In addition to finding pilgrimage sites at centers which had developed over centuries, another site of pilgrimage can be found: pre-planned and large-scale church buildings, detached from a longstanding religious context. A previously neglected pilgrimage church in Ephesus from the early 5th century documents this phenomenon in an outstanding way. The ruins of the formerly imposing building are situated outside the city center on the top of a hill, overlooking the sea and harbor canal. Its unique construction required intense effort: a three-aisled basilica was erected on the hill, with a two-storied gallery as its substructure. Underneath the basilica was a huge crypt, carved completely into the rock. These spaces were each connected by large staircases for the pilgrims to reach the crypt, as its sacral as well as constructional center.

The question arises, why was this building  erected?  Why was this exact place chosen if there had been no cult continuity before? How did the pilgrims affect the economic as well as the sacral structure of the region? And, how did this more remote location interact with the main attractions of the city?

Using the interdisciplinary methods of historical building research and archaeology, and making use of the historical context, it is possible to answer these questions. It is solely the extraordinary architecture of the building which points to its interpretation as a pilgrimage church. By developing this specific landmark, it was possible to combine the economic benefits of the building’s location with religious ideas. This pilgrimage church was part of a network of churches within Ephesus soliciting for pilgrims. One of its functions was to highlight the whole pilgrimage experience with famous St. John`s as its major destination. The site was ideal to land ships, welcome pilgrims, and organize the pilgrims’ stay in Ephesus. After erecting the building complex for mainly strategic reasons, the landmark could then have been redefined retrospectively as a mythological-religious space. Within this framework, this church represented the status of Christian Ephesus, being the first building which would have been able to be seen from the sea.  Shedding light on the questions above will help to explain the sacred topography of Byzantine Ephesus and of Christian pilgrimage in Asia Minor.

The city of Amorium located in the highlands of Phrygia in Asia Minor challenges the usual streamline narrative about the evolution of Byzantine cities. Although it was already an important Early Byzantine town and bishopric (4^th -6^th c.), it flourished and became one of the most important cities of Asia Minor after the 7^th c. and until its final abandonment in late 11^th c. Amorium was benefitted from the new thematic organization of the Byzantine provinces after the 7^th c. as it became the provincial capital city of the theme of Anatolikon, the seat of a general and a critical base for the military and the local administration in central and western Asia Minor.

Amorium has been the subject of systematic excavation for more than two decades, and numerous civic and religious buildings have been unearthed in this process offering a wealth of information both on the Early Byzantine and the Byzantine Early Medieval phase of the city. Since 2013 a new side-project has been running focused on analyzing the historical landscape of Amorium with the use of excavation data, survey information, satellite and aerial imagery in a consolidated Geographical Information System environment. The focus of this newer project has been the western part of the lower city of Amorium, mostly unexplored until now. The aim of the proposed paper will be to combine elements from older excavation with the new informative background in order to establish the characteristics of the city (city grid, land use, monumentality) and ascertain their change from the Late Roman times to the Early Middle Ages.

At the same time, the city of Amorium was fortunate enough to be included in various narratives dating from both the Early and Middle Byzantine period. Close reading and analysis of these texts can provide insight into the changing Byzantine notions and perceptions about urban space in close comparison to the actual architecture and built urban space documented through excavation. This level of analysis can make possible to follow the parallel evolution of the realities surrounding actual built urban space and aspects of the ideology and theory written about it by the users and real agents of change, the Byzantines themselves.

In recent years, more and more field surveys with the aim of exploring late Antique and Byzantine landscapes have been carried out. Some of them were done so extensively that we know well about the changes to the landscapes and settlements of some parts of the country.

With these field surveys, we get insights into peripheral changes in the landscape and settlement patterns of post-antique Anatolia. Furthermore, some of the excavations in Asia Minor give deeper understandings into the city life, infrastructure and living conditions of their inhabitants during the 1000 years of the Byzantine empire. This region was marked by prosperity and cultural heydays as well as hostile attacks, natural disasters, and famine. The results of the excavations have different characters, depending on the region. On some excavations, the medieval findings are coincidences-side results of research with a different purpose, which makes them no less valuable for reconstruction of the facilities and living spaces of the inhabitants. In some excavations, the facilities and the cityscape of the settlements is a clear question of the research program.

The obtained results have different qualities. These days often only a building complex is examined, since many of the medieval findings have already been destroyed-especially in cases of older traditional excavations. Only in a few settlements are more extensive investigations possible.

Nevertheless, now we have enough results to give a statement about landscapes, settlements and their environment. And even if the conditions of the settlements and landscapes are different, it is possible to reconstruct a picture of late Antique and Byzantine life in the countryside and in the cities of Anatolia – even if it still has many gaps that can only be filled with further research.

In the scheduled paper an overview of the research situation, as well as the chosen methods of the surveys and excavations is given. In a subsequent second step the focus on single, selected regions should be laid. On the basis of these examples, the possibilities of a reconstruction of the living worlds, the settlements and the environment of the people of Late Antique and medieval Anatolia are to be depicted.

Representative categories of mass-produced bronze and copper artifacts with stereotyped images or inscriptions are explored in this study through an examination of the ritual practices for which they were used. The primary focus is on the rituals of blessings and exorcisms and a consideration of their role in mass-production in the metalwork industry. The transmission of similar motifs and inscriptions on objects manufactured in a series reflects a demand driven by rituals adopted by all sectors of society. Special attention  is paid in this paper to the semantics of the word sphragis (seal), which was invested with several metaphorical meanings that shed new light on mass production in the Byzantine crafts industry. Invocations for divine assistance or grace and other stereotyped inscriptions on a series of objects from the same or a similar mold strengthen the transcendental power of the inscriptions, and the sense of community and social belonging among the participants in rituals.

The type of inscribed formula was closely linked to the shape of an object, which also dictated the inscription’s layout. One can observe an interest in inscriptions running along the circumference of objects, a positioning which may have derived from the practice of magic. Indeed, the drawing of a virtual or material circle to capture a demon or create a protected space immune to demons was common. Rituals were also constructed around repetitive gestures, words, and sounds. The reflection of a ritual’s purpose on the surface of mass-produced objects reinforced the ritual’s power and enhanced social connection among ritual participants.

