Tamta's World

The Life and Encounters of a Medieval Noblewoman from the Middle East to Mongolia

Antony Eastmond author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:20th Apr '17

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Tamta's World cover

The compelling story of a thirteenth-century Christian noblewoman ransomed to the family of Saladin, and made a ruler by the Mongols.

The compelling story of a thirteenth-century Christian noblewoman ransomed to the family of Saladin, made a ruler by the Mongols, and with extraordinary connections across continents and cultures from the Mediterranean to Mongolia. This book will be important for students and scholars of Byzantine, Crusader and Islamic history, art and architecture.This book tells the compelling story of a Christian noblewoman named Tamta in the thirteenth century. Born to an Armenian family at the court of queen Tamar of Georgia, she was ransomed in marriage to nephews of Saladin after her father was captured during a siege. She was later raped and then married by the Khwarazmshah and held hostage by the Mongols, before being made an independent ruler under them in eastern Anatolia. Her tale stretches from the Mediterranean to Mongolia and reveals the extraordinary connections across continents and cultures that one woman could experience. Without a voice of her own, surviving monuments - monasteries and mosques, caravanserais and palaces - build up a picture of Tamta's world and the roles women played in it. The book explores how women's identities changed between different courts, with shifting languages, religions and cultures, and between their roles as daughters, wives, mothers and widows.

'… the volume is superbly illustrated: much can and should be learnt about Tamta’s world simply by examining the plates in the light of Eastmond’s highly knowledgeable and thoroughly comprehensible commentary.' David Morgan, The Times Literary Supplement

ISBN: 9781107167568

Dimensions: 253mm x 180mm x 27mm

Weight: 1110g

460 pages