Mikael Muehlbauer

PhD., Columbia University, 2020

Mikael Muehlbauer (Ph.D Columbia) is a specialist in the architecture of Medieval Ethiopia and Egypt. 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 as well as Byzantine Late Antiquity and it's medieval reception. 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 (both Christian and Islamic) with Edinburgh University Press as well as an article on cosmic imagery in Fatimid Tomb shrines. 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://youtu.be/RSEQbMT5FZk?si=vq-k38cEDmZP9QC9

https://vimeo.com/933461605

https://youtu.be/OxzRdLxo65A?si=nYhhDz1RK9LuZMam

https://youtu.be/PRbvPz_hQHI

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

BOOKS

 (Under Contract)        

Inventing Late Antiquity in Fatimid Egypt: Architectural Revivals and the End of Empire, 1150-1171, Edinburgh Studies in Islamic Art (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press)

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

·       Awards:

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

2.     Runner-up, Best Book in Medieval Art, RE:CENT Center for Medieval Visual Cultures and Research Communication, Masaryk University

·       Reviews:

1.     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>

2.     Claire Bosc-Tiessé, African Arts (forthcoming)

3.     Marie-Laure Derat, JSAH 84 no. 1 (2025), 121-122.

4.     Simon Dorso, Annales d’Éthiopie (forthcoming)

5.     Michael Gervers, Aethiopica 27 (2024), 318-320. <https://doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.27.2293>

6.     A. L. McMichael, The Medieval World 15 (2024), 57.

ARTICLES

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

2026    “Witnessing the Late Antique Church Nave: The Quarry-Church at Dayr al-Ganadla (Asyut, Upper Egypt) as Architectural Cipher,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 80, 321-356.

             “Trial and Error in Early Byzantine Architecture: The Sixth-Century Gallery Arcades of the Panagia Ekatontapiliani (Katapoliani) in Paros.” Architectural History 69, 1-25.

<https://doi.org/10.5334/arh.31>

2025    “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, 203-230.

            “The Abunä’s Prayer for Fascist Italy, Aksum, Occupied Ethiopia (June 11th 1940).” California Italian Studies 14 no. 1, 1-16.

            <https://escholarship.org/uc/item/664920b4>

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 (2^nd 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. <https://doi.org/10.15460/aethiopica.23.0.1456>

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. 

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

MULTI-AUTHOR ARTICLES

2025    Marie-Laure Derat, Francois-Xavier Fauvelle et al. “Nazret, Tigray, the Metropolitan Seat of the Church of Ethiopia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century: Material and Written Evidence,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 79, 95-141.

            <https://archive.org/details/DOP79_05_DeratEtAl>

BOOK CHAPTERS

2026    (Forthcoming) “Ethiopians at Egyptian Monasteries and Egyptian Architecture in Ethiopian Monasteries circa 1100,” in Ethiopians Abroad in the Middle Ages (eds.) Julien Loiseau and Martina Ambu. Ad’É Books, Archaeology and History (Addis Ababa: Centre français des études éthiopiennes)

            “Byzantium in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: The Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Hagios Froumentios c. 1929,” in Routledge Handbook to the Modern Reception of Byzantium (eds.) Dimitra Kotoula and Niamh Bhalla (New York: Routledge), 291-300.

             “The ‘Gothic’ Window in the Church of Beta Maryam (Lalibela, Ethiopia): Mamluk Aesthetics and the Iconography of Spolia in Medieval Ethiopia,” in Gothic Space: Studies in Celebration of Stephen Murray (eds.) Katherine Boivin, Zachary Stewart, and Lindsay Cook, AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art 19. (Leiden: Brill), 261-295.

2024    “Ancient Ethiopian Architecture and Its Medieval Legacy,” in Ethiopia at the Crossroads (ed.) Christine Sciacca (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum), 239-245.

2023    “The Disappearance of the Ethiopian Baptismal Font.” in Baptême et baptistères : Actes du colloque international qui s’est tenu à Paris, à Sorbonne Université, les 12-13 novembre 2020 (eds.) Beatrice Caseau and Lucia-Maria Orlandi. Biblioteca di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte 1. (Milan: Silvana Editoriale), 96-110.

2021    “Church of St George, Lalibela,” in World Architecture and Society (ed.) Peter Bonfitto (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO), 378-382.

ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES

2024    “Medieval Religious Architecture (Christianity, Islam, Judaism),” in Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception vol. 22 (eds.) Marcia Kupfer, Mati Meyer (Berlin: De Gruyter), 712-718.

BOOK REVIEWS

2026    Review of Alice Isabella Sullivan, The Eclectic Visual Culture of Medieval Moldavia. Visualising the Middle Ages 15. (Leiden: Brill, 2023) in Speculum 101 no. 3, 1037-1039.

2024    (with Navina Najat Haidar), Review of Global Ikat: Routes and Roots of a Textile Technique, The David Paly Collection. (London: Hali, 2023) in Textile History 55 no. 1, 202-204.

            Review of Cathleen A. Fleck, Reimagining Jerusalem’s Architectural Identities in the Later Middle Ages. Visualising the Middle Ages 14. (Leiden: Brill, 2023) in Speculum 99 no. 4, 1288-1289.

2022    Review of Raymond Silverman and Neal Sobania, Ethiopian Church Art: Painters, Patrons, Purveyors (Los Angeles, CA: Tsehai Publishers, 2022) in Northeast African Studies 22 no. 2, 177-182.