MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO

Author

The Sevso Treasure: Part One

by Marlia Mundell Mango and Anna Bennett

It is a measure of the internationalism of the late Roman Empire that, despite prolonged legal action, the provenance of this hoard of 14 silver vessels and the copper cauldron which contained them is still uncertain. Claims for origin in Lebanon, Croatia and Hungary were all disputed in the court action, which ended in 1994 with the dispersal of the pieces to private collectors. This lack of context has lead the authors to try and reconstruct the possible appearance of the find `in situ' on the basis of wear traces. Very detailed b/w photographs of the objects illustrate the catalogue that takes up most of the book. As well as the catalogue, this volume contains chapters on technical examination and conservation, and the inscriptions, weights and dimensions. Part two will contain a typology of the objects, considerations of style and functions, and some speculation on ownership in antiquity, date and place of manufacture. 480p with many illus (Journal of Roman Archaeology Suppl.12:1, 1994)

ISBN 1887829121. Hardback. Price US $198.00

http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm?&ID=9974

THE CHURCHES AND MONASTERIES OF THE TUR 'ABDIN

Two studies by Gertrude Bell

Edited and revised by Marlia Mundell Mango

The Tur 'Abdin is a mountainous region in the south-east of modern Turkey, and is architecturally one of the most interesting areas for the study of early Christian architecture. In two journeys into the Tur 'Abdin early in this century, Gertrude Bell examined the more important monastic sites. Her two reports on these journeys, published in 1910 and 1913, made available for the first time a full study of the Christian architecture of the region, and her photographs are particularly valuable since many of the churches have since been destroyed or suffered considerable damage.

In the present volume these two seminal studies are reprinted, with the addition of over a hundred and twenty previously unpublished photographs of these monuments from the Bell archive. Gertrude Bell's text is printed as originally published, but has been up-dated by Marlia Mundell Mango with extensive notes which draw attention to subsequent work. The editor has also added an extensive Catalogue of sites and monuments visited by Bell in and around the Tur 'Abdin; this provides an alphabetical gazeteer to all of the sites mentioned in Bell's text, and supplies information about other sites and monuments visited by Bell, but of which she did not publish her photographs. The entries in this sixty-page Catalogue give the relevant information from Bell's published work for each monument; a bibliography of other work on it; building dates from inscriptions and texts; changes to the monument since visited by Bell; and a short summary of publications on the monument. Marlia Mundell Mango has also added a short glossary; a list of dated monuments in the region from A.D. 200-1500; an administrative list of provinces, metropolitan bishoprics and bishoprics covering the ecclesiastical administration of the region in late antiquity; a detailed map which incorporates most of this new information; a bibliography with a survey of archaeological and historical work on the Christian monuments of northern Mesopotamia and a total of 256 of Bell's plates, of which 128 are published here for the first time.

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