The study includes categories of objects used in various areas of daily life during late antiquity and the middle Byzantine period, including crosses, stamps, personal accessories, scales and weights, harnesses, and water containers. The objects are contextualized in light of the ritual practice in which they were used, the social and religious links they created, and the prototypal historical, legendary, or biblical events to which they might be referring. Another criterion for object selection in this study was the object having been widely distributed across Anatolia. Comparisons among similar types of objects help bring new light to workshop practices in Anatolia, and, perhaps, the identification of regional trends.

Thus far, studies on Late Antique private housing in Asia Minor have mainly focused on the large luxurious residences of the elites that appeared in the region in the 4^th and 5^th centuries AD and were in line with contemporaneous developments in the rest of the Empire. However, these lavish mansions characterised by impressive architectural forms and rich ornamentation represent only the top layers of the society. As attested in the written sources, members of the political, socio-economic and ecclesiastical elites used this type of imposing private complexes as tools to display their wealth and position. On the other hand, people belonging to the sub-elites and middle class have much less been investigated thus far. As shown by recent research on the Roman middle classes, it can a priori not be excluded that also in Late Antiquity members of these non-elite groups put large investments in their houses and may have inhabited rather impressive constructions.  On the other hand, the living spaces of the people at the lower levels of the social ladder remain largely unknown. Since the houses of these city-dwellers must generally have been built of perishable materials, they have almost entirely disappeared from the archaeological record.

This paper focuses on the range of housing types that existed in the Late Antique towns in Asia Minor, representing the different layers of the Late Antique urban society in a more or less visible way. Using a selection of textual references and archaeologically preserved houses in the region as a starting point, we will discuss how general changes in the Late Antique city between the 4^th and 7^th centuries AD also had a substantial impact on the private space of its inhabitants and, consequently, how different house forms and their spatial occurrence within the cityscape can be used as a source for political, socio-economic and cultural developments in Late Antiquity.

The collection of the Byzantine seals in Dumbarton Oaks contains a number of the seals with non-Greek inscriptions: Syriac, Armenian, and Arabic. The chief problem they present is the lack of reliable chronological identifications and attributions. It seems that the preciseness of the dates of the Byzantine Greek seals is fairly unavailable in the case of the non-Greek seals of the Byzantine Commonwealth to the East because such seals are extremely rare (only approximately 200 such seals from this period and region are extant; and the Dumbarton Oaks’s collection includes half of them). Yet some seals help restore the peoples and the communities of the Byzantine Eastern border and beyond, mostly in Syria and Armenia, who exchanged correspondence with the Byzantine authorities. This was an intricate network of the people from various strata of non-Greek speaking society, from heads of tribes and money-changers to members of prominent aristocratic families. The shifting loyalties of members of border communities is a commonplace in the Byzantine and/or Oriental studies. But what caused their change of identities? It seems that religious and/or ethnic/clan identity in the eleventh century cannot be defined in the strict terms of today. The features of identity were far more elusive, and this goes to the basic level of self-consciousness of people who lived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a time when the Byzantine lost its possessions in Asia Minor in the 1070s and when the Christian-Muslim frontier moved towards the Bosporus. Facing the advancing Turks, the members of the Byzantine and/or Armenian aristocracy had to incorporate themselves into the new society. The nature and geographical scope of the Seljuk conquest only helped these aristocrats to preserve such identity and possessions (often across the border) especially those remaining in the central and eastern parts of the Anatolian peninsula. This was because the Seljuks did not conquer one province after another, but the whole military balance in Asia Minor was sharply changed by Sulaymān ibn Qutlumush, who was defeated by the Turkish commander Atsız near Tiberias in 1075. The combination of extant sources (seals, colophons, and traditional narrative texts) allow us to solve the riddle of the Byzantine influence which was still strong in the eastern parts of Anatolia after 1071, while at  the same time rapidly dwindling in the center of the peninsula.

As opposed to the lack of written sources, the richness of Cappadocia’s material culture has no parallel in the entire Byzantine world and this unbalanced evidence, along with the rock-carved nature of its “civilization”, often challenges traditional methodologies in the study of its history, art and archaeology. The monumental corpus of research and publications up to the present time focused mainly on the mural decoration and the religious architecture, however recent scholarship turns its attention, at a growing rate, to the settlements and the broader context in which the art, and architecture have been produced. While the significance of the settlement organization has been generally accepted in the current scholarship, very few settlements have been surveyed in detail and very little that approaches settlement archaeology, household archaeology, or landscape archaeology has been attempted for the Byzantine period in Cappadocia. One of the reasons for this neglect is the difficulty of the field documentation in Cappadocia’s rough terrain using traditional methods and the lack of use of the appropriate and state of the art digital methods. Careful archaeological work through survey allows for a more nuanced view of the settlement patterns in Cappadocia, one which allows us to define and expand our knowledge of the social organization and everyday life in this significant province of the Byzantine Empire.

 The paper will present the results of the Dereköy (Potamia) Valley archaeological survey which consists of georeferencing (Global Navigation Satellite System), aerial documentation (drone), orthophotography and 3D land modeling (ArcGis software) of a very large medieval rock carved medieval rural settlement in Eastern Cappadocia. Funded by GABAM Koç University the project offers new perspectives on how we may connect the evidence of material culture to the landscape in order to envision the relationship between the inhabitants and the use and the constant shaping of the natural environment in Byzantine period. We believe Dereköy settlement will prompt reconsideration of several archaeological and anthropological issues: the forms of settlements and the questions related to this categorization such as parameters of secular (agrarian, industrial facilities and means of security); religious landscapes (burials, cemeteries, painted churches); art historical (wall paintings), architectural (rock carved and masonry and their relationship) epigraphic and other material evidence such as pottery findings as they relate to the landscape and its context.

In the city center of Sinop, various mosaics dating back to the Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods have been unearthed. The depictions in these flooring mosaics mostly consist of compositions of geometric, vegetal, human, and animal figurative ornaments, which were commonly used in the Late Roman - Early Byzantine period in different areas around Mediterranean and regions of Anatolia. During various foundation excavations conducted at Sinop, mosaics of the Early Byzantine period were brought to light through the work of the experts at the Sinop Archeology Museum. Although most of the mosaics belonged to the floors of churches, some may have belonged to civilian structures.

British archaeologists carried out an excavation in the in Çiftlikköy, in the southeast of Sinop, between 1990 -1991. The floor mosaics uncovered during these excavations were found as in situ and transferred to the garden of the museum. In these mosaics, different geometric patterns were processed. During excavations for the foundations of a health center, which is located just outside the western walls of the city, geometric compositions were also found in the floor mosaics of a floor of a church.

