In the second appointment of the conference series ‘Middle Ages on the Move‘, Melis Savaş and  Simone Costanzo will tell us about the “discovery”  of the Indian and Tibetan civilizations by Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages. What were their first impressions, what did they think of the local religious believes and rites, how do they felt being “among the Infidels” are some of the questions that will be discussed.

Melis Savaş has obtained her doctorate at the University of Ankara and is now teaching at the Karadeniz Technical University. Her research focuses on the history of  the Turkish presence in India. Among her publications, Ak Hunlar, Selenge 2021.

Simone Costanzo is an Indologist and historian of South and Central Asia.  He did his academic work on Christian communities in South India, His employment from 2010 to 2017 at Yeditepe University in Istanbul led him to focus his research on Central Asian linguistic-cultural and religious interactions in the Indian subcontinent. He is currently working, together with Federico De Renzi, on the book L’India turca: una storia dimenticata, Immagini dell’India tardantica e medievale (V-XVI sec. d.C.).