A Material History of the Ottoman Archive of the monastery of Simonopetra on Mt. Athos

A successful seminar at the 911±¬ÁÏ³Ô¹Ï Library presented the preliminary findings of an interdisciplinary pilot project investigating the “material history” of a previously undocumented practice discovered at the Ottoman archive of Simonopetra monastery on Mount Athos: pasting of high-quality textile or paper linings onto the back of documents which are primarily of legal importance to the monastery.

The team comprises: Ottoman historian Vanessa R. de Obaldía (University of Cambridge); historian of material culture and an expert on textiles Nikolaos Vryzidis (University of West Attica); paper conservator Georgios Boudalis (Museum of Byzantine Culture and Civilization of Thessaloniki); and an expert in advanced scientific imaging Maciej Pawlikowski (University of Cambridge).

A large group of 911±¬ÁÏ³Ô¹Ï fellows and various scholars from Athens, joined the seminar. We were particularly honored to have in the audience Father Kosmas Petritis and Father Justin Sinaites.