Description
BYZART – Byzantine Art and Archaeology on Europeana - collection arises from the eponym project co-funded by the European Commission as part of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) program. It gathers a great amount of images and audio-visual materials related to the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine cultural heritage, namely 76273 digital contents. They pertains to 29 previously never exploited archives, sometimes having required restoration and preservation measures. Original analogic archives included slides, glass plates, cardboards, gelatin silver prints, albumen prints, carbon prints, collotypes, photogravures, color prints, transparencies, watercolors, sketches and drawings. In addition, the collection encompasses one music archive of traditional Orthodox church music records and one audio-visual archive about the Byzantine monuments of Cyprus. For digitization purposes, high-standard digitization guidelines have been adopted by content providers. The customized metadata scheme is modelled on the Europeana Data Model and embeds Linked Open Data resources in order to ensure project interoperability and searchability. Most of the collection regards a great array of artistic and cultural expression related to the Byzantine Empire and its legacy. In order to maintain coherence and consistency with the original composition of archival collections, some records related to the Roman Imperial period are also included since comprised in the analogic collections. Therefore, the chronological range of BYZART collection spans from the 1st to the 20th c. AD and date references are categorized as follows: Imperial/Late Roman (1st-3rd c. AD); Early Byzantine/Late Antique Period (4th-6th c. AD); Byzantine Early Middle Ages (7th-9th c. AD); Middle Byzantine Period (10th-12th c. AD); Late Byzantine Period (13th-15th c. AD); Post-Byzantine (16th-20th c. AD); Western Early Middle Ages (7th-9th c. AD); Western Middle Ages (10th-15th AD). Further chronological details are sometimes included in the description of single items.

Description
The collection includes the photographic documentation collected and preserved by research groups as part of archaeological missions or research projects of the Uniervsity of Bologna throughout the Byzantine Mediterranean. Before digitization, this material was preserved on heterogeneous media such as negatives, b/w and color printed photographs, digital images and videos. It pertains to monuments, archaeological sites and artifacts photographed for personal and scientific documentation over the last fifty years.

Description
The collection includes a significant amount of images from the photographic archive of the Italian Archaeological School in Athens, made available thanks to the long-standing collaboration established with the Department of Archaeology in the context of archaeological research in Crete and the Dodecanese. The archive of Byzantine-related materials consists in the digital reproduction of slides and cardboards and represents a unique source of information not only about art and architecture, but also about the history of the Italian Archaeological School itself in Greece. One of the most interesting and valuable sections of this collection is about watercolors and old photos dating to the dawn of modern archaeology.

Description
The collection includes digitized reproductions of photos coming from national photographic archives, such as the Fototeca Nazionale, but also from purchases or donations from museums, private archives and auction houses. Before digitization, the archive included mostly b/w prints on paper: gelatin silver prints, albumen prints, carbon prints, collotypes, photogravures, with a smaller section of color prints and transparencies. Depicted topics range from architecture to sculpture, mosaic, painting, manuscript illuminations, ipainting and jewelry.

Description
The collection includes images of artworks, mainly sculpture of Classical, Hellenistic and Roman art, belonging to Giorgio Gualandi archive, digitized in the framework of Europeana Archaeology project.

Description
The collection consists of pictures of architecture and interior decoration o churches in Debar, as well as works by the icon-painters from the Art school of Debar (present-day Republic of Macedonia).

Description
The collection consists of pictures from the research projects "Corpus of Mural Paintings 17th c". The autors of the pictures were photographs and scientific researchers of the Institute (second half of the 20th century).

Description
The collection depicts icon painting heritage with a vast historical scope (11th– 19th century): frescoes fragments, mural paintings before and after preserving interventions, mural paintings from the important monuments of the Bulgarian Christian heritage; icon painting schools, icon painters and icon painter’s families, master builders, donors.

Description
The collection consists of pictures depicting monuments of the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine art on the territory of Bulgaria and its neighbouring countries in the Balkan Peninsula.

Description
The collection consists of pictures depicting monuments of the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine art on the territory of Bulgaria and its neighbouring countries in the Balkan Peninsula.

