Scholars have long shown how the churches of the Armenian Bagratid kingdom (10^th-11thc) find their sources in local buildings of earlier centuries.  Yet few have explored the evidence which connects Bagratid-era elites most directly to their earlier built landscape: the royal inscriptions recording donations, tax exemptions, and renovations, which appear on early churches standing within the royal domains. These texts are obviously of great value not only for historians of the legal and economic systems of medieval Armenia; yet that they are of great importance for art history as well. This lecture will examine the tangible and specific ways in which Bagratid patrons engaged with their local past in the inscriptions upon earlier monuments in Shirak.

Christina Maranci is Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies in the Departments of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization and History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. Her work explores the art and culture of Armenia in all aspects, but with special emphasis on the late antique and medieval periods. Maranci also works as a cultural heritage advocate for at-risk Armenian churches.

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Christina Maranci photo, Armenian church of Mren (mod. Eastern Turkey), 7^th century, 2022.

All Princeton University staff, faculty and researchers are invited.

The in-person event is by invitation only RSVP: Monday, October 31, 2022 to [email protected]