Nilgün Elam, Anadolu University

Olga Karagiorgou, Academy of Athens

The TAKTIKON Research Project (Academy of Athens) has initiated the development of a research framework that aspires to support the comparison of the administrative structure of individual themes in specific periods, as a major approach that can significantly contribute to the long-standing debate surrounding the emergence, scope, and evolution of Byzantine themes. In the prospect of expanding this work over the whole of Asia Minor, this paper discusses more than twenty unpublished lead seals issued by Byzantine thematic officials that have been recorded during field research in several provincial museums and private collections in Turkey. The officials represented on these seals were active in the themes of the Anatolikoi, the Armeniakoi, the Boukellarioi, Chaldia, Charsianon, Koloneia, Lykandos, Opsikion, Paphlagonia, Seleukeia, the Thrakesioi, Tziliapert and Baspourakan. This new sigillographic material will be presented geographically starting from western Asia Minor and moving to the Empire’s eastern frontier.