Scholars, adventurers, spies: Byzantine archaeology and the evolution of a discipline in interwar Britain

This article examines the development of Byzantine studies as an academic discipline in interwar Britain, arguing that the field’s popular and academic resurgence owes a significant debt to the archaeological endeavours of scholars whose work was often intertwined with Britain’s imperial ambitions. Figures such as Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, representing Britain at the first International Congress of Byzantine Studies, and David Talbot Rice were instrumental in leveraging both the public’s growing fascination with the East and Britain’s geopolitical interests to advance their own fieldwork. This article demonstrates that these archaeologists, often overlapping with the structures of diplomacy and intelligence gathering, not only generated new knowledge but also framed the Byzantine Empire as a crucial part of Western heritage to an eager public, thereby legitimizing Britain’s political presence and interference in the Middle East. Ultimately, it was this fusion of scholarship, adventure, and politics that solidified Byzantine studies’ interdisciplinary identity and secured its institutional foothold in Britain.