This volume of Dumbarton Oaks Papers includes a study of military and diplomatic initiatives in the northwestern Balkans during the reign of Justinian I, with a focus on the role of the Germanic tribe of Gepids, and an analysis of descriptions of motherhood in Byzantine literature. Other articles treat the illustration of ninth-century marginal psalters, re-evaluate the so-called Frame Group of twelfth-century ivories, suggesting a possible provenance from the Holy Land, and discuss the tombs in the Monastery of the Lips in Constantinople. The volume concludes with a fieldwork report on the Monastery of Shenute at Suhag in Upper Egypt (the “White Monastery”), a fieldwork report on the recent restoration of the Zeyrek Camii (Pantokrator Monastery) in Constantinople, and a bioarchaeological analysis of skeletal material from Sourtara in northern Greece.
