Mikael Muehlbauer

PhD., Columbia University, 2020

Mikael Muehlbauer (Ph.D Columbia) is a specialist in the architecture of Medieval Ethiopia, Egypt and the textile arts of the Western Indian Ocean world. His research, which includes an award-winning article in Muqarnas as well as a 2023 book published by Dumbarton Oaks Press (awarded finalist for the 2024 ICMA book prize), broadly examines Islamic-Christian exchange through art and architecture. Muehlbauer has published on diverse subject matter including Kufic epigraphy, early Byzantine architecture in the Aegean, and Italian colonialism. Forthcoming publications include a book on late Fatimid architecture with Edinburgh University Press as well as articles on Nubian-Ethiopian relations, cosmic imagery in Fatimid Tomb shrines, and Egyptian quarry-churches. Muehlbauer, in addition to having held residential fellowships in Egypt, Italy, France, and Tunisia, continues to work in Ethiopia regularly as a consulting specialist in Architecture and Islamic Material Culture for the Franco-Ethiopian Missions "Sustainable Lalibela," as well as the Maryam Nazret Excavations. Muehlbauer regularly teaches South Asian, Islamic, and Western Medieval Art History at colleges and Universities in the New York Area, including at Columbia University and CUNY.

Recorded lectures of his can be viewed here:

https://vimeo.com/933461605

https://youtu.be/PRbvPz_hQHI

https://youtu.be/7dqs-Z_50Z0

Book

2023  Bastions of the Cross: Medieval Rock-Cut Cruciform Churches of Tigray, Ethiopia, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 49 (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Press)

Awards:

•  Finalist (2nd place winner), ICMA 2024 Book Prize, The International Center for Medieval Art

   

Reviews:

• Alebachew Belay Birru, 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual 5 no. 4 (2024), 1027-1033 <https://doi.org/10.11588/xxi.2024.4.108510>
• Claire Bosc-Tiessé, African Arts (forthcoming)
• Marie-Laure Derat, JSAH 84 no. 1 (2025), 121-122.
• Michael Gervers, Aethiopica 27 (2024), 318-320.
• A. L. McMichael, The Medieval World 15 (2024), 57.

Selected Articles

2027  (Forthcoming) “The Fatimid Mausoleum at Qus (Upper Egypt) and Antiochene Cosmography,” Muqarnas 44

2026  (Forthcoming) “Witnessing the Late Antique Church Nave: The Quarry-Church at Deir al-Ganadla (Asyut, Upper Egypt) as Architectural Cipher,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 80

2025  (Forthcoming) “Nile Valley Kin(g)ship: The Nubian with the Horned Crown at Maryam Qorqor (Tigray, Ethiopia) and the Legitimation of the Zagwe Kings,” Gesta 64 no. 2

2023  “An African “Constantine” in the Twelfth Century: The Architecture of the Early Zagwe Dynasty and Egyptian Episcopal Authority,” Gesta 62 no. 2, 127-152.

2021  “From Stone to Dust: The Life of the Kufic Inscribed Frieze of Wuqro Cherqos in Tigray, Ethiopia,” Muqarnas 38, 1-34.

• Awards: Runner-Up (2nd Place Winner), Professor Hasan-Uddin Khan Article Award, International Journal of Islamic Architecture
• Reviews: Nouvelles Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 17 (2023): 31-32.

2020  “A Rock-Hewn Yǝmrǝḥannä Krǝstos? An Investigation into Possible ‘Northern’ Zagwe Churches near ʿAddigrat, Tǝgray,” Aethiopica 23, 31-56.

2019  “An Italian Renaissance Face on a ‘New Eritrea’: The 1939 Restoration of the Church of Abreha wa-Atsbeha,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 78 no. 3, 312-326.

2019  “The Rhinoceros Horn Beakers of Menelik II of Ethiopia: Materiality, Ritual and Kingship,” West 86th 26 no. 1, 61-79.