The Early Medieval period, often referred to as the Dark Ages and beginning in Europe around the year 400, has been popularly portrayed as a time when the refined aesthetics of the classical world fell prey to hosts of migrating peoples on the fringes of the Roman Empire.

 
However, a major new volume on Early Medieval art, Bright Lights in the Dark Ages: The Thaw Collection of Early Medieval Ornaments, written by Noël Adams and featuring photography by John Bigelow Taylor, challenges accepted orthodoxy about the art and culture of the era.
 
The more than one hundred magnificent objects in Bright Lights in the Dark Ages were created over a millennium, and often crafted in gold and silver inlaid with rare gems and stones. The volume presents them singly and together in hundreds of beautiful color photographs, with revealing commentary about the people who made them and their meaning and symbolism.
 
The objects were drawn from the Thaw Collection of Early Medieval Ornaments at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. Eugene V. Thaw is a Life Trustee and major benefactor of the Morgan, and an internationally renowned collector of drawings. His medieval ornaments collection is on exhibit in a specially designed gallery in the Morgan’s McKim building.
 
Among the everyday items represented in Bright Lights in the Dark Ages are brooches, buckles, pendants, and earrings. The volume demonstrates how the migrating peoples brought sophisticated metalworking traditions to the creation of these objects with clear influences from their interactions over the centuries with the Roman and Byzantine empires.
 
Among the highlights of the volume are exceptional examples of brooches from the Black Sea region, rare examples of Hunnic and Gothic garnet cloisonné from Germany, and superb Early Byzantine gold belt fittings.

Bright Lights in the Dark Ages is published by D Giles Limited, London, in association with the Morgan Library & Museum. Author Noël Adams publishes widely on material culture of the first millennium A.D. She has also organized exhibitions at the Morgan, the British Museum, and the National Trust Visitor Centre at Sutton Hoo. Photographer John Bigelow Taylor is noted for his work in fine art photography, and has produced more than 150 books ranging from the art and landscape of prehistoric Greece to the jewelry collection of famed Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor.
 
Bright Lights in the Dark Ages is available for purchase online at www.themorgan.org.