Viewing the Unknown in Eighth-Century Constantinople

Abstract

This article discusses the value of unknown monuments as construed by the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai, a catalogue of the monuments of Constantinople compiled, according to some scholars, in the eighth century. I contend that the Parastaseis imagines the topography of Constantinople as one composed of nodes of the unknown. I further argue that these unknown spaces and monuments articulated the city’s links to its ancient—if forgotten—past and thus played a critical role as markers of urban and historical continuity. In particular, ancient statues were associated with the longevity of the Byzantine Empire in a way that holy icons were not, because the former had never been subjected to the atrocities and debates regarding their validity that the latter had during Iconoclasm.