Nesbitt, Oikonomides (eds), Byzantine Seals, vol 1 (1991)
[Bibliography]
Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art Italy, North of the Balkans, North of the Black Sea, John Nesbitt, Nikolaos Oikonomides (eds), vol. 1 Series Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection Catalogues, DOSeals (Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art) N. Oikonomides (Series Editor), (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. 1991)
From the Introduction by Nicolas Oikonomides ‘…The collection in this [five-volume] catalogue is one of the largest in the world. It is made up of four major collections that came ready, so to speak, and of miscellaneous pieces: there are 16,943 seals that have been read with profit, plus several hundred that are poorly preserved and can be used only in conjunction with other, better preserved specimens.
…The publication of the present [1st] volume was scheduled to coincide with the 18th International Byzantine Congress in Moscow, August 1991. Thus we chose to include here the seals concerning the territories of the Soviet Union, or, in other words, to include here all of Europe except for the tip of the Balkans and the region of Constantinople, which will have to be treated separately. The second volume will include the two shores of the Aegean and the Islands, and the third will be devoted to the heart and the eastern part of Asia Minor. The material in the present volume has been classified in geographic zones from west to east. The general geographical terms are placed at the beginning of each chapter. Thus we start with the general concept of the “West”, the limits of which are hard to define and which certainly include the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula, which is not covered by this volume. In order to group place names, we followed, by and large, the geographic organization of the empire as it appears in the Book of Themes of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos. Of course, this distribution is valid for only one small part of Byzantine history; but it happens that this is also the period for which we have large numbers of seals with geographic names. Also, the Book of Themes are here discussed next to what seems to be their closest theme.
Whenever there is more than one geographic name on a seal, we classify it according to the place mentioned last, which is usually where the official in question was effectively exercising his mandate…’
Contents: Introduction pp. VII-XIV. Abbreviations of Works Citied pp. XV-XX. Critical Signs and General Abbreviations p. XX. Chapter I ‘The West’ pp. 1-15. Chapter II ‘Italy and Africa’ pp. 16-39. Chapter III ‘The West Coast of the Balkans’ pp. 40-49. Chapter IV ‘The Region of Thessalonica’ pp. 50-92. Chapter V ‘The Morava-Vardar Corridor’ pp. 93-103. Chapter VI ‘The South Coast’ pp. 104-148. Chapter VII ‘From the Rhodope to the Danube’ pp. 149-154. Chapter VIII ‘The East Coast’ pp. 155-181. Chapter IX ‘The Hyperborean Lands’ pp. 182-194. Addendum: 36a ‘Morava’ pp. 195-196. Index of Proper Names and Terms pp. 197-242. Index of Iconography pp. 242-245. Vocabulary p. 246. Metrical Inscriptions pp. 247-248. List of Seals Published pp. 249-252. Table of the Usual Forms of Cruciform Invocative Monograms p. 253. Glossary p. 253.