Description
The archive consists of the digitization of 800 frames divided into two categories: architectural drawings and photo documentation of the architectural monuments from the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine period. In the first category sketches and schemes of the churches are included, as part of the research projects of the architects M. Bichev, Iv. Popov, M. Mileva, Al. Mladenov, T. Grozeva, B. Meshulan, M. Alkakaj etc. from the second half of the 20th century. The collection depicts Christian buildings in Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece.

Description
The collection consists of color photographs from Byzantine monuments in Greece, mainly in Thessaloniki and Dion in Macedonia, with an emphasis on architecture and architectural sculpture

Description
The collection consists of color photographic material from Macedonia (wall decoration of the church of Kountouriotissa in Pieria), Mount Athos (phiale of the Vatopedi monastery), Peloponnese (interior of the church of Saint Sophia in Monemvasia) and some Post-Byzantine icons from the Monastery of Prophet Elias in Zakholi, in Korinthia.

Description
The collection comprises photographic archives bequeathed to the Department of Archaeology of the University of Thessaloniki by eminent scholars. Before digitization, this documentation consisted of photographic prints, slides and negatives, in both b/w and color. The biggest part of it belonged to Stylianos Pelekanidis and it was gathered during his active occupation in Greece as a Byzantinist, a member of the Greek Archaeological Service and, later, a professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The material related to Elli Pelekanidou is also relevant to her activity with the Archaeological service as a Byzantine archaeologist in Thessaloniki. The photographic archive of Stylianos Pelekanidis is the result of his scientific research in places which were under his responsibility in Greece. At Philippi it comprises of the excavation of the Octagonal church complex as well as material from the Christian necropolis; in Kastoria it refers to the documentation of the architecture and painting decoration, as well as to wooden furniture and minor objects of the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine churches of that city; at the area of the Prespes Lakes it includes the documentation of the ruins of St. Achillios basilica and the painting decoration of the monastic hermitages along the shore of the greater lake. Another part of the archive includes photographic documentation of Pelekanidis’ restoration projects in Serres, at the Rotonda and at the Byzantine churches of Prophetes Elias and Agia Aikaterini in Thessaloniki, as well as documentation from his several trips to the monasteries of Mount Athos. The latter part contains photographs and slides of the architecture of the monasteries as well as of their painted decoration, icons and minor objects. A part of the archive consists of material dating before 1953 and it is probably connected with Andreas Xyngopoulos, who was professor of Byzantine Archaeology at the Aristotle University in the early postwar years, and includes old postcards, prints and slides related to Byzantine monuments of Southern Greece. Another part of the photographic archive is related to Pelkanidis’ career as a professor at the Aristotle University. It consists of photographs and slides from the study trips with students to the Byzantine monuments of Greece, Cyprus and the Byzantine monuments of former Yugoslavia. Together with this material, the archive contains a number of prints produced during the research projects of professor Pelekanidis and his associates to the chair of Byzantine Archaeology. Finally, the part of the archive related to Elli Pelekanidou consists of slides from the salvage excavations that she oversaw in lots of the city of Thessaloniki.

Description
The collection consists of b/w and color photographs from Post-Byzantine monuments in Kastoria (Fig. 2). The archive focuses on the documentation of the churches decorated with mural paintings of the 17th century.

Description
The collection consists in the digitized reproduction of part of the wide analogic archive stored in the Classense Library, in the so-called Ricci Halls. It consists of a large number of pictures depicting Ravenna and its historical monuments. The good conservative condition of this archive, in particular of the correspondence section, is connected to the role of Superintendent, that Corrado Ricci performed from 1897, as the first Italian municipal officer in charge of the cultural heritage prevention monuments. The collection depicts and witnesses the several restoration interventionscarried out from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of 20th century on Ravenna monuments, whose aim was to take back Byzantine architectures to their original aspect.

Description
The collection consists in the digitized reproduction of part of the wide analogic archive stored in the Classense Library belonging to Mons. Mario Mazzotti, archaeologist expert of Ravenna antiquities and director of the Archiepiscopal archive. He worked in the postwar period and his photographic archive is composed by photographs depicting archaeological sites and restoration campaigns performed at the time. The majority of archaeological sites and restorations that he documented refers specifically to the Ravenna territory. In addition to his photographic documentation a large quantity of postcards negatives and lantern slides belonging to Mario Mazzotti’s academic career, is conserved.

