Byzantium

__**Welcome to the Byzantine Empire! **__ media type="youtube" key="-mpLFtk8VQA" height="314" width="420"
 * Location: **is located right between the Black Sea and the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Most trade between Asia, Europe and North Africa had to pass through the Byzantine Empire.

**Origin: ** **Beginning- **

In the Early Byzantine period, Byzantium's educated elite used Roman law, and Greek and Roman culture, to maintain a highly organized government centered on the court and its great cities The first golden age of the empire, the Early Byzantine period extends from the new capital into the 700s. Christianity replaced the gods of antiquity as the offical religion of the cultually and religiously state in the late 300s. The practice of Christian Monasticism delevolped in the fourth century and he continued to be an important part of the Byzantine faith spreading from Egypt to all parts of the empire.

**Middle-** Greek became the official language of the Byzantine state and church, and Christianity. Church builders of the 9th to the 12th centuries in general favored smaller or mid-sized churches of dombed, centurally planned designed. During the Middle Byzantine, images and icons were increasingly employed for the decoration of the templon, or eastern of the Byzantine Empire. The first great monasteries were built on Mount Athos, which would become one of the most important and enduring centers of of Byzantine Christianity.

**Late-**  Th e political boundaries of Late Byzantine under the Palaiologan emperors were drastically reduced from the expensive land of the Early and Middle Byzantine periods. The islamic conquests brought and end to an empire that endured more than 1,000 after its first founding. Long after, Byzantium set a standered for luxury, beauty, and learning. Brooks, Sarah. "Heilbrunn timeline of art history ." //Byzantium (ca. 330-1453)//. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011. Web. 23 Mar 2012. [].

**Byzantium:**