It has been observed that the floors of the Early Byzantine churches appearing in different areas of Sinop were covered with mosaics. These mosaics were moved to the museum. The church buildings themselves were destroyed in time due to intense construction. Information about the mosaics can be obtained from old photographs and articles from museum reports. In these mosaics, geometric compositions and fruit in a basket, as well as different bird figures, were employed.

Late Roman imperial baths that were transferred in the monastery complex in Early Byzantine is known as Balatlar Church today. During archaeological excavations conducted at this site between 2016-2018, flooring mosaics were found. The mosaic flooring is in the form of different panels arranged side by side. The mosaic panels were located in the cemetery area of the monastery, and were built by the relatives of the people who were buried here. In the Greek inscriptions on the mosaic panels, to whom and from whom the mosaics were dedicated was written. Various bird figures and plant compositions were found in the mosaics. The compositions’ design, figures, and patterns symbolize paradise, abundance, and fertility.

In 2014, in the immediate vicinity of the cemetery where the mosaic panels were discovered, many production waste remains obtained suggesting a presence of a mosaic workshop. It is not certain whether this material is production waste or stored material for later repair.

Like those of the Balatlar mosaics, the designs and contents of the other floor mosaics identified in the city were similar to those of the eastern Mediterranean hinterland, as well as Anatolia. It can be understood that the designs were part of the style of decoration developed in 3th century and commonly used between the 4th and 6th centuries. Some of the selected motifs and figures appear in the eastern provinces of the empire, and have similar symbols to those representing death and eternal life in Christian iconography. The characteristic motifs, whose origins extend to Sasanian art, are found only in Sinop and Antakya within Anatolia, suggesting that travelling workshops were employed to decorate important monuments in the city.

In Sinop, one of the most important commercial port cities of the Black Sea region, the tradition of decorating the building floors with mosaics goes back to the Hellenistic period. Therefore, there must have also been local workshops and competent masters belonging to this ancient branch of business in the city.

Within the scope of this paper, the motifs and a materials analysis of the mosaics that have emerged from the excavations in Sinop will be discussed, in addition to the effects of the east on the patterns.

Recent historical syntheses have investigated the Late Roman/ Early Byzantine economic intensification in the rural landscapes of Anatolia followed by a general collapse in Anatolian rural settlement systems during the seventh through ninth centuries, a collapse at least partly resulting from climate fluctuations, economic transitions and the Arab invasions of the eighth and ninth centuries (Haldon et al. 2014; Haldon and Rosen 2018; Roberts et al. 2018; Izdebski et al 2015). The Sinop rural hinterland saw significant infrastructural investment during the fifth and sixth centuries in connection with the emergence of a monocrop economy based on olive production. This intensified economy did not last – by the late seventh century, there is little evidence of its continuation on the Sinop promontory. Several intersecting possible causes for the apparent collapse in a rural settlement are considered, including climate and economic shifts, changing regimes of investment and land tenure, and security. This paper examines a fundamental shift apparent in the Sinop Surveys in the context of other north Anatolian surveys that document rural settlement and exploitation between the Early and Middle Byzantine Periods (Haldon et al. 2018; During and Glatz 2013; Matthews and Glatz 2009). We will consider problems with the widespread tendency to lump together evidence in a broad synthesis that can introduce serious misunderstandings about the microhistories that, taken together, comprise the larger whole (Cassis et al. 2018). Finally, local patterns of collapse and resilience appear to depend on diverse patterns of organizing land and labour in the face of Empire-wide military and economic stresses. We consider the collapse of more intensive stressed systems and the survival of more resilient subsistence agricultural systems in the face of strong environmental and economic pressures.

Harbors and anchorages are interfaces of communication; belonging to both maritime and terrestrial systems, they connect the terrestrial traffic routes with the maritime ones. The significance of many harbor places is only regional; they are limited to supplying residents with fish and seafood and provide an alternative for shifting and travelling, mostly on a local level. In addition to these functions, the more important harbor cities have relevance for the supply of their hinterland and the exchange of goods. In Byzantium, the existence of a developed port architecture with quay walls and granaries was not a requirement; distinguished geographical and geomorphological conditions were more important for the existence of a harbor place. However, the availability of local infrastructure relieved the landing of vessels with a high cargo capacity. This facilitated the exchange of commodities and sometimes even the use of the place for military purposes.

This presentation will highlight realities and structural conditions of harbor cities in late antique and medieval Western Anatolia, in particular in the province of Asia. The coastline between Cape Lektron near modern Babakale in the North and the mouth of the river Maeander in the South extended about 800 kilometers; reams of bays in between favored the existence of various landing places and harbor cities. Among them were many bishoprics of the province, which hold the function of Central Market Towns -- the metropolitan seat of Ephesus (Selçuk), the archbishopric of Smyrna (İzmir) and 16 of the 37 suffragan bishoprics. Based on an advanced infrastructure, they were influential in administration and economics, in spite of their spiritual function. In order to maintain contact with each other, they were part of a supra-national road system.

This system originated in the Roman times and developed in the late antiquity and the early middle ages. The important coastal road leading from Ephesus to the North that touched most of the important harbor cities in Western Anatolia dates from the late 2^nd century BC, according to a milestone. Using this traffic system, exchange of goods was possible between the coastal cities of Asia and the main market towns as far as Lydia or western Phrygia.

The lecture focuses on the interrelation between the coastal regions and their particular hinterland and by considering the whole picture, it tries to identify regional differences. Maritime activities were different and intensity was not the same all over the coastal zones of Asia. In contrast, the existence of local shipping zones with their individual centers is obvious. Sea-level fluctuation and sedimentation could threaten the existence of a harbor. During periods of political crisis, these phenomena could influence the shifting of maritime transport hubs and the transformation of the supra-national network of communication. In this context, one should think about the significant ascent of places like Adramyttium (Edremit) or Anaia (Kadıkalesi) in the later middle ages.

In this paper, I intend to look at somewhat neglected pieces of archaeological evidence for the making of religious communities in an Anatolian city in late antiquity (Ephesus). I will explore the Christian epigraphic record from a variety of spatial settings (church inscriptions, honorific inscriptions, and texts set up in public spaces) from the methodological vantage of epigraphic visuality of religious communities and the creation of ‘inscribed space’ as a type of man-made environment.