Description
The collection consists of pictures from the research projects "Corpus of Mural Paintings 19th c". The autors of the pictures were photographs and scientific researchers of the Institute (second half of the 20th century).

Description
The musical archive consists of 2002 samples digitalized from analogic music records. They present church chanting dating to the second half of the 20th century recorded in Bulgarian churches from the associated members of the Institute of Art Studies. The archive includes also fieldwork recording of orally transmitted Orthodox chant.

Description
The collection includes images of churches, monasteries, mural paintings, icons, liturgical vessels, cult objects, and everyday life items – objects related in different ways to Byzantine art. Some of them – the religious ones – kept the conservative form of the models, while others, like cult objects – pilgrim offerings, donor items, secular accessories etc. – fell easily under the influence of the dominant Ottoman culture or accepted the new trends of the Western European culture. The presented pictures reveal a large part of the religious buildings in Bulgaria – temples from the 1st century AD, rock-hewn monasteries, medieval churches and churches of 19th century, the most flourishing period in the construction of Christian buildings. Some of the buildings do not exist anymore.

Description
The collection consists of pictures depicting monuments of the Roman, Byzantine and Post-Byzantine art on the territory of Bulgaria and its neighbouring countries in the Balkan Peninsula.

Description
The collection consists in about 1500 images from the International Centre for the Documentation of Mosaic archive of Ravenna. Pictures mostly depict mosaic decorations of UNESCO Monuments in Ravenna.

Description
The collection pertains to the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, which includes five Cyprological collections and two museums. It depicts monuments, architectures, mosaics, frescoes, icons related to Cypriot history and cultural heritage. Moreover, the collection has been endowed with more than 600 digital photographs including Byzantine and Medieval coins, museum exhibits of the Pierides Foundation collection and images of Byzantine Art and Architecture of the Holy Bishopric of Morphou.

Description
The collection includes several artworks, namely devotional icons as well as brass and wooden crosses. Within the BYZART project, OUC created a synergy with the Museum to enrich its digital collection by commissioning high-quality digital photographs of Byzantine coins.

Description
The digital collection of audio-visual contents consist of documentary episodes related to the history of Cyprus in the Byzantine period and the later Middle Ages. The three documentary TV series are History of Byzantine Cyprus, History of Medieval Cyprus, Church of Cyprus - Two Thousand Years of History and Culture. Further material was added to the collection concerning a variety of topics such as monuments of specific regions on the island. All material is in Greek language.

Description
The collection comprises digital reproductions of published Late Roman and Byzantine artefacts from three museums of the Department of Antiquities, namely the Cyprus Museum (Nicosia), the Cyprus Medieval Museum (Limassol) and the Archaeological Museum of the Paphos District. It features a variety of objects, ranging from ceramics and tomb slabs to silver vessels and gold jewellery. The other part of the collection consists of selected photographs from related monuments - including the painted churches in the Troodos region, listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites. It notably incorporates photographs from occupied Cyprus, yet taken before the 1974 war. The important contribution of this digital collection lies not only in bringing together the photographic documentation of relevant archaeological material from all over Cyprus but also in making it accessible for the first time as a whole to the general public.

Description
The collection depicts artifacts and archaeological sites of Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and exhibitions of European museums with an emphasis on the Late Antique Period.

Description
The collection includes digital photographs of artworks from the Museum of the Holy Monastery of Kykkos’s collections (3rd to 15th century AD). It ranges from jewellery to liturgical objects and from illuminated manuscripts to painted decoration.

Description
The collection contains more than 600 digital photographs - taken in black and white and color - including digitized material from negatives, from the 1950s until the present. It also incorporates a small number of panels from travelling exhibitions, produced by the Photographic Department of the Press and Information Office. The collected material portrays the religious art and architecture of Cyprus ranging from the Late Roman period to the Late Middle Ages, with a special emphasis on its Byzantine cultural legacy. A notable part of the material records mosaic and painted decoration before and after ripping from the walls of now occupied Byzantine monuments in the aftermath of the 1974 war.

Description
The collection comprises digital reproductions of a selection of published objects of the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia. A treasure of two hundred coins is among the featured objects. Great emphasis is placed on Cypriot medieval glazed ceramics, reflecting the strength of the museum’s collection.