Gulacsi, Zsuzsanna

Zsuzsanna Gulácsi (born 10 April 1966) is a Hungarian-born American art historian of pan-Asiatic religions. Gulácsi is Professor of art history and Asian studies at Northern Arizona University (NAU). She is a specialist of Manichaean art, along with the artistic heritage of other Silk Road religions including Buddhism, East Syriac Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. Her publications have given special attention to the medium of the illuminated book in the Manichaean, Syriac and Armenian traditions, including the identification of Diatessaron-based cycles of scenes from the life of Christ in both Christian and Manichaean codices, as well as other shared codicological and illumination practices. Gulácsi identified the earliest Manichaean work of art known today—a rock crystal sealstone of Mani (3rd century CE), and one of the last surviving Manichaean works of art from 12th/13th-century southern China—a silk Manichaean Painting of the Buddha Jesus. Her introduction of digital imaging technology to research on the highly fragmentary remains of Uygur Manichaean art yielded the first digital restorations of paintings from 9th/10th century Kocho in order to bring out the preserved, but otherwise hard-to-see, iconographic content. Her recent work compares funerary art among Manichaean, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian communities of the eastern Silk Road.