(Ebook) The Sixth Century: End or Beginning? by Pauline Allen, Elizabeth Jeffreys (eds.) ISBN 9781864200744, 9789004344709, 186420074X, 9004344705

(Ebook) The Sixth Century: End or Beginning? by Pauline Allen, Elizabeth Jeffreys (eds.) ISBN 9781864200744, 9789004344709, 186420074X, 9004344705

This paperback was originally published as Volume 10 in the series Byzantina Australiensia, Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, Department of Modern Greek, University of Sydney, Sydney nsw 2006, Australia, Brisbane 1996.The twenty-two papers contained in this volume are intended not as published conference proceedings but rather as a collection of essays focused on a theme. Indeed, although the majority were delivered at the conference held by the Australian Association for Byzantine Studies in Brisbane in 1995, six of them, those by Barry Baldwin, Daniel Callam, John Chryssavgis, Michael Maas, Mary Cunningham and Karl-Heinz Uthemann, were not read on that occasion, but were offered by their authors as contributions to a study of the sixth century and the extent to which it can be viewed as an end or a beginning.The choice of this theme is partly an obvious one, given that the preponderance of Byzantine scholarship in Australia focuses on late antiquity and the transition to the Byzantine Middle Ages. Partly, however, it offers a timely occasion to reflect on the strides that have been made in our understanding of the sixth century over the past three or four decades. During this time we have seen the publication of both important text editions (those of the works of Ps. Denys and Romanos come to mind as examples) and monographs, translations and commentaries (it is appropriate to mention here the outcomes of the Australian Malalas project). In addition we have witnessed a growth in awareness of the significance of oriental sources, whether written, monumental or pictorial, for the study of early Byzantium. Then too the concerted attention which the process of transformation of the seventh century has recently been receiving from Byzantine and other scholars incites a fresh attempt to consider the sixth century in context. If further justification were needed for the suitability or topical nature of the theme, one would only have to adduce the European Science Foundation project on the transformation of the Roman world from the fourth to the eighth centuries, coordinated by Evangelos Chrysos, one of the participants at the Brisbane conference.