Byzantine Purple, Purple Wampum: The Global Middle Ages on Lunaapahkiing

Research on regional connectivities as formulated in terms of Mediterranean Studies, North Atlantic Studies, or Silk Road Studies necessarily invites us to consider exactly how the global intersects with the local. This article suggests some practical approaches to both research and exhibition planning that situate our study of the Global Middle Ages in a specific location. I draw upon Abu-Lughod’s Before European Hegemony and New York, Chicago, Los Angeles — as well as ongoing collaborations with Lunaape (Munsee Delaware) community members — to develop a methodology that acknowledges the local situation of the work not just in terms of each item’s origin and complex chain of provenance, but also in terms of the land the institution inhabits. Being attentive to our geographical situatedness also invites us to be attentive to our temporal situatedness; this in turn disrupts the conventions of periodization that underlie our work as medievalists, producing a situated Global Middle Ages that is attentive to, acknowledges, and is connected with the land we live and work on, including its layered history and its potential futurities. These “time-knots” are vividly evoked through the juxtaposition of Byzantine purple and purple wampum, as seen in the work of Shinnecock artist Courtney M. Leonard.