Robert G. Ousterhout

Bonna D. Wescoat

This book investigates the role of architecture in the construction of sacred experience in ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian and Byzantine cultures.

Space, Ritual, and Experience from Classical Greece to Byzantium

Architecture of the Sacred

The Architecture of the Kariye Camii in Istambul

Professor Department of the History of Art and Director of the Center for Ancient Studies Robert G Ousterhout

Based on four seasons of fieldwork, this book presents the results of the first systematic site survey of a region rich in material remains. From architecture to fresco painting, Cappadocia represents a previously untapped resource for the study of material culture and the settings of daily life within the Byzantine Empire.

A Byzantine Settlement in Cappadocia

The Blessings of Pilgrimage

Written by recipients of the John Freely Fellowship awarded annually through the American Research Institute in Turkey from a major gift from the Joukowsky Family Foundation of New York to honor a celebrated author of travel and history books, this volume focuses particular attention on the city of Istanbul, its history, and institutions during the Ottoman and Republican periods. Chapters by young scholars consider the office of the Ottoman Court Historian, opposing voices during the reign of Sultan Süleyman, naming Turkish Sabbatians, Istanbul's population variables, and changes in Turkish tobacco production. Contributors: Emine Fetvac (Department of History of Art, Stanford University), Erbu Turan (Department of History, Fordham University), Cengiz Sisman (Department of History, TOBB-ETU University), Betül Basaran (Department of Philosophy and Religion, University of Chicago), and Ebru Kayaalp (Department of Anthropology, Rice University).

The Freely Papers

Studies on Istanbul and Beyond

In this book, a distinguished team of authors explores the way space, place, architecture, and ritual interact to construct sacred experience in the historical cultures of the eastern Mediterranean. Essays address fundamental issues and features that enable buildings to perform as spiritually transformative spaces in ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, early Christian, and Byzantine civilizations. Collectively they demonstrate the multiple ways in which works of architecture and their settings were active agents in the ritual process. Architecture did not merely host events; rather, it magnified and elevated them, interacting with rituals facilitating the construction of ceremony. This book examines comparatively the ways in which ideas and situations generated by the interaction of place, built environment, ritual action, and memory contributed to the cultural formulation of the sacred experience in different religious faiths.

The Kariye Camii remains one of the most important and best-known monuments of the Byzantine world. Rebuilt and decorated in the early 14th century by statesman-scholar Theodore Metochites, the monument played a key role in the development of Late Byzantine art. Ousterhout presents a structural history and architectural analysis of this building.

Robert G. Ousterhout

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