Dr Bente Bjornholt

Biography

Biography
Bente graduated with a PHD in Byzantine art history from Queens University of Belfast in 2002. Her thesis looked at images of spectacle in the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript and explored the way in which public events such as entertainment, punishments, victory celebrations and relic ceremonies were constructed in relation to the textuall description.  From 2002-2005 Bente was a Research Fellow in the AHRB Centre for Byzantine Cultural History at Sussex and was responsible for the construction of the database of the visual contents of the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript. From May 2006-Aug 2009 she was the Research Facilitator in the Sussex Institute at the University and since May 2007 she has been the Network Facilitator on the Leverhulme International Network of the Composition of Byzantine Mosaic Glass Tesserae which is housed in the Department of Art History. In addition to this job she also works part time for the Research and Enterprise division where she started on 1 Aug 2009.

Role

Bente is the Network Facilitator for the Leverhulme Network of the Composition of Byzantine Mosaic Glass Tesserae. In this role she organises the twice-yearly workshops and other events, and manages and produces the outputs of the Network: online databases of chemical analysis of Byzantine glass mosaics; of Byzantine sites of glass mosaics; of primary and of secondary literature on Byzantine mosaics glass; and an online glossary of mosaic terms used by scientists, archaeologists and art historians. Bente also teaches in the department of art history at Sussex.

Bente is also a Research Development Officer in the Research and Enterprise division of the Univerisity.

Bente has worked extensively on the twelfth century manuscript the Madrid Skylitzes. She has created a database of the nearly 600 images in the manuscript which covers all visual detail as well as conducted research into the codicology and the relationship between word and image in manuscript. She also works on the function and depiction of spectacle such as public entertainment and punishments in Byzantium.

Recent papers:

16 Jan 2008, The use and abuse of images in archaeological reconstruction: the case of the Madrid Skylitzes, Universty of Sussex Archaeological Society, Sussex

20 Jan 2007, Power and display: mosaics and their meanings at late antique - Byzantine Ravenna', Oxford University Day school: Ravenna: art, archaeology and history, AD 400-750

25 Aug 2006, Counting swords: the digital index of the Madrid Skylitzes, 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London 21-26 August 2006

16 July 2005, Placing the pictures on the page: the case of the Madrid Skylitzes (Bib.Nac.vitr. 26-2), Triennial International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, University of Reading

4 April 2005, The Spectacles of Physical Punishment, XXXIX Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast

Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses in art history.

2008-2009: First Year Lectures: Communicating Art; Sites. First Year Rome trip March 09.

2008-2009: Secnd Year 'Period in Art History': From Statues to Saints. Pagan and Christian art in Late Antiquity, 313-565 (V4014)

Bjornholt, Bente and Burke, John (2011) Aspects of the production of the Madrid Skylitzes (Bib.Nac.vitr.26-2). Unset.

Verità, Marco, James, Liz, Freestone, Ian, Henderson, Julian, Nenna, Marie-Dominique and Schibille, Nadine (2009) Glossary of Glass Mosaic Terms. Documentation. The Leverhulme Network of the Composition of Byzantine Glass Mosaic Tesserae.

Bjornholt, B K and James, L (2007) The Man in the street: some problems of gender and identity in Byzantine material culture. In: Material Culture and Well-Being in Byzantium (400-1453). Austrian Academy of Sciences, pp. 51-57. ISBN 978-3-7001-3602-6