At the centre of my paper are published, yet heavily under-studied inscriptions executed in Ephesus in the fifth to seventh centuries AD. Some imperial commissions (e.g. I.Eph 1353) are intended as publicly available and visually compelling messages addressed to wide audiences; they are fittingly prominent in spatial terms. Others (e.g. I.Eph 1304) attest to a different type of social agency — these are honorific inscriptions by local grandees, yet they equally claim fragments of public visual and social space. Instances of epigraphy located within, or in immediate proximity to, cultic and liturgical spaces in city cathedrals (I.Eph 1343) can merge the civic with the religious; these inscriptions open windows onto the increasingly transparent borderlines between church and civic spaces in late antique cityscape.

The various spatial contexts of these inscriptions, as well as the variety of actors behind them (emperors, bishops, state officials etc.) can be unpacked as indicators of the complex dynamics of the variety of social agencies claiming public visibility within urban spaces, and therefore as contributing to the re-making of the communal spatiality of late antique cities in Anatolia. Highlighting individual and community agencies in re-inscribing the cityscape of Ephesus as a recognizably Christian city can help reveal the interests of local micro-communities; these could be both religiously and otherwise defined, and find themselves at odds or in relative concord with each other.

The present paper, ultimately, will seek to bring together material evidence with methodologically innovative frameworks of epigraphic visibility and visuality in order to arrive at new insights into how urban communities in late antique Anatolia were changing, and bringing change to their environments, of which inscribed cityscapes were a significant part.

Recent studies have shown the dependence of some classes of Byzantine pottery, especially sgraffito ware of the twelfth and later centuries, on more expensive models in silver and bronze. The impact of models in glass on Byzantine ceramics, however, has been relatively overlooked, except in regard to the shapes of vessels. This paper focuses on possible links between the ornamentation of Islamic glass and that of Byzantine ceramics manufactured or found in Anatolia, initially looking at polychrome production, and subsequently at slip-painted wares. The motifs that will be considered, including eye shapes with their central pupils; enclosing squares and polygons; spots filling, framing, and surrounding the motifs; and accompanying checkerboards based on crosses, all had their origins in the sliced canes of millefiori glass making.

Byzantine polychrome tiles, at least some of which seem to have been produced in Bithynia, introduced a new repertoire of ornamental motifs into Byzantine ceramics. Various sources have been proposed for these innovative designs, including Islamic lustreware, Coptic and Abbasid wall painting, and, on a smaller scale, Byzantine jewellery. But it is also possible that some were inspired by Islamic tiles composed of millefiori glass. The strong visual parallels between Byzantine polychrome tiles and the millefiori glass tiles excavated at Samarra could have two possible explanations. The first is that the polychrome tiles imitated the patterns created by the millefiori technique through the intermediary of imported Islamic lustre-painted ceramics, the decoration of which was itself partly inspired by millefiori glass (see Carl Johan Lamm, Oriental Glass of Mediaeval Date Found in Sweden and the Early History of Lustre-Painting, Stockholm, 1941, 27-8, pl. 12). The second possibility is that the Byzantines imported millefiori tiles directly in order to adorn palatial buildings in and around Constantinople, and that these exotic tiles inspired the motifs appearing on some of the polychrome tiles made by the Byzantines. According to his biography, the Vita Basilii, 89, the ninth-century emperor Basil I decorated the walls of the Kainourgion of the great Palace with multicoloured revetments of glass: “The walls on either side are covered with many-hued panels (plaxi) of glass, and thus seem adorned with flowers of various kinds.”

A similar repertoire of motifs, whose origin lay in glass production, was shared between early Islamic millefiori bowls and ceramic vessels decorated in the polychrome technique. Some of the same motifs appeared in Byzantine slip-painted ceramics found at Anatolian sites, including Nicaea and Pergamon. While it is possible that some of the Byzantine polychrome tiles and vessels consciously referenced the luxury medium of millefiori glass, the makers of the later slip-painted pots may have wished to emulate models in polychrome ceramics rather than glass. Thus a group of designs that was once associated with the very highest level of society became part of the larger repertoire of ornament available to the every-day potters of the eastern Mediterranean.

This paper aims to introduce a selection of seals from the private collection of Adnan Acı in Samsun. This collection is a significant contribution to the field of sigillography. Most of the important seal publications are catalogues of private collections formed in Istanbul such as Schlumberger, Zacos-Veglery, and Dumbarton Oaks, but at present there are still very few such collections in Turkey. One important aspect of the Adnan Acı collection comes from the fact that it is formed in Samsun/ Αμισός and its surroundings, a region away from the capital of the empire.

A study of these seals has revealed some very interesting information regarding the connection of the city of Amisos and the area around it to the imperial capital, Constantinople. Due to its important geographical situation close to the Northeastern border of the empire, Amisos was a vital center of communication. Although the actual documents indicating this communication are lost, the seals reflect a great variety of interaction within the administrative, military and religious structure of the empire, indicating a comprehensive network between the center of the empire and its peripheries.

The seals in the collection date from between the sixth and twelfth centuries, spanning more than half of the history of the Byzantine Empire. However, a significant number of the seals are from the eleventh century. Parallel to the precarious situation of the empire in the East, most of them belonged to officials from the military administration such as stratelates, strategos, katepano, douks, megalo domestikos, domestikos ton scholon tes Dyseos, and domestikos ton scholon tes Anatoles. Along with these, we find seals belonging to officials from the provincial civil administration, as an indication of the centralized complex administrative system, such as judicial, secretarial or religious officials: krites, notarios, exarchos, anagrapheus, chartoularios, epi tou chrysotiklinou, symbonos, metropolites, episkopos, monachos, orphanotropos, and syngellos. Titles of the owners, and their choice of image for the obverse of the seal will also be discussed.

