Shannon Steiner, Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art, recently presented at the 40th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, held at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver BC, from November 6-9, 2014.

She was invited to participate in the session “Two Columns and a Stylite,” organized by Dr. Robert G. Ousterhout of the University of Pennsylvania. Her paper, titled “Pillars of the Community: Stylites as Architecture,” explored representations of stylite saints (early christian monks who lived their lives on top of columns) that either showed the saints with architectural features or that were executed directly on architectural elements like columns or piers. She contextualized these images in the common Byzantine understanding of architecture as a metaphor for community and argued that stylite saints purposefully merged their bodies with architecture in order to become monumental rallying points for new Christian communities.

Above is an image of one of the painted miniatures from the Menologion of Basil II.