History Department Special Lecture - "Toasting the Defeat of the ‘Barbarians?" A Byzantine Material Culture Mystery

These drinking bowls are unusual in terms of their shape and decoration, bearing representations of human faces, here identified as stereotypical images of Avars, a nomadic people of the Eurasian steppe regarded by the Byzantines as “barbarians.” This presentation discusses how these vessels, in combination with other sources, shed light on the Byzantine cultural construction of the Avar “barbarian” and on historical events in 7th-Century Constantinople.