This paper focuses on the multicultural and multi-confessional environment of thirteenth-century Konya. The author will analyze Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī’s conceptions of Judaism and Christianity, developed in his poetical and theological writings. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī’s stance towards Jews and Christians in his Sūfī writings was influenced by his role as teacher and admonisher. His religious discourses are extremely polarized and dichotomous, representing the dualistic struggle between true religious knowledge, discovered and transmitted by the Sūfī teacher, and all sorts of religious ignorance. In this dichotomous scheme, “the wrong side” may have been represented equally by Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Zoroastrians. At the same time, only the specific practices of individual followers of these religions were questioned, not the ontological principles of the three religions. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī instead mainly focuses on the universal and ultimate truth that is common to all confessions. This universal truth may appear to an inexperienced outward observer quite contradictory and complex, but in its essence has no contradictions. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī often calls the universal truth the one-colorness of many colors. This truth is reproduced by prophets regardless of their creed, but the followers of these various prophets may or may not be aware of it. Further on, the author will place Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī’s activities and teaching into the ethnic and religious context of the Konya of the time. By means of a prosopographical analysis of Persian, Arabic, Greek, Latin, and Armenian sources of the time, the author outlines the role of the Jewish and Christian communities in thirteenth-century Konya.  Finally, the impact of Orthodox Greeks and Jews on Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī’s personal life will be discussed in detail.

This paper deals with notions of space, settlement, and cultures in the western Anatolian emirates/beyliks of Saruhan and Aydın in the time following their establishment in the hinterland of Smyrna during the fourteenth century. The main axes of analysis revolve around (a) the conditions for the creation of Muslim-Turkish settlement upon pre-existing Byzantine structures and (b) the principles governing the remodeling, construction, and use of public space. In this respect, the paper will look into the broader political and economic context of the emergence of Muslim-Turkish settlements in Magnesia-near-Sipylos/Manisa and Pyrgion/Birgi. Prior to the Turkish conquest in 1313, the former stood out as one of the Byzantine imperial residences and centers of dynastic memory and patronage of the Laskarid family. The latter was an episcopal seat that continued figuring prominently in the fourteenth-century register of the patriarchate of Constantinople, while due to its well-protected position at the southern slopes of the Bozdağ surveying the Cayster/Küçük Menderes Valley the town quickly developed into the main residence of the Aydın emirate respectively. In addition, we will examine cultural strategies for settlement-formation, exertion of power relations, and intra-communal interaction through the investigation of written sources, inscriptions, and the meaning of architectural practices involving the incorporation of Byzantine sculptures in the Ulu Cami of Mehmed Beg in Birgi (1312) and the complex of Ishak Çelebi in Manisa (1366). The rich corpus of written and material primary evidence from both the Byzantine and the Muslim-Turkish side enables us to reconstruct the major transformation patterns that determined the region’s transition from Byzantine to Turkish rule in the course of the fourteenth century with relatively great accuracy. Manisa and Birgi thus can serve as case studies for politico-cultural change in regions that were characterized by a strong Byzantine-Christian substrate and were situated outside the core areas of the early Ottoman expansion.

The Mount Olympus in Bithynia was a significant monastic center of the Byzantine empire in the 8^th-10^th  centuries. It was the early Holy Mountain before this “status” was granted to the Athos peninsula. Being situated near Constantinople, it was tightly connected with the Byzantine court. Thus, there are many texts (mainly hagiographic) which refer to relationships between monks of Olympus with different representatives of the court including emperors themselves.

It is not accidental that the Mount Olympus became a popular destination for Georgian monks as well, especially after the 9^th century. The Georgians from the beginning of Christian monasticism were always active members of all big monastic centers establishing even their own monasteries. Therefore, Georgian monasticism spread over the territories of the Byzantine Empire: Palestine, Sinai, Antioch and the Black Mountain in Syria, Olympos in Bithynia, Mount Athos and Bachkovo in Bulgaria.

There are two hagiographic texts which refer to the Georgian presence on Olympus monasteries. Hilarion (822-875) is a significant figure in the history of Georgia, as he is the first Georgian monk known from sources who settled in the heart of the Byzantine Empire. He spent his life (besides Olympus) in many places of the medieval world: the Middle East, Rome, and Thessalonica. He visited Constantinople as well. The information of the Life of Hilarion the Georgian (written in the 10^th century) about Olympus in the second half of the ninth century is of great interest.

Another Georgian hagiographic text entitled the “Life of John and Euthumios” composed in 1042-1044 by George the Hagiorite (1009-1065), refers to the first decades of Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos. One of the founders of the Iveron, John the Georgian lived on Olympus before he settled on the Mount Athos (approx. In the 950s).

Both men, Hilarion and John, connected with the Byzantine court through the Olympus Mountain. Therefore, their Lives show how a monastic/sacral and imperial spaces influenced each other; how and why a holy man and imperial power need each other. Besides those aspects, all details concerning the Olympus Mountain monastic life will be analysed in the present paper as a contribution in presenting Byzantine Anatolia’s sacral space and character.

Digital mapping can help to present archaeological information in a new scientific and sustainable way. In this paper, we will describe the challenge and the progress (up to 2019) of an online publication of the French surveys of Byzantine Bithynia, from the southern shore of the Marmara Sea to Mount Olympus (Uludağ). Historical sources, ancient maps, archaeological publications, accounts of travelers as well as results of many surveys, including hundreds of photographs and some videos, have been gathered for three decades in the Collège de France and the CNRS in Paris and were digitized in 2017/2018. A first program had been initiated by Jacques Lefort at the École pratique des hautes études (Paris) between 1987 and 1994. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) funded the field surveys, with the support of the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul (IFEA). The results were published in an interdisciplinary volume gathering 19 studies, with the title La Bithynie au Moyen Âge (2003). It documents abundant archaeological material found on the sites (architectural blocks, ceramics, inscriptions) and contains paleo-geographic, topographic and economic studies up to Ottoman times. A second program supervised by Marie-France Auzépy (Université Paris VIII) began in 2004 and was funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 2005 and 2008. The surveys intended to set up an inventory of preserved medieval monuments in Bithynia around Mount Olympus, focusing on monasteries in particular. The results were published each year in Anatolia Antiqua, the journal of the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul. To put these data online, a technical collaboration has been set up with the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Updating and connecting this information – collected thanks to a vast range of methodological approaches – has yielded more results than expected: first conceived as depository of archives to provide scientific data to the public, the project has made it possible to develop new interpretations on the environment, landscape and settlements in the Byzantine region of Bithynia.

In the Byzantine period, the densely populated and extremely fertile Meander Valley was an economically important region of the Empire. Especially in the delta plain of the lower valley there were already several urban centers situated since antiquity: the ancient poleis of Miletus, Priene and Heracleia. These settlements were originally port cities but are today located a distance from the coast. The modern topography of the delta plain is the result of a long-term process over several millennia, in which the former bay was silting up, and the coastline was continuously shifting. The gradual loss of the access to the open sea of the ancient cities began in Late Antiquity and came to end during the Ottoman times.

