Why did new religious imagery and iconographies emerge in different religious traditions across Asia and Europe in the period AD 200-800?
Did these developments influence and inspire each other, or were they separate evolutions occurring independently thousands of miles apart?
These questions have been at the heart of this major research project conducted in partnership between the British Museum and the University of Oxford, supported by The Leverhulme Trust. The Empires of Faith project has taken the broadest possible view, examining imagery from those religions that have survived and many that have been lost, from the cults of the Roman Empire to Manichaeism, from Ireland in the west to the Indian subcontinent and the borders of China in the east.
The project ended at the end of 2017, culminating with the Imagining the Divine exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and a series of collaborative publications and talks.
For further details see here
