Resumen de Viewing the Unknown in Eighth-Century Constantinople
This article discusses the value of unknown monuments as construed by the "Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai", a catalogue of the monuments of Constantinople compiled, according to some scholars, in the eight century. I contend that the "Parastaseis" imagines the topography of Constantinople as one composed of nodes of the unknown. I further argue that these unknown spaces and monuments articulated the city's links to its ancient -it forgotten- past and thus played a critical role as markers of urban and historical continuity. In particular, ancient statues were associated with the longevity of the Byzantine Empire in a way that holy icons were not, because the former had never been subjected to the atrocities and debates regarding their validity that the latter had during Iconoclasm.
