Paroma Chatterjee
University of Michigan, History of Art, Faculty Member
This article discusses the value of unknown monuments as construed by the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai, a catalogue of the monuments of Constantinople compiled, according to some scholars, in the eighth century. I contend that the... more
This article discusses the value of unknown monuments as construed by the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai, a catalogue of the monuments of Constantinople compiled, according to some scholars, in the eighth century. I contend that the Para-staseis imagines the topography of Constantinople as one composed of nodes of the unknown. I further argue that these unknown spaces and monuments articulated the city's links to its ancient-if forgotten-past and thus played a critical role as markers of urban and historical continuity. In particular, ancient statues were associated with the longevity of the Byzan-tine Empire in a way that holy icons were not, because the former had never been subjected to the atrocities and debates regarding their validity that the latter had during Iconoclasm.
