Tabula Imperii Byzantini

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The Tabula Imperii Byzantini (abbreviated TIB) is a research project of the Austrian Academy of Sciences on the historical geography of the Byzantine Empire .

Story and purpose

The project goes back to the initiative of the Byzantinist Herbert Hunger and was first presented by him in 1966 at the 13th International Byzantinist Congress in Oxford. In the same year, the Philosophical-Historical Class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences set up the commission for the Tabula Imperii Byzantini, which is responsible for processing; on January 1, 2006, this merged into the newly founded "Institute for Byzantium Research".

The aim of the Tabula Imperii Byzantini is to create an atlas of the Byzantine Empire . This consists of maps of the individual provinces on a scale of 1: 800,000. The old geographical names are written in black on these maps. The assignment of the settlements, fortresses and church facilities to individual epochs of the Byzantine Empire is shown by filling the signatures with colors. For areas where the map scale 1: 800,000 is not sufficient due to the density of entries, large-scale special maps are also produced. Extensive text volumes are assigned to the map sheets. These volumes contain as the main part in alphabetical order the names of places, corridors, settlements, monasteries, bodies of water, mountains etc. with a description of their location, history and monuments. The extensive introductory chapters to the TIB volumes provide information on borders, geography, administration, history, church, economy, population, settlements, architecture and transport connections.

The historical-geographical research work of the TIB is based on four categories of sources. These are: 1) the written sources (literary and non-literary texts as well as inscriptions), 2) the archaeological sources (monuments, remains of monuments, ceramics, etc.), 3) the onomastic sources (names of fields, settlements, bodies of water, mountains, etc.) as information carrier) and finally 4) the physical sources (natural conditions). The locations identified from sources, historical and archaeological specialist literature as well as travel literature are - as far as possible - visited in the course of tours so that personal observations, the exact location, their networking and the current state of the monument inventory can be documented in the respective volumes of the TIB.

Volumes of the Tabula Imperii Byzantini (TIB)

The appear to supplement and relieve the burden

Publications of the Commission for the Tabula Imperii Byzantini (VTIB)

  • VTIB 1: Johannes Koder: Negroponte. Studies on the topography and settlement history of the island of Euboia during the time of the Venetian rule. 1973, ISBN 3-7001-0020-5 .
  • VTIB 2: Friedrich Hild: The Byzantine road system in Cappadocia. 1977, ISBN 3-7001-0168-6 .
  • VTIB 3: Marcell Restle: Studies on the early Byzantine architecture of Cappadocia. 1979, ISBN 3-7001-0293-3 .
  • VTIB 4: Hansgerd Hellenkemper, Friedrich Hild: New research in Kilikien. 1986, ISBN 3-7001-0771-4 .
  • VTIB 5: Sophia Kalopissi-Verti: Dedicatory Inscriptions and Donor Portraits in Thirteenth-Century Churches of Greece. 1992, ISBN 3-7001-1927-5 .
  • VTIB 6: Hanns Michael Küpper: Building type and genesis of the Greek roof transept church. 1996, ISBN 3-7001-2571-2 .
  • VTIB 7: Klaus Belke, Friedrich Hild, Johannes Koder, Peter Soustal (eds.): Byzanz als Raum. On the methods and content of the historical geography of the Eastern Mediterranean. 2000, ISBN 3-7001-2872-X .
  • VTIB 8: Ewald Kislinger : Regional history as a source problem . The Chronicle of Monembasia and the Sicilian Demenna. A historical-topographical study. 2001, ISBN 3-7001-3001-5 .

All publications appear as memoranda of the Philosophical-Historical Class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in the publishing house of the Academy in Vienna.

Literature on the TIB

  • Johannes Koder: Reflections on the concept and method of the "Tabula Imperii Byzantini". In: Österreichische Osthefte. 20, 1978, pp. 254-262.
  • Herbert Hunger: Report on the Tabula Imperii Byzantini. Origin - construction - progress. In: XVIII. International Congress of Byzantine Studies. Major Papers, Moscow 1991, pp. 275-281.
  • Johannes Koder: The Tabula Imperii Byzantini and related projects. In: Karsten Fledelius (Ed.): Byzantium. Identity, image, influence. XIX. International Congress of Byzantine Studies. Major Papers, Copenhagen 1996, pp. 423-426.
  • Johannes Koder: Perspectives of the Tabula Imperii Byzantini. About planning, content and method. In: Geographia Antiqua. 5, 1996, pp. 75-86.
  • Johannes Koder: In the footsteps of an empire - The Tabula Imperii Byzantini. Reconstruction of the late antique and medieval settlement reality in south-eastern Europe and in the eastern Mediterranean. In: Presidium of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ed.): Creates: knowledge reading book. Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7001-2640-9 , pp. 107-110.
  • Klaus Belke: Tabula Imperii Byzantini. Un progetto di topografia e le sue prospettive per la Sicilia. In: Byzantino-Sicula IV. Atti del I Congresso Internazionale di Archeologia della Sicilia Bizantina (Corleone, 28 luglio-2 agosto 1998), a cura di Rosa Maria Carra Bonacasa. Palermo 2002, pp. 73-87.
  • Mihailo St. Popović: Mapping Byzantium - The Project “Macedonia, Northern Part” in the Series Tabula Imperii Byzantini (TIB) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In: K. Kriz, W. Cartwright, L. Hurni (Eds.): Mapping Different Geographies. (Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography). Berlin / Heidelberg 2010, pp. 219-234.
  • Andreas Külzer: Herbert Hunger and the historical geography: On the history and future of the Tabula Imperii Byzantini . In: A. Külzer (Ed.), Herbert Hunger and the Vienna School of Byzantine Studies: Review and Outlook. Studies in Historical Geography and Cultural Heritage 2. Vienna - Novi Sad 2019, ISBN 978-86-6263-243-2 , pp. 85–121.

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