Long-term excavations of the urban settlements since the late 19^th century have enabled an analysis and reconstruction of the settlement pattern during the Byzantine period. Recent studies of Byzantine Miletus and Priene in particular, as well as extensive surveys in the region are providing a huge amount of archaeological data. While the ancient urban centers in general continued to exist, albeit in reduced size and with differing urban layout, new fortified settlements emerged during the Middle and late Byzantine period. The rural areas were characterized by a vast number of small individual farmsteads during the early Byzantine period, but this picture later changed to a diversified settlement pattern including hamlets and small villages. A specific feature of the Byzantine era was the establishment of monastic communities at the adjacent Mount Mykale and Latmos during the middle Byzantine period. Several wealthy and politically influential monasteries were situated here, owning large estates on the plain. Although the monasteries were situated in the mountains, they were integrated into the regional infrastructure and were part of the economic cycle of the lower valley.

This paper aims to discuss the development of the settlement pattern and the infrastructure of the Meander delta during the Byzantine period while considering the changing specific natural landscape conditions of the region. In addition, the interaction between the different social groups shall be examined in terms of cooperation and conflicts, including the rural and urban population, the landowning nobility as well as the monks of the nearby monastic communities.

Despite its central position in the Byzantine Empire, medieval Anatolia preserves few architectural remains, and these have been less studied than their counterparts in Greece.  The intrepid adventurer-scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries found great fascination in the archaeological remains of the region. Their discoveries seemed to hold great promise, so much so that in 1903 Josef Strzygowski proclaimed Anatolia ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte – “a new land of art history” – thus the title of my paper.

Unfortunately, the period of intensive exploration came to an end due to the turmoil of the early twentieth century – the Balkan Wars, World War I, the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, and the Turkish War of Independence – and many of the monuments documented by Strzygowski’s students, and others, notably Hans Rott and Gertrude Bell, have vanished without a trace.  For those that do survive, textual sources are almost completely absent, and their histories must be reconstructed from archaeological evidence and historical context. Many are today isolated ruins, with no trace of settlement nearby and nothing to indicate why they were built; others have been converted into mosques.  Nevertheless, an analysis of the surviving buildings indicates an interaction between Constantinople and the local centers, which is evident in plans, construction techniques, and decorative details.  In central and eastern Anatolia, contact with the Caucasus is apparent as well. 

The dearth of surviving built structures in Anatolia is amply compensated for by the wealth of remaining rock-cut architecture, notably in the volcanic highlands of Cappadocia and neighboring regions. Hundreds of rock-carved churches and chapels have been preserved, most dating from the tenth and eleventh centuries, as well as monasteries, houses, agricultural installations, and, occasionally, complete villages.  Although the finest of these appear to replicate masonry forms, the inventiveness of the Cappadocian artisan is often evident in the willful deviations from masonry prototypes. Because these spaces were carved out of the living rock rather than built of brick and stone, they could take virtually any form: columns, pilasters, arches, barrel vaults, and domes were structurally unnecessary, if however symbolically appropriate.  In short, within the rock-carved environment of Cappadocia, we move into the realm of symbolic architecture.

In this paper, I shall attempt to provide an updated assessment of the architectural heritage of Middle Byzantine Anatolia, asking the question, is it still ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte?

At the rock-carved settlement at Selime-Yaprakhisar in the Peristrema Valley, Cappadocia, a substantial, masonry-built fortification wall located one hundred and fifty meters above the riverbed on the high plateau above Selime Kalesi offers significant evidence that Cappadocian settlements derived meaning from a visible form of community defense. This fortification wall presents the basis for the material and spatial analysis of many intriguing questions concerning the nature and chronology of settlement activity in Anatolia during the Middle Byzantine period (10^th -11^th Centuries) whereby the local population began to carve their homes (whether secular estates or monasteries) inside the soft volcanic rock. Below this fortification wall in Selime rest at least fifteen rock-carved courtyard units identified as homes of the local, landed aristocracy of the tenth to eleventh centuries AD in Cappadocia. These types of courtyard units and their groupings have been analyzed extensively in recent scholarship (Rodley, Ousterhout, Öztürk, etc.); however, their grouping around certain geological or man-made features like the fortification wall in Selime needs further discussion.

The rubble-core masonry wall is over 200 meters in length, built from one cliff edge of the plateau to the other, in a straight line, with symmetrically arranged features. A central gate is placed exactly in the middle of the wall’s length and two round bastions are attached on both sides between the gate and the two edges of the cliff. In addition, a deep ditch a few meters outside the wall also runs the length of the plateau and is carved into its edges on both sides. The Selime Kalesi double courtyard mansion carved into the cliff directly below the wall relates to the fortification on account of their similar dimensions, orientations, and locations in space. It also stands in the most prominent position in the landscape at the head of the Peristrema (Ihlara) valley where the steep river gorge opens onto a wide, fertile plain. Although it is difficult to date the fortification with any precision, its construction is medieval, and it most likely belongs to the settlement below that can be more securely dated to the Middle Byzantine period from the tenth to the eleventh centuries AD. The way in which this prominent structure forms the focus for the community that settled below it in the valley will be explored in this paper.

While there is ample scholarship on the cult of emperor in the Classical and Late Antique periods, the continuation of this practice in art after Iconoclasm has been understudied. In the Middle Byzantine period many, if not most, emperors were informally granted sacred status upon death. The process for conferring imperial saintly status was the same as the one used for the non-imperial dead: local ecclesiastical authorities approved popular cults and introduced them into the liturgy. In most cases, imperial and otherwise, non-canonical status quickly declined.

Texts confirm the imperial desire for permanent, posthumous sanctification in the Middle Byzantine period; however, it is only after 1204 that emperors were successfully accorded official sainthood. Saints require and create cults, and cults require images. In the art surviving to this day from Constantinople, there is no evidence of any cult devoted to a Middle Byzantine emperor.

 I demonstrate that the issue of imperial canonization was of concern to the Church, and argue that the official, sanctified status of Constantine I was seen as a dangerous precedent that could be used to argue in favor of imperial sainthood. We look, then, for evidence of a cult of Constantine in the Middle Byzantine period, and find it, in both text and art, outside of the capital.

