ABSTRACT This contribution mainly focuses on Cyprus and the Balearics, islands located at opposite geographical extremes of the Byzantine Mediterranean, during the passage from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. Historians have often regarded these islands as peripheral additions to the Byzantine heartland of the Aegean and the Anatolian plateau; this article argues that, in fact, archaeological and material indicators (such as ceramics, lead seals and coins), paired with the scarce textual sources, point to a certain degree of economic prosperity in the abovementioned islands during the period under scrutiny, suggesting that they continued to play an important role in the political, administrative and religious structures of the Byzantine Empire. A resilient insular economy and continuity of local production of artefacts was ensured by the persistence of demand from local secular and religious elites and regular, if infrequent, contacts with other areas of the Byzantine heartland or the Muslim Mediterranean.

中文翻译：

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“走向极端”：中世纪早期拜占庭群岛系统中的巴利阿里群岛和塞浦路斯

摘要 这篇文章主要集中在塞浦路斯和巴利阿里群岛，这两个岛屿位于拜占庭地中海的相对地理极端，从古代晚期到中世纪早期。历史学家经常将这些岛屿视为爱琴海和安纳托利亚高原拜占庭中心地带的外围补充。本文认为，事实上，考古和材料指标（如陶瓷、铅印和钱币），再加上稀缺的文本来源，表明上述岛屿在审查期间有一定程度的经济繁荣，表明他们继续在拜占庭帝国的政治、行政和宗教结构中发挥重要作用。