Postgraduate Profile Prolet Decheva

Biography: Prolet Decheva received a BA in Communication Studies in 2012, a BA in Art History in 2016 and a MA in History of Late Antique and Byzantine Art in 2019 from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and has also studied in Udine (2015/16), Bonn (2017) and Rome (2017/18). She is interested in digital archives and digital methods in art history and has worked as a student assistant for the Project “Bibliotheca Palatina – digital”, Heidelberg University Library (2017/18), completed an internship at the Photo Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut (2019) and assisted the project “Premodern Digital Cultural Heritage: Networking Open-Access Image Repositories of Ancient and Medieval Content”, University College Dublin (2021). Between 2016 and 2020 she volunteered for the Verein für Spätantike Archäologie und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte e.V. in Munich. In 2022 Prolet was a Dumbarton Oaks Summer Fellow in Washington, DC.

Research: Prolet’s PhD project Personifications of abstract ideas in Late Antique and Middle Byzantine Art is the natural continuation of her MA dissertation topic Ktisis – Kosmesis – Ananeosis. Ausdruck spätantiken Stifterprestiges? in which she analysed three personifications of abstract ideas (“Foundation”, “Embellishment” and “Renewal”)—appearing predominantly on 5th and 6th c. mosaics throughout the Eastern Mediterranean—in relation to Late Antique attitudes towards donations of public buildings and as a Late Antique expression of donors’ prestige.

In her current project she explores the phenomenon of abstract personifications as such focusing on their functions in Late Antique and Middle Byzantine visual culture. This is a highly flexible type of personification that differs significantly from the common representations of personified cities or seasons. Devoid of iconographical consistency, such as identifying attributes, these figures can only be identified through an accompanying label. Furthermore, these are not only represented in visual media: they appear, for instance, in philosophical texts, biblical narratives or epigraphical evidence. Thus, only by analysing the relationship between visual and textual sources, while at the same time considering the specific contexts in which they appear, can their intended meanings and functions be properly understood. The longue durée of abstract personifications raises further questions: How did these change over time and why? In order to identify continuities and innovations in wider social, political, and religious contexts Prolet is examining this phenomenon in a longer time span (from Late Antiquity throughout the Middle and Italo-Byzantine periods) and in various visual media (book illumination, mosaics, textile, toreutics, etc.).  Her PhD project is being generously funded by an UCD Ad Astra PhD Studentship.

Keywords: Late Antiquity; Byzantine Art; Iconography; Personifications; Status; Text and Image; Elites; Abstract ideas; Visual Culture; Eastern Mediterranean; Mosaics

Contact: (opens in a new window)prolet.decheva@ucdconnect.ie

Supervisor: Dr Sean Leatherbury

Professional Activities:

Publications: 

• "Bilder als modular konzipierte Botschaften: Überlegungen zum Stifter des Megalopsychia-Mosaiks aus Yakto." In Variatio in Kunst und Handwerk: Modulare Arbeitsweisen in spätantiker und frühbyzantinischer Zeit, edited by Stefanie Archut and Sabine Schrenk, 137–57. Heidelberg: Propylaeum, 2022. (opens in a new window)https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeum.1033.c14004.
• "‘Transnational’ Late Antiquity, ‘National’ Modes of Thought." TNH-PHD Network (blog), December 27, 2021. (opens in a new window)https://tnhphd.network/2021/12/27/transnational-late-antiquity-national-modes-of-thought/.
• "Trace the Untraceable: Online Image Search Tools for Researching Late Antique Art", Heritage 2021, 4(4), 4076-4104, (opens in a new window)https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage4040225.

Recent conference papers:

• “The date of the Vienna Dioscurides: A question to be reopened”, Società Internazionale di Storia della Miniatura (SISM): Storia della miniatura: lavori in corso: Webinar in memoria di Maria Grazia Ciardi Dupré dal Poggetto, online, 17-18 September 2021 (abstract in the forthcoming edition of Rivista di Storia della Miniatura).
• “Personifications of abstract ideas as expressions of donors’ elite status in Late Antiquity”, Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University: 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies, online, 10-15 May 2021.
• “An Abstract Way of Self-Representation: Personified Virtues in Late Antique Mosaics and Beyond”, 23rd Oxford University Byzantine Society International Graduate Conference, online, 26-28 February 2021.
• “Lost or Found: The migration of Late Antique and Byzantine objects from museum collections to an ‘interconnected’ digital space? Some practical challenges”, University College Dublin, Annual HI PhD Conference “Transnational Humanities: Concept and Praxis”, online, 19 February 2021.
• “An Expression of Donors’ Prestige. The Personifications of Ktisis (‘Foundation’), Kosmesis (‘Embellishment’) and Ananeosis (‘Renewal’) in Early Byzantine Floor Mosaics”, Third Annual Conference on Byzantine and Medieval Studies, Byzantinist Society of Cyprus, Nicosia, 17-19 January 2020.