 The textual evidence is from greater Anatolia: 5 epigrams dating from the 6-9^th centuries survive in widely separated loci. All offer prayers to St. Constantine, without Helena. Of the 5, 3 also refer to a 'cross' or 'sign', and in 2 of them Constantine is referred to as 'victorious'. These epigrams argue for a cult of Constantine that continued through the Early and Middle Byzantine periods.

 Art in the service of a cult dedicated to Constantine survives only in Cappadocia. There, 3 rock-cut churches which date back to the 10-12^th centuries are located in different valleys. These churches retain images of Constantine, without Helena, in the apse. Taken together, these epigrams and paintings point to a popular cult devoted to Constantine in the Middle Byzantine period.

I suggest that supporting evidence for this cult is found in the vestibule mosaic of Hagia Sophia. I offer a new interpretation of the mosaic, demonstrating that it was intended as a polemic against imperial cults in general and that of Constantine in particular.

The images in Cappadocia and Constantinople should therefore be seen as being in conversation with, and responding to, each other. This case study challenges the standard perception of a 'center' producing sophisticated art that is later mimicked and misunderstood in 'provincial' art. It offers instead a glimpse of the mobility of images, moving between, and interacting in, networks that linked 'center' and 'periphery'.

Integration of the provinces appears to have been a hallmark of Roman rule, whether it is described in terms of Romanisation, globalisation, or connectivity. Conversely, the subsequent disintegration of the Mediterranean world would seem to have brought about the Dark or Middle Ages. From the fourth century onwards, disintegration first occurred in the West, where former Roman provinces were partitioned off and subjected to the rule of various Germanic rules during the Migration Period. Much of the Eastern Roman Empire remained un-maimed until the seventh century, that is, throughout late antiquity. This was also the time when the empire became Christian, starting with the conversion of Emperor Constantine the Great in the fourth century. Late antique Christianisation would thus seem to have been implemented in a similar way as Romanisation,  through a top-down process that emanated from the centre, Rome and later Constantinople, the ‘new Rome,’ thanks to the empire’s globalisation and connectivity, soon penetrated every nook and cranny in even the most remote provinces. Following the same analogy, early Christian art was long conceived of as a late antique version of Roman art, centred on Rome and later on Constantinople, whilst the provinces were considered largely irrelevant.

    However, more recent evidence concerning the early Christian art and architecture of Anatolia does not agree with such a scenario. Objections to the Romanisation paradigm had already been raised repeatedly over the last century, but were silenced again and again due to the relatively small amount of alternative early Christian data available as measured against the overwhelming evidence for Roman integration, globalisation, and connectivity. A more recent upsurge in the early Christian and provincial archaeology of Anatolia has now tipped the balance in favour of an alternative model. This contribution shall try and re-iterate the point that late antique churches cannot be conceptualised along the same lines as Roman architecture. Early Christian art requires an essentially different approach in so far as it was primarily a provincial phenomenon. Influences from the centre, Rome and later Constantinople, were rare exceptions and cannot explain the characteristics of provincial churches, let alone the fundamental differences between the early Christian art and architecture of various provinces.

On the roadway between Niğde and Kayseri, 8 km northeast of Niğde, there is a church dating back to the Early Byzantine period.  The church was first described briefly by J. W. Hamilton in his itinerary, published in 1842. Subsequently, some other itinerants and researchers (e.g. J. Stygowski, 1903, H. Rott, 1908, G. Bell, 1909) reported that the church was dedicated to St. Helena. The most detailed studies were conducted by M. Restle (1978 & 1979).

The church was used as an apple store for a long time, and in the winter of 1976-1977 it was dynamited and ruined. The standing wall paintings were covered with dust and soot over time.

The just-concluded conservation, documentation, restitution, and restoration works were initiated by the Niğde Museum in 1996.  The first studies, carried out by mostly the professors and students of Hacettepe University up to 2007, under my presidency, were presented at the First International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium, June 25-28th 2007, and published in 2010.

The archaeological excavations, conservation, reinforcement, and restoration of the wall paintings, in what we call the church of Constantine and Helena, have been completed. More specifically, conservation and restoration works ensured the wall paintings were clearly identified and comparatively examined to other wall paintings in the region of Cappadocia. Furthermore, the restitution and restoration drawings, and landscaping projects of the site have also been completed and approved by the state authorities. Currently, the landscaping phase is being finalized, and the church will be opened to visitors in the near feature.

During the studies on the building, additional surveys were also carried out in the near vicinity, and at least two additional churches and architectural plastic parts were found. These remains are believed to be from the Early Byzantine period, although it is not certain.

The paper will provide a report on the last results of the studies on the church of St. Constantine and Helena. Further, by evaluating the remains of the newly found churches and nearby sculpture fragments believed to be contemporary to the church of St Constantine and Helena, the area will be asserted and discussed as an Early Byzantine ecclesiastical settlement.

This paper deals with the issue of settlement and environment in Constantia in late antiquity. Focusing on three monuments around the city of Constantia (modern Viranşehir in south eastern Turkey) and Tektek mountains, this paper discusses how our interpretation of these monuments shape our understanding of communities and their impact on environment.

The first of these monuments is the monumental octagonal structure located one kilometer west of the city walls of Constantia. This building is clearly a martyria but its dedication is problematic. Since it is an imposing structure, it has been suggested that it must have been built for an influential figure; two of the candidates that were suggested were Jacob Baradeus and John of Tella, prominent figures in the Syrian Orthodox Church hierarchy. Another suggestion is based on the Greek inscriptions around the city which indicate that it was a monumental imperial foundation, dedicated possibly to St. Thomas, whose relics were claimed to be kept in the neighboring city of Edessa. Discussions on the identification of its dedication shape our perception of this building and the power and influence of the communities in the urban context.

Interpretation of a rock-carved monastery located around twelve kilometers southwest of Constantia is another example of the shaping of our perception about the situation of a community by identifying a building. This monastery, which looks like a quarry, was identified as the famous monastery of Jacob Baradeus, called monastery of Phesilta, the quarry, based mainly on its name and some information from contemporary sources. This monastery, dedicated to an important figure, draws a more rural and secluded image for the Syriac Church. It is close to the city yet not inside it; it is not easily visible yet accessible.

