Sardinia goes to Tunisia! Harvard-hosted panel on the Global Middle Ages

Posted on January 22, 2023January 22, 2023 by Hervin Fernandez Aceves

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[…]

cover of the book 'The making of medieval Sardinia'

Our most recent book is now on the shelves!

Posted on October 4, 2021October 16, 2021 by Hervin Fernandez Aceves

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

Posted on July 20, 2020July 20, 2020 by Hervin Fernandez Aceves

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

Posted on February 25, 2020February 25, 2020 by Hervin Fernandez Aceves

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

Posted on January 6, 2020February 11, 2020 by Hervin Fernandez Aceves

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

Posted on January 6, 2020February 11, 2020 by Hervin Fernandez Aceves

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!

Posted on January 6, 2020February 11, 2020 by Hervin Fernandez Aceves

‘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’

Posted on October 2, 2019January 6, 2020 by Hervin Fernandez Aceves

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

Posted on July 23, 2019October 5, 2019 by Hervin Fernandez Aceves

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[…]

Photograph of one of the murals of the church of S. Andrea Priu

The AHRC Project

Posted on June 13, 2019January 24, 2023 by Hervin Fernandez Aceves

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.

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