Portal:Byzantine Empire/DYK

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Did you know...

...that the founder of Byzantine studies in Germany is considered to be the philologist Hieronymus Wolf, a Renaissance humanist who, approximately 100 years after the final conquest of Byzantium by the Ottomans, began to collect, edit, and translate the writings of Byzantine philosophers?

...that although Anna Komnene was carefully trained in the study of history, mathematics, science, and Greek philosophy, her parents banned her from studying ancient poetry because of its depictions of lustful gods and unchaste women and that despite her parents' attempts to restrict her, Anna furtively studied the forbidden poetry with one of the imperial court’s eunuchs?

... that the Madaba Map is the oldest surviving original cartographic depiction of the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem?
... that the Chludov Psalter is a marginal Psalter made in the middle of the 9th Century containing illuminations that document the Byzantine iconoclasm?

... that there are many types of porphyry, some more common than others, but what made Imperial Porphyry so special and rare is that it is found in only one place on earth, atop a 1600-meter mountain in the eastern deserts of Egypt?
... that Constantine the Great celebrated the founding of his new capital, Constantinopolis (Constantinople), in the year 330 AD by erecting there a 30-meter (100') column, built of seven porphyry drums, or cylinders, that is still standing today?

...that the Milion (Greek: Μίλ(λ)ιον), was a monument of Constantinople and it was the origin and start of measurement of distances for all the roads leading to the cities of the Byzantine Empire and that it had the same function which the Milliarium Aureum of Rome still has today?
...that Anna Komnene was born in the purple chamber of the imperial palace of Constantinople and therefore she was a porphyrogenita?

... that Anna Komnene was a Byzantine princess and scholar who wrote the Alexiad, making her one of the first female historians after those such as Ban Zhao?

... that the Bureau of Barbarians, or Skrinion Barbaron, was a ministry of the government in the Byzantine Empire which begun as an Office of Protocol and became what is generally considered to be the first centralized foreign intelligence gathering agency (somewhat comparable to the modern Russian SVR or the British MI6) in world history?

... that the designation Porphyrogenitos or Porphyrogenita (literally "born in the purple") given to a newborn child (boy or girl) of a reigning Byzantine emperor was bestowed on condition that the child be born in the Porphyry Chamber of the Great Palace of Constantinople and that no child born anywhere else could legitimately be called thus?
... that the Hexamilion wall was built under the rule of Theodosius II to protect the Peloponnese peninsula against attacks from the north?

... that Isidore of Miletus was the architect who, together with Anthemius of Tralles, designed the cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople?

... that Friedrich Heinrich Blume, a former Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court, single-handedly translated into English Justinian’s Code and the Novels, two parts of the Corpus Juris Civilis?
... that the Hexagram was a large silver coin of the Byzantine Empire which was so named because it weighed about 6 grams?

... that hand grenades operating with Greek fire were used between 10-12th c. at Chania castle?

... that Byzantium after Byzantium is a 1935 book by the Romanian historian Nicolae Iorga, which deals with the impact of the fall of Byzantine Empire on European civilization and the legacy and continuation of Byzantine institutions and culture?

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