Dr. Thorir Jonsson Hraundal is Founder and Director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Iceland since 2015 where he did a post -doctorate research project entitled Eastern Vikings in Arabic sources. He is widely published with many papers and contributions including “Vikings in Arabic Sources”, which is forthcoming in the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Viking World, “Rus” forthcoming in the Encyclopedia Iranica and “Ibn Fadlan on the middle Volga”, in Proceedings from the conference ‘Ibn Fadlan and the Great Unwashed’, held in Oxford, March 2016.  

Dr. Sue Andrew is an independent researcher whose studies at Edinburgh and Plymouth Universities encompassed sociology, anthropology, comparative religion, art history, and architectural conservation. Dr. Andrew presented a lecture titled: “Three hares: The cross-cultural journey of a medieval motif”. The intriguing image of three hares running in a circle, and sharing ears which form a triangle at the centre of the design, is found in the sacred places of three major religions between the sixth and eighteenth centuries CE. From painted ceilings in Buddhist cave temples to carved wooden bosses in the roofs of Christian churches to painted panels in Jewish synagogues, the three hares crossed continents and cultures. Yet…