Workshop with Zvezdana Dode

Z Dode
Irina Shingiray (left) and Zvezdana Dode

On November 18th, the project team held a workshop with Dr. Zvezdana Dode, a Senior Researcher at the Rostov-on-Don branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who specializes on the reconstruction of costumes and textiles of the medieval populations of the Western Eurasian Steppe and the Caucasus Region. Her research shows that there is a major influence of nomadic equestrian cultures and practices on the development of the traditional adornment of the diverse communities in that region. Dr. Dode focused especially on the periods of the Turk-Khazar and Mongol imperial domination, when the so-called Silk Road exchange attained transcontinental proportions and manifested itself through archaeological remains found in graves. Through careful reconstruction and analysis of this evidence from archeological funerary contexts and its interpretation—and using anthropological, historical, semiotic, visual-arts, and ethnographic approaches— Dr. Dode was able to shed new light on the lives, bodies, material objects, and practices of the medieval nomads, and shared and discussed her newest finds, results, and projects with the team.