Junyi Wu, College of the Holy Cross, Class of 2026


The necklace was probably made on Cyprus, a small island located on the eastern side of the Mediterranean Sea. Though it was far from the political center of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople (today's Istanbul), Cyprus was near the eastern border of the empire that witnessed conflicts of the with the neighboring Persians in the early 6th century. 

Despite conflict, the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire saw an unprecedented connectivity of different cultures and ethnicities that included, but was not limited to, Byzantines, Persians, Ethiopians, and Georgians. Cyprus itself, as an island, was also a stage open to human mobility in the 6th and 7th centuries. "No longer is any place inaccessible to me: calm waters are traversed by Italian ships from northern Black Sea to the far reaches of Ethiopia.” The verse written by a poet from Constantinople vividly captured the ease of communication of that area, while also hinting at the change happening in the Byzantine empire.