Dumbarton Oaks

Join us on Thursday, October 23, for a public lecture by Maximilien Durand, director of the Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art at the Musée du Louvre.

Registration is free but required. Learn more about the event and register at www.doaks.org/events/byzan...

Calling all Byzantine, Pre-Columbian, Plant Humanities, and Garden and Landscape scholars! Fellowship and Grant applications for the 2026-2027 academic cycle are due by Saturday, November 1, 2025.
 
Learn more about DO's Fellowships and Grants and apply today at www.doaks.org/research/fel....

A Byzantine coin is overlaid onto a purple background. Overlaid text reads "The Medieval Academy of America's Byzantine Studies Prize; Submission must be a monograph in the field of Byzantine Studies; Submission is eligible in the fourth year after publication; Dossier must include two or three published reviews. Nominations due by OCTOBER 15 via the Medieval Academy of America's website."

Dumbarton Oaks proudly supports the 2026 Byzantine Studies Prize by The Medieval Academy of America, awarding $1,000 to a meritorious monograph in Byzantine Studies.

The deadline for nominations is Wednesday, October 15, 2025.
www.medievalacademy.org/page/Byzanti...

The Museum and Gardens at Dumbarton Oaks will remain open through the federal government shutdown. We look forward to welcoming visitors during our usual public hours.

The image, a book cover, reads: "Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. Medical Writings from Early Medieval England. Volume I. The Old English Herbal, Lacnunga, and Other Texts. Edited and Translated by JOHN D. NILES and MARIA A. D'ARONCO."

MEDICAL WRITINGS is a “valuable addition” to DOML, “one that will be of interest not only to those specializing in medieval English medicine, but also to a broader readership.”

Read the review: domedieval.org/books/medica...

In the center, a photo of Way in front of book covers. Below, a screenshot from the DO website reads "Land As Archive: Our landscape and gardens are a collection of historical narratives and embedded knowledge." Three maps introduce the text "Land As Witness: Trees serve as Dumbarton Oaks' living archive"; "Land as Ancestor: This property is part of indigenous ancestral territory"; "Land As Property: Many enslaved people lived and labored here - humans who were deemed property themselves."

Congratulations to Thaisa Way, Director of Garden and Landscape Studies, on receiving a Special Commendation by the jury of the J.B. Jackson Prize at the University of Virginia's Center for Cultural Landscapes.
Read the full announcement at www.arch.virginia.edu/news/center-....

The collage includes photos of the Pre-Columbian Studies Fellows and the Garden and Landscape Studies and Mellon Fellows, standing in front of a fence and trees smiling.

This image features a collage of a photo of the Byzantine Studies Fellows and the Tyler Fellows, both standing outdoors in front of a fence and trees, smiling.

This image features a collage of a photo of the Early Career Fellows and the Plant Humanities Initiative team, both standing outdoors in front of a fence and trees, smiling.

Presenting our 2025-2026 Fellows! Over the next year, they will advance scholarship in the areas of Pre-Columbian, Byzantine, Plant Humanities, Music, and Garden and Landscape studies.

Meet our fellows and their research projects at www.doaks.org/about/people....

Photograph of the Orangery in the Gardens. Ficus pumila vines hang over the glass walls and ceilings, and flower arrangements decorate tables and the floor. In the middle, an open door shows the surrounding trees. Overlaid text reads: "Museum and Gardens Closed; Tuesday, September 16," alongside the Dumbarton Oaks icon.

The Museum and Gardens at Dumbarton Oaks will be closed tomorrow, Tuesday, September 16. Daily tickets will not be sold and season passes will not be honored.
We look forward to welcoming visitors again on Wednesday, September 17.

[Alt text: Book cover. At top, brown strip with yellow text, “Texts from the Early Americas.” Below, brown text against beige background that tapers downward into a point, “The Book of the Dead from Huexotzinco (1619–1640). Below, yellow text against red background, "Tara Malanga, editor/translator."

BOOK OF THE DEAD is officially out! The second book in our Texts from the Early Americas series is the first transcription and translation of a Nahuatl-language death registry maintained by the Indigenous people of Huexotzinco, Mexico (1619–1640).

Get your copy: www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978088...

Sacralizing Violence in Byzantium — Harvard University Press Christians had always been concerned, since the faith’s inception, about the relationship between violence and belief. In Byzantium, this tension was explored not only in abstract theological texts bu...

