the rock. In this way, Cappadocia is an interesting case for the study of the re-use of monuments and particularly in the re-decoration of these monuments. In this talk, we will highlight one church in particular, El Nazar Kilise in Göreme, which was possibly sometime before the 9th century as a monastic church, and then recycled in the later 9th-10th centuries for a small community. The church itself was redecorated, though traces of the original decoration are still visible, and new elements were carved into the church for its new function, including a new side chapel and arcosolium.
This study will examine the changes to the church's architectural planning and iconographic program, and it will compare the structure to other early monastic complexes in Egypt, Syria, and the Holy Land. By understanding the changes in the church's use and decoration over time, we will gain insight into the region's inhabitants throughout the centuries, particularly during moments in time when textual sources are limited.
7th Forum Medieval Art / Forum Kunst des Mittelalters,
This paper considers both the absence of natural light within Cappadocian rock-cut monuments and ... more This paper considers both the absence of natural light within Cappadocian rock-cut monuments and the role of circadian light on the perception of their exterior sculpted façades. Although the walls of rock-cut monuments could be more easily pierced than those of built architecture, Cappadocia’s rock-cut monuments tend to have very few windows, if any at all. Instead, artificial light is the main source of ecclesiastic illumination. At the same time, natural light is a major factor in the perception of rock-cut Cappadocian architecture; depending on the time of day and on the particular carving techniques that are used to carve the façade of a given monument, light has a distinct effect on how a monument’s exterior fits into the landscape.
The relationship between art, architecture, and light, and landscape in Cappadocian monuments opens questions about the role of light and the absence of light within the practice of the liturgy, and studying the changing nature of natural light throughout the day opens questions about the role that time played in the perception and the vitality of Cappadocia’s monuments. The study of the extremely large corpus of Middle-Byzantine art and architecture in Cappadocia is crucial to understanding provincial Byzantine art and architecture more globally.
Parole aux doctorants du Centre André Chastel, Actualités de la recherche, 2020
45th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2019
54th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 2019, Panel Sponsored by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
Talks by Elizabeth Zanghi
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Papers by Elizabeth Zanghi
Calls for Papers by Elizabeth Zanghi
Conference Presentations by Elizabeth Zanghi
The rocky nature of the region made the structures perfect for re-use. Whereas built structures can be taken apart brick-by-brick in order to erect new buildings, rock-cut structures are typically not destroyed for re-use. Instead, they are more easily used in the forms in which they are found or slightly altered by cutting deeper into the rock. In this way, Cappadocia is an interesting case for the study of the re-use of monuments and particularly in the re-decoration of these monuments. In this talk, we will highlight one church in particular, El Nazar Kilise in Göreme, which was possibly sometime before the 9th century as a monastic church, and then recycled in the later 9th-10th centuries for a small community. The church itself was redecorated, though traces of the original decoration are still visible, and new elements were carved into the church for its new function, including a new side chapel and arcosolium.
This study will examine the changes to the church's architectural planning and iconographic program, and it will compare the structure to other early monastic complexes in Egypt, Syria, and the Holy Land. By understanding the changes in the church's use and decoration over time, we will gain insight into the region's inhabitants throughout the centuries, particularly during moments in time when textual sources are limited.
The relationship between art, architecture, and light, and landscape in Cappadocian monuments opens questions about the role of light and the absence of light within the practice of the liturgy, and studying the changing nature of natural light throughout the day opens questions about the role that time played in the perception and the vitality of Cappadocia’s monuments. The study of the extremely large corpus of Middle-Byzantine art and architecture in Cappadocia is crucial to understanding provincial Byzantine art and architecture more globally.
Talks by Elizabeth Zanghi