The Africa & Byzantium exhibit is now at the Met Museum until March 3rd, 2024 before heading off to the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Art history has long emphasized the glories of the Byzantine Empire (circa 330–1453), but less known are the profound artistic contributions of North Africa, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and other powerful African kingdoms whose pivotal interactions with Byzantium had a lasting impact on the Mediterranean world.
Bringing together a range of masterworks—from mosaic, sculpture, pottery, and metalwork to luxury objects, paintings, and religious manuscripts—this exhibition recounts Africa’s central role in international networks of trade and cultural exchange. With artworks rarely or never before seen in public, Africa & Byzantium sheds new light on the staggering artistic achievements of medieval Africa. This long-overdue exhibition highlights how the continent contributed to the development of the premodern world and offers a more complete history of the vibrant multiethnic societies of north and east Africa that shaped the artistic, economic, and cultural life of Byzantium and beyond.
I’m glad to see these regions getting their overdue attention! There’s also a catalog of the expo: https://store.metmuseum.org/africa-and-byzantium-80057839
As I’ve mentioned, my latest historical fiction novel Jayida is in the context of Arabian, Sasanian (Persian), Jewish, and Aksumite (Ethiopian) relations. Set in the pre-Islamic sixth century, this includes the explosive 523 AD massacre of Christians in Najran that marks 1500 years this year. Encouraged by Emperor Justin I, Negus Kaleb‘s ensuing incursion to offending Jewish-ruled Himyar (modern-day Yemen and southern Arabia) in defense of martyred Christian Ethiopians and Arabs reinstated Christian Ethiopian rule in the region that would last for the next 40 years.
Would def love to see more such exhibits of this era shown far and wide!
Sirène de la Mer- Natacha Pavlov 