Sponsored by the Institute for Research in the Humanities.
Archaeological evidence of early Christianity in the wealthy Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain reveals a unique feature of its mosaic floors, placed in their small yet monumental churches. These floors were decorated with rich iconography rarely seen in the Western Mediterranean Christianity. These are not unique however for the Late Antique period (3rd to 8th centuries), finding close parallels to contemporary Jewish art of the Eastern Roman world. With innovating archaeological approaches, minorities become a material rather than a theoretical presence. When it comes to Baleares, at the heart of the Western Mediterranean, material and written sources reveal a society of coexistence and cooperation, but also of tension and conflict. But what was the nature of such interaction? How were they influenced by the powerful new Mediterranean center of Constantinople? And what can these unique Balearic findings tell us about Late Antique Judeo-Christian relations, and the minority realities of the modern world?