Margaret Mullett (Director of Byzantine Studies, Dumbarton Oaks) will deliver the 2015 Harvard Medieval Material Cultures Lecture. Her talk, Byzantium On the Move: Mobile Empire, Traveling Textiles, will take its cue from some middle Byzantine tent poems and then address two questions: first the implications for Byzantine ceremony and administration of the importance of tents in Byzantium, and then secondly the problem of arriving at a clear view of what Byzantine tents looked like.

The lecture will take place on Monday, March 9 at 5:30 pm in Barker Center 110 (the Thompson Room), 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge. A reception precedes the lecture at 4:30 pm.

Interwoven: Textiles from the Medieval Mediterranean, the 2015 Harvard Medieval Material Cultures Workshop, will explore the production, uses, and meanings of textiles in the Byzantine, Islamic, and Latin Mediterranean basin, drawing upon the rich collections of the Harvard Art Museums. Presenters: Gudrun Bühl, Katherine Eremin, Eurydice Georganteli, Brandie Ratliff, Georgina Rayner, and Elizabeth Williams.

The workshop will take place on Wednesday, March 11 from 10:30 am–1:00 pm. Space for the workshop is limited; to reserve a place, please contact Dana Ciccotello (dana_ciccotello@harvard.edu) at the Harvard Art Museums by Monday, March 9.

The events are co-sponsored by the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, the Harvard Art Museums, the Harvard University Standing Committee on Medieval Studies, and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross.