The historical region of Thrace has been a frontier (and confrontation) zone for more than a century among three modern states – Turkey, Bulgaria, and Greece. This condition has completely disrupted the landscape, created dysfunctional socioeconomic conditions, modified its geopolitical topography and impacted its historiography. Yet, for more than 15 centuries Thrace was the immediate hinterland and the heartland of an imperial capital. The Landscape and Rock-cut Architecture of Medieval Thrace (BRIA) project aims to redefine landscape continuities by investigating a group of – little-studied – rupestrian sites, currently divided among the 3 states. This two-year interdisciplinary research initiative involves an international team of scholars and PhD students from Koç University and other major universities/research institutions in Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, North America, and Canada. The central components of the project are two fieldwork trips in chosen rupestrian sites: the first was conducted in June 2022 and the second is planned for June 2023.

Organizers: Olivier Delouis (Maison Française d’Oxford, Campion Hall), Lilyana Yordanova (Musée du Louvre, École française d’Athènes).For Trinity Term 2023, the research programme “From Byzantium to the Ottoman world in South-Eastern Europe” (BYOSE), will co-sponsor the “Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar” (LABS) at the University of Oxford. The LABS is convened by Ine Jacobs (University College), Marc Lauxtermann (Exeter College),
Ida Toth (Wolfson College), and Olivier Delouis (MFO, Campion Hall).The BYOSE Seminar Series at Oxford will be devoted to the examination of space as a product of various social activities, from devotion and imagination to consumption and trade of goods. How quickly do the shift in mentalities and the re-appropriation of rural and urban landscapes occur compared to political changes in a transition phase? What is the part of innovation, conservatism or resistance in the territories concerned by the shift of powers?