This is the first book to examine the complex and shifting perceptions of premodern Christians toward violence and war through the lens of hymnography. Get your copy: www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978088...

Book cover. The bottom three-quarters is a silver plate. At the top of the plate, David confronts Goliath, and between them is a personification of the river from which David gathered stones for his sling. The bottom part of the plate depicts David and Goliath in battle, with a melee of soldiers in similar armor holding shields, swords, and spears. At the top of the cover: “Sacralizing Violence in Byzantium: Hymns, Empire, and the Narrowing of Christian Identity.” Below: “George E. Demacopoulos.”

Just published: SACRALIZING VIOLENCE IN BYZANTIUM!

[Image caption: Plate with the Battle of David and Goliath, Byzantine, 629–630. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917.]

Students and instructors in the 2025 Dumbarton Oaks / HMML Summer School, Introduction to Classical Armenian.

🧵(1) This month, 10 students from around the world gathered at HMML in Collegeville, Minnesota, to learn Classical Armenian language and paleography. 



Thanks to @dumbartonoaks.bsky.social and the Zohrab Information Center, Eastern Diocese, for sponsoring the course!

Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library tan book cover with text: "Medical Writings from Early Medieval England/Volume 1/ The Old English Herbal, Lacnunga, and Other Texts/Edited and Translated by John D. Niles and Maria A. D'Aronco." DOML logo overlaid above, and Harvard Trustees logo overlaid below.

We’re thrilled to announce that vol. 1 of MEDICAL WRITINGS FROM EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND has won the 2025 International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England Award for Best Translation or Edition! Thank you @isseme2025.bsky.social!

For this year’s awardees: isseme.org/2025/07/15/i...

Image description: Saguaro cacti tower over Arizona’s desert landscape. Courtesy of Daniel Ramirez, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Our July #PlantOfTheMonth feature on @jstordaily.bsky.social explores the saguaro’s ties to desert wildlife, human history, and environmental change.🌵
Check out “Saguaro Cactus: A Desert Sentinel’s Prickly Plight” by Nina Foster:
daily.jstor.org/saguaro-cactus…

Photograph of a late Roman bronze statue of a rearing horse, mounted on a black plinth, as seen from the side in the Courtyard Gallery, DO logo overlaid

Photograph of a late Roman bronze statue of a rearing horse, close-up of the head of the horse statue, profile of the horse's face has open eyes, nostrils and mouth and detailed carvings can be seen, DO logo overlaid

Our bronze horse is back on display! This centuries-old Arabian masterwork is now on view in the Courtyard Gallery. To learn more about this object, from its origins to its reconstruction process, visit the object file at
museum.doaks.org/objects-1/in...

Tan book cover from the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library with white title text: "Biblical and Pastoral Poetry; Alcimus Avitus." Black text underneath reads "Edited and Translated by Michael Roberts." DOML and Trustees of Harvard logos are overlaid.

BIBLICAL AND PASTORAL POETRY is “of high quality” and “a clear and uniformly excellent prose translation,” an essential read for scholars of Avitus.

Thanks, JML @brepols.net!

Read the review: domedieval.org/review-bibli...

Tan Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library book cover with following text: "Life of the Virgin Mary; John Geometres"; in black: "Edited and Translated by Maximos Constas and Christos Simelidis."

LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY is “an invaluable contribution to the fields of Byzantine literature, Mariology, and Eastern church history.”

Thanks, Speculum @uchicagopress.bsky.social !

Read the full review: domedieval.org/review-life-...

House Collections Manager Carla Galfano is back to tell us about one of the more particular pieces on display in the Museum: our Swiss heating stove!

Still curious? Check out this stove's object file and browse any of our other collections online! museum.doaks.org/objects-1/in...

A Renaissance-style painting depicts St. Benedict of Nursia. He’s a bald, elderly man with a long, flowing white beard and mustache, gazing toward the right of the frame with a gentle expression. He wears a dark, hooded robe, and a golden halo encircles his head. A dark, staff-like object is visible on the left side of the composition. The background is a muted, light color.

July 11 marks the feast of Benedict of Nursia, founder of what would become known as the Benedictine Order and a seminal figure in the development of the Western Christian monastic tradition more broadly. Get THE RULE OF SAINT BENEDICT today!

domedieval.org/books/the-ru...

