The Cyprus Institute

world class in its standards
international in its membership
partnered with established world class institutions
dedicated to the advancement of knowledge
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Synopsis

TIEM proposes an interdisciplinary study of the architectural legacy of the Eastern Mediterranean in the late medieval period. Specifically, the project focuses on the historical period that followed the collapse of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187 until the capture of Crete by the Ottomans in 1669. During this politically volatile period, islands became sociopolitical entities that served as the crossroads between East and West. Specifically, the great islands of Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes and Chios became Europe’s gateways to the East; as such, they are the central examples of this study. 

The means to achieve the project’s research objective are:

• The initiation of international collaboration in the creation of a digital database of selected monuments and sites from the late medieval period in the Eastern Mediterranean.
• The interdisciplinary study of the cultural heritage of the late medieval Mediterranean through a series of case studies (i.e. the islands of Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, Chios) that will help to define the history, the anthropology and the cultural identity of Europe’s gateways to the East.
• The revision of the historiographical traditions of the study of Crusader culture and society in the context of the Mediterranean’s Greco-Roman, Byzantine and Islamic background.
   

Contact person:

Dr Nikolas Bakirtzis, email: n.bakirtzis@cyi.ac.cy
Tel. +357 22208600