THE PROJECT
Our Aims
We will offer a fundamental re-evaluation of old and new evidence for the earliest ‘Islamisation of Europe’ after the Arab Conquests and the formation of lasting Muslim-Christian frontiers in the western Mediterranean.
We will produce a new landmark critique that integrates Mediterranean and Sardinian historiography redefining their relationships in terms of their mutual in- and inter-dependence.
We will offer an integrated, new, multidisciplinary study of networked and negotiated modalities of power and social interaction between the rulers, the rural elites, small landholders and the wider population in Sardinia.
We will assemble a new display to explain medieval Sardinian and Mediterranean history through the most important and representative artefacts.
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OUR BLOG
Sardinia goes to Tunisia! Harvard-hosted panel on the Global Middle Ages
The Tunisia Office of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University hosted our panel seminar entitled ‘Tunisia in the Global Middle Ages’, on 27 June 2022. All the presentations were delivered by our project’s researchers: Dr Alex Metcalfe, Dr Hervin Fernandez-Aceves and Dr Marco Muresu. Each one of them had the opportunity to Read more about Sardinia goes to Tunisia! Harvard-hosted panel on the Global Middle Ages[…]
Our most recent book is now on the shelves!
The Making of Medieval Sardinia We are pleased to announce the publication of The Making of Medieval Sardinia, edited by Alex Metcalfe, Hervin Fernández-Aceves and Marco Muresu (Leiden–Boston: Brill). 520 pages with 3 maps and 66 colour illustrations. Available in hardback and eBook. Further details are available here. This new volume combines classic and revisionist essays Read more about Our most recent book is now on the shelves![…]
New publication by Thomas Birch and international colleagues on interpreting lead isotopes
One of our Co-Investigators, Tom Birch, is part of a team that has recently been published about new findings on lead isotopes interpretation. You can read the abstract and consult the article here! The conventional approach to ore provenance studies of ancient silver coins and artifacts has been to first analyze and then try to Read more about New publication by Thomas Birch and international colleagues on interpreting lead isotopes[…]
Our postdoc Marco Muresu was in Dumbarton Oaks, in a one-month research award
Marco Muresu, one of our very own postdoc researchers and archaeologists, spent a month in Dumbarton Oaks as an awardee for a project entitled: ‘The Byzantine Seals of Sardinia: a new comparative approach’. While at DOaks, Marco was part of the Byzantine Studies’ staff section of the Centre, under the direction of Anna Stavrakopoulou and Read more about Our postdoc Marco Muresu was in Dumbarton Oaks, in a one-month research award[…]
A note on Arabic ingots
The root meaning of s-b-k has always been associated with metal processing. E.W. Lane An Arabic–English Lexicon, 8 parts, (London 1872), IV, p. 1300, s-b-k ‘to melt’; sabīka, pl. sabāʾik ‘ingot, piece of gold or silver of an oblong form that has been melted, cleared of its dross and pour forth into a mould (misbaka) Read more about A note on Arabic ingots[…]
A Sardinian mission to Córdoba
Delegations from Sardinia and Amalfi to the caliph of Córdoba, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III (r. 929–61) in the year 942, as reported by Ibn Ḥayyān (d. 1075): “On Tuesday 8th of Dhū l-Ḥijja [330 H/24 August 942 CE], an envoy of the lord (ṣāḥib) of the island of Sardinia (Sardāniya) arrived at the gate of al-Nāṣr Read more about A Sardinian mission to Córdoba[…]
‘India for ivory, Sardinia for silver, Attica for honey!‘: Getting the coin analysis started!
‘India for ivory, Sardinia for silver, Attica for honey!‘ These were the well-known words of the Roman geographer, Solinus, which show the reputation that Sardinia’s silver had acquired in Classical Antiquity. Many centuries later, grants to exploit this precious resource were made to the Pisans at a time when they exerted power on the island Read more about ‘India for ivory, Sardinia for silver, Attica for honey!‘: Getting the coin analysis started![…]
International conference ‘Monete frazionate. Quadri regionali, questioni cronologiche, aspetti economici’
Our PDRA Dr Marco Muresu attended the International Conference ‘Monete frazionate. Quadri regionali, questioni cronologiche, aspetti economici’. The conference was held in Milan on 16-17 September 2019, and was organised by the Catholic University of Milan and the University of Salerno. Dr Muresu presented a poster entitled ‘Monete frazionate dai contesti funerari della Sardegna bizantina’, Read more about International conference ‘Monete frazionate. Quadri regionali, questioni cronologiche, aspetti economici’[…]
Evidence for Sardinian metal in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Byzantine period
Thomas Birch, one of our Co-Investigators, is part of a team that has published results on the coinage from Jerash/Gerasa, challenging the ‘5th century CE monetary crisis’, identifying potential metal sources and furthering our understanding of monetary organisation in the Eastern Mediterranean. In his paper, new compositional and metallographic data are presented for the fourth Read more about Evidence for Sardinian metal in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Byzantine period[…]
The AHRC Project
This is a four-year project to explain the history of Sardinia in its medieval Mediterranean context. We are an international team of historians and archaeologists with transdisciplinary skills who will test key hypotheses about Sardinia’s unique political development as well as its society and the ways that the island has been understood in the past. With our eleven international collaborating partner institutions, we will establish a major new exhibition of medieval Sardinian history at the Museo Nazionale in Cagliari. With short tours to smaller museums too, we expect more than 300,000 visitors during the project itself, at the end of which the exhibition will be hosted on a permanent basis.