Territories and Boundaries

Crossing rivers in Byzantium and Beyond

Fingarova, Galina (ed.)
Külzer, Andreas (ed.)

Rivers are essential elements of nature that shape the physical landscape and the way of life of people in their surroundings. They define territories and boundaries, separating and connecting in a real and a figurative sense. The crossing of rivers with man-made devices such as fords, rafts, ferries and bridges of various materials demonstrates the dominion of humankind over nature and provides advantages in many areas of human life: social, economic, military. The physical appearance and the effort to construct crossings have granted them symbolic meaning, ranging from triumphal monuments visualizing the conquest of a river and expansion of state territory to places of transition defining a space between opposed worlds.
In order to investigate for the first time the peculiarities of river crossings in the Byzantine empire, the present volume places them in a broad chronological and geographical context. It includes sixteen papers by established and emerging scholars from various European academic institutions and multiple disciplines, stretching chronologically from Late Antiquity to the 16th century and geographically from Jordan to Great Britain. Based on an interdisciplinary discourse the volume shows different aspects of the Byzantine world that bring us further in our understanding of Byzantium.