Preface 1. Macroseismic information 2. Evaluation of macroseismic data 3. Catalogue of earthquakes 4. Evaluation of instrumental data 5. Long-term seismicity 6. Future challenges Appendix: Photographs of researchers in the field References Index.

Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East: A Multidisciplinary Study of Seismicity up to 1900

A companion to late Antiquity

Preface 1. The problem of Byzantium and the early Islamic conquests 2. The Byzantine Empire in an era of accelerating change 3. Difficulties in devising defences for Syria 4. The first Muslim penetrations of Byzantine territory 5. Early tests in southern Palestine 6. Problems of cohesion: the battle of Jabiya-Yarmuk reconsidered 7. The brief struggle to save northern Syria and Byzantine Mesopotamia 8. Byzantium, Armenia, Armenians, and early Islamic conquests 9. Controversy and confidence in the seventh-century crisis 10. Elements of failure and endurance Bibliography Index.

Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests

On the basis of a 14th-century account by the Genoese Gabriele de’ Mussi, the Black Death is widely believed to have reached Europe from the Crimea as the result of a biological warfare attack. This is not only of great historical interest but also relevant to current efforts to evaluate the threat of military or terrorist use of biological weapons. Based on published translations of the de’ Mussi manuscript, other 14thcentury accounts of the Black Death, and secondary scholarly literature, I conclude that the claim that biological warfare was used at Caffa is plausible and provides the best explanation of the entry of plague into the city. This theory is consistent with the technology of the times and with contemporary notions of disease causation; however, the entry of plague into Europe from the Crimea likely occurred independent of this event. he Black Death, which swept through Europe, the Near East, and North Africa in the mid-14th century, was probably the greatest public health disaster in recorded history and one of the most dramatic examples ever of emerging or reemerging disease. Europe lost an estimated one quarter to one third of its population, and the mortality in North Africa and the Near East was comparable. China, India, and the rest of the Far East are commonly believed to have also been severely affected, but little evidence supports that belief (1). A principal source on the origin of the Black Death is a memoir by the Italian Gabriele de’ Mussi. This memoir has been published several times in its original Latin (2,3) and has recently been translated into English (4) (although brief passages have been previously published in translation, see reference [5]). This narrative contains some startling assertions: that the Mongol army hurled plague-infected cadavers into the besieged Crimean city of Caffa, thereby transmitting the disease to the inhabitants; and that fleeing survivors of the siege spread plague from Caffa to the Mediterranean Basin. If this account is correct, Caffa should be recognized as the site of the most spectacular incident of biological warfare ever, with the Black Death as its disastrous consequence. After analyzing these claims, I have concluded that it is plausible that the biological attack took place as described and was responsible for infecting the inhabitants of Caffa; however, the event was unimportant in the spread of the plague pandemic. Origin of the 14th-Century Pandemic

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Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa

This article uses the recent controversy regarding the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas as a paradigm to challenge essentializing notions of an “Islamic” response to the image. Beginning with a history of premodern iconoclastic practice in the Islamic world, it explores the reception of the Bamiyan Buddhas in light of evidence for a complex range of responses to Buddhist and Hindu images in Afghanistan. Finally, it relates the destruction of Buddhist antiquities in 2001 not to a timeless theology of images but to the role of the museum as the locus of a secular iconolatry characteristic of the modern nation-state.

Between Cult and Culture: Bamiyan, Islamic Iconoclasm, and the Museum

History of the Byzantine Empire

The Goths in the Crimea

1204’te Konstantinopolis’in Düşüşünden Sonra Yakın Doğu’daki Genel Durum Trabzon İmparatorluğu’nun kuruluşu, IV. Haçlı Seferi ve 1204’te Konstantinopolis’te Latin İmparatorluğu’nun kuruluşuyla yakından ilgilidir. O dönemlerde Bizans İmparatorluğu’nun toprakları, bir kısmı Rum, bir kısmı da Frank olan birçok eyalete bölünmüştü; üç Rum eyaleti 1204’den sonra Yakındoğu tarihinde önemli bir rol oynama mukadderatına sahipti. Bu üç Rum merkezi, Konstantinopolis başkentliğinde Bizans İmparatorluğu’nun, yeniden kurulması fikrinin kaynağını oluşturmaktaydı ve onlerdan birisi bu çabayı başarılı bir biçimde gerçekleştirdi. Kendisini 1222’de Thessalonica (Saloniki) İmparatorluğu olarak deklare eden Epiros Despotluğu veya Prensliği, Balkanlardaki kısa süren geçici siyasî başarısından hemen sonra 1230’da Bulgar Kralı John Asen tarafından ve Konstantinopolis’i ele geçirmek için yaptığı iddialı planından vazgeçmeye zorlanmıştı. Böylece bu Prenslik bir daha yükselmemek üzere toprağa gömülmüştür. (Bu Prenslik bir daha asla doğmamak üzere tarihe karışmıştır) Diğer iki Rum merkezi, Theodoros Laskaris tarafından yönetilen Nicaea [İznik] İmparatorluğu ve Aleksios Kommenos’un yönettiği Trabzon İmparatorluğu’ydu. Bunların her ikisi de Küçük Asya’da kurulmuştu; ancak Konstantinopolis’e coğrafî açıdan yakın olan Nicaea, çok uzakta olan Trabzon’a göre,

A. A. Vasiliev

Papers

History of the Byzantine Empire

The Goths in the Crimea

The Foundation of the Empire of Trebizond (1204-1222)

The Russian attack on Constantinople in 860

Manuel comnenus and henry plantagenet