Alt text: A medieval illumination depicts a male scholar in red robes and a black cap, seated on an ornate, high-backed throne-like chair. He holds an open book on a reading stand. To his left, a group of male students, one holding a book, sit on a long bench and listen intently. The background features a patterned blue wall.] [Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Français 216, fol. 43]

Submit a paper proposal for one of our 2026
@kzooicms.bsky.social sessions by Monday, September 15! Topics include the Menologion of Basil II, early medieval chronicles, and late antique and medieval Latin poetry and prose.

wmich.edu/medievalcong...

How did coffee become European? ☕

Find out in 'Stimulant Sea!' Chat with the curator, Postdoctoral Fellow Justin Mann, and come visit 'Stimulant Sea' to learn how coffee and sugar made their way to the present day. Now on view in the Museum through April 2026!
www.doaks.org/visit/museum...

Image of book cover. A colorful, bird’s-eye view illustration of the city of Tenochtitlan, surrounded by blue water. Text on a black banner overlaid at the bottom , “Mexico-Tenochtitlan: Dynamism at the Center of the World.” Below that, a green banner with text, “Barbara E. Mundy, Leonardo López Lujan, and Elizabeth Hill Boone, editors.”

Congratulations to MEXICO-TENOCHTITLAN: DYNAMISM AT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD, edited by Barbara E. Mundy, Leonardo López Luján, and Elizabeth Hill Boone for receiving the Prix Raymond et Yvonne Lantier 2025 from l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres! aibl.fr/prix-et-fondat…

Photograph of the Museum's Courtyard Gallery with an empty space on the floor covered in a rectangle of light that consists of the spotlights from the placement of the white chocolate house in 'The White House.'

Photograph of the Main House from the North Vista, foregrounded by a lawn with a square patch cut out, marking where the coal house from 'The White House' installation stood.

Everything reminds us of them 😔

Farewell to 'The White House,' our latest contemporary art installation by Miami-based artist Santiago Montoya. We will miss these iconic pieces and are honored to have had this installation on our grounds. Stay tuned for our next installation!

Composite image of two photographs of 'The White House' installation; left half shows a coal house structure in the middle of Lover's Lane Pool backgrounded by theater steps and a willow tree, right side shows white chocolate horizontal house structure laid on a coal plinth, foregrounded by a mosaic in the Courtyard Gallery of the Museum.

It's your last week to see 'The White House' by artist Santiago Montoya! You don't want to miss the chance to see this magnificent exhibition designed for our Museum and Gardens that spans over 10 acres of land.

'The White House' will be on view through Sunday, June 22.

[ID: Book cover. In center, Balsa sailing raft off Pimentel, Perú, May 20, 1894. Photograph by Hans Hinrich Brüning. © Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK), Hamburg; and Storm over sea, iStock 154894075, imagedepotpro. Text above: “Waves of Influence: Pacific Maritime Networks Connecting Mexico, Central America, and Northwestern South America. Christopher S. Beekman and Colin McEwan, editors.” On either side of this central image is open water with a storm on the horizon.]

WAVES OF INFLUENCE “is bound to be a keystone study for graduate students of anthropology or history, and anyone interested in . . . how humans in the deep past may have moved far beyond their cultural horizons.”

Thanks @spanishbulletin.bsky.social!

Read the review: tandfonline.com/toc/cbhs20/cur…

There will be a bit of us at @dumbartonoaks.bsky.social this summer! 🎉Very happy to report that our project coordinator has been awarded a summer fellowship in Byzantine Studies, where she will study the seals of the Triakontaphyllos famil. Kudos, @sealygirl.bsky.social!

Our Education Team works hard to ensure we can provide fun, engaging educational content to our visiting students. Designing these programs allows space for play and interactivity that students from @dccollaborative enjoyed recently! #GameMW @museum-week.org

Join us and @nybg for the fourth installation in our Plant Humanities Conversations: Soil Imaginaries! Wednesday, June 11 at 12:00 p.m. on Zoom.

Hear from our Executive Director Yota Batsaki and other experts by registering below. See you there!

nybg.org/event/2025-pla…

To see this painting's object file: museum.doaks.org/objects-1/info…

Photograph of Edgar Degas's painting "The Song Rehearsal" (1873) in a gilded gold frame. The painting depicts three figures in a salon, two women performing from song books, their hands raised as if in motion, and one man at the piano.

It's #MuseumWeek! Featuring a special painting: "The Song Rehearsal" (1873) by Edgar Degas. Known for his playful compositions of color and light, Degas often mimicked movement in his static works. Check out the object file, or better yet, come visit it in the Museum! #MovementMW