Der byzantinische Mensch in seinem Umfeld

Since 2011 the August Kestner Museum in Hannover has had a collection of 40 Byzantine lead seals on display 36 of whom were dedicated by the collector M. L. Zarnitz. These have been published in the catalogue “Ein Blick in die byzantinische Gesellschaft” [W. Seibt] and have recently been augmented by another 99 lead seals from the same provenance. As in the first volume, the closeup views of the small pieces were made by the museum photographer Christian Tepper and convert the unimposing objects into valuables of art-historical significance. While the first volume focussed on the sealing persons within their society, this one stresses – once more in chronological order – the individual, his desire to represent himself, and the way he would have liked to be perceived by contemporaries. It is characteristic that legends increased from single names, sometimes even enciphered as monograms, to substantial inscriptions in prose or verse. The book ends with a complete concordance list of the entire collection in chronological order, which forms a small but nice and well-published entity within the entire complex of some 100,000 surviving Byzantine lead seals.