The Manar al-Athar web site (www.manar-al-athar.ox.ac.uk) is the inspired creation of Judith McKenzie (1957–2019). It provides high resolution, searchable images for teaching, research and publication. These images of archaeological sites, buildings and art cover the areas of the former Roman empire which later came under Islamic rule, such as Syro-Palestine/the Levant, Egypt and North Africa, as well as some bordering regions, such as Georgia and Armenia. The chronological range is from Alexander the Great (i.e. from about 300 BC) through the Islamic period. It is the first web site of its kind providing such material labelled jointly in both Arabic and English.
Manar al-Athar currently has c. 65 000 images online, but the web site is in continuous development. Current strengths include Late Antiquity (250–750 AD), the period of transition from paganism to Christianity and then to Islam, especially religious buildings (temples, churches, synagogues, mosques) and monumental art (including floor mosaics), early Islamic art (paintings, mosaics, relief sculpture), as well as Roman and early Islamic (Umayyad) architecture and evidence of iconoclasm.
While Manar al-Athar is not an exclusively Byzantine resource, a significant proportion of the material currently available through the web site is late antique/Byzantine.