HIS GRACE BISHOP JOACHIM OF AMISSOS PRESENTS PAPER AT DUMBARTON OAKS COLLOQUIUM

On October 29, 2021, His Grace Bishop Joachim of Amissos presented a paper entitled “The Imagery of Byzantine Lead Seals” in the Dumbarton Oaks (Harvard Center for Byzantine Studies) day-long, virtual, international colloquium Seals and Society in the Medieval World. The colloquium was held to mark the recent completion of the Dumbarton Oaks Online Catalogue of Byzantine Seals (for the online catalogue of approximately 17,000 seals, go to http://www.doaks.org/resources/seals). The participants included seal specialists dealing with Byzantine, Western medieval, and Middle Eastern medieval seals in order to promote comparisons and scholarly exchanges that addressed the different cultural approaches in the manufacture, use, and meaning of seals. The various topics discussed included notions of materiality, the construction of identity, the use and role of seals for the study of art history, diplomacy, history, documentary practices, the history of collections, and literary conventions.

His Grace, a graduate of Holy Cross, is Director of HCHC’s Archbishop Iakovos Library and Learning Resource Center and an internationally recognized authority on the iconography of lead seals, of which the Dumbarton Oaks collection is the largest and most comprehensive in the world.