Temporal and Spatial Scope of Inquiry

To fully understand this epigraphic habit, our project will produce the first comprehensive corpus of donor inscriptions from all twenty Athonite monasteries, as well as from the Protaton, the peninsula’s central administrative church. Chronologically, the study spans from the 10th to the 17th centuries. This period encompasses the formation of the monastic communities and their development under two successive imperial frameworks: Byzantine and Ottoman. The 17th century marks a deliberate endpoint. In the 18th century, the national independence movements and the reforms of the Ottoman state reshaped social structures and introduced new political agendas. These changes significantly altered patterns of patronage and the character of epigraphic expression, signalling a transition into a distinctly modern historical context.

Objectives and Broader Scholarly Contributions

At its core, the project seeks to clarify the questions of agency and reception. Who commissioned these inscriptions? What messages did patrons intend to convey? How were these messages understood within the broader Eastern Mediterranean world?

By creating a centralized Database of Athonite Inscriptions, the project will make accessible a significant body of evidence that has long remained physically dispersed and difficult to consult. Yet the aim extends beyond documentation. By situating these inscriptions within their religious, cultural, historical, and geographical contexts, the research will contribute to the broader discussions about the mechanisms that sustained Mount Athos as a trans-regional monastic centre over many centuries, and – more broadly – about the representations of patronage in pre-modern sacred spaces.