The third building that adds another dimension to this discussion is a burial chamber which is two kilometers south of Constantia. This structure has now been moved to the mosaic museum in Urfa. It has a mosaic with a Syriac inscription in the middle which bears a date from the 6^th century. While challenging our past ideas about the preference of aniconic imagery in the religious buildings of the Syrian Orthodox, this inscription together with another 6^th century inscription around Constantia that we shall mention, is critical given the scarcity of 6^th century epigraphic evidence in other Syriac locations, especially in the urban and suburban contexts. Thus, it is significant for the discussion of urban-rural dichotomy in relation to local identities. The moving of this structure to a museum is another issue that I would like to tackle in this paper. Syrian Orthodox community claim this heritage despite some, together with the locals of the village, were against its relocation. In places where the communities exist, the protection of the heritage in place is how a communal identity, based on a historical building, shapes a landscape today.

The construction activities during the first half of the 3rd century AD in the cities of the Çukurova region, and the hinterland function of the Cilicia plain against Parthians and Sassanians in the first three quarters of the 3rd century AD were both ended by the plunder of Sassanian king Shapur in 260 AD. Starting from North Mesopotamia to Cilicia and from then until Thedosius II’s accession to the throne in 408 BC, there does not seem to be remarkable activity in terms of urbanization and public improvements. Due to the halted activity in the ancient cities of Cilicia for about 150 years after Shapur’s plunder, the monuments of the 5th century AD have overshadowed those from the first 3 centuries AD and their remains are in better condition today compare the previous examples.

Consequences of the earthquake, such as wreckage, plague and famine caused a drop in the population of Cilicia Pedias. In the scope of Diocletian’s newly founded provincial system, Cilicia has come under the rule of the Diocese of the East in Antioch, who was vicar in 284. After the shift of the empire’s capital from Rome to Byzantium, a new era began, which also changed the image of the cities in Çukurova. Especially when the temples were closed by the order of Constantine, the city social life began to change.

By this time, those who have survived the catastrophes and the changes in Cilicia Pedias have either gradually established new settlements in the Taurus Mountains (which are easy to defend and hide in), or have begun to use ancient plateau settlements which had existed since the Roman Empire period as permanent places of residence throughout the seasons. The density of the population shifted from Cilicia Pedias to the mountains when the security of the area was compromised beginning in 260, and the inhabitants tried to sustain life by producing olive oil and wine. Although life in Cilicia Pedias began to slowly return to normal starting from 408 AD, droughts, epidemic diseases and earthquakes shaped the arrangements of lifestyle and settlement of the people.

The aim of this paper is to present the urbanization processes during the transition period from Late Antiquity to the Early Byzantine period in the case of Cilicia Pedias through the finds of recent years.

Isauria displays a rare confluence of textual, epigraphic, and architectural evidence that points to a local building industry, which has become a marketable business in this backwater province during the Early Byzantine period. Since the publication of Cyril Mango’s seminal article “Isaurian Builders” in 1966, scholars have searched the traces of these stone-cutters and stone-builders in Syria, Cappadocia, Italy, Constantinople, and in their homeland. The role of the Isaurian building crews in the formation of Byzantine architecture, especially in the sixth century, has been debated at length in the scholarship. However, the sources and the acquisition of limestone, which was the main building material, have not become the subject of investigations.

In this context, the extensive limestone quarries of Dana Island (ancient Pityoussa), located ca. 2.5 km off the Isaurian coast, shed light to the procurement of this building material, which was highly demanded across the region. With its quarry zones covering an area of at least 16 hectares, the island was the largest known source of limestone not only in Isauria but also along the southern coast of Asia Minor. The island’s limestone resources were intensively exploited and exported from the fourth century onwards. Along the 1.2 km-long western shore, and on the western and eastern slopes of the island, numerous quarry pits and faces, channels for stone extraction, causeways to carry the stones down the slope, and the ramps for loading the stone blocks unto ships, provide evidence for the operations of this highly active quarrying industry. From the fourth to at least the eighth century CE, a large maritime settlement along the western shore and a smaller outpost on the southern summit have developed possibly in association with the procurement and trade in limestone, which was the backbone of the island’s economy. Like its counterparts on other islands and on land, this was a Christian settlement as evidenced by the construction of at least six basilical churches in the fifth century CE. Hundreds of structures must have functioned as houses, hostels, shops, warehouses, etc. The massive limestone quarries supplied building material not only for the settlement but also to other construction projects beyond the island.

In this paper, I examine the ways in which people have transformed their environment through the large-scale quarrying of a previously little exploited regional resource. I discuss the spatial, logistical, and chronological relationship between the quarries and the associated settlement. I interpret Dana Island’s quarry landscapes in the context of the rise of indigenous building industry in Isauria.

Even though the excavations and surveys of the last 20 years have provided much new material with which to examine the course of the Christianisation of the Empire, the vast majority of these studies focus upon single buildings, namely churches. Today we have a considerable body of information concerning the development of a Christian architecture; however, the relationship of these buildings to the ancient/classical city within which they were constructed has been the subject of far fewer studies.

This presentation aims to examine the “Christianisation” of the cities, from the point of view of a changing urban environment and civic landscape. This process was a long one and far more complex than simply replacing the temple with the church. There is written and material evidence for the continued existence, and even the use of temples after the issuance of the prohibition of practicing pagan rites in them. However, in most cases, temples were left to decay and eventual collapse, with the deserted sites of former temples regarded as “haunted by the demons”. The negative effect of the image of a ruined monument for the silhouette of the city might have been prevented by temple-to-church conversions, but these had their own repercussions within the urban landscape, another issue this presentation aims to address.

Paganism had been rooted in the city and its institutions and pagan traditions had shaped the urban layout and landscape. Not only were most of the monuments related to the pagan gods, but also the urban pattern, with its streets and squares, were the stages for the celebration of pagan rites. When Christianity became one of the official religions, the church had the task of situating itself within this pre-existing context. This was much more than simply the problem of finding a large enough space within the already densely built city in which to construct a monument to glorify the new religion. It also needed to find ways to overwrite the overwhelmingly rich pagan connotations with which the classical urban environment was fashioned. When the location of churches in the city are examined, it is possible to read the pattern that became established as a response to these problems with the antique city from the Christian perspective, the refashioning of urban space to reflect the new reality. At the end of the 6th century the relics of classical culture within the built environment were no longer legible to the inhabitants of these now Christian cities. Even though several of the antique monuments of the ancient city still existed, the meaning which those buildings once conveyed was disguised in a very practical way. Through church building and order/hierarchy the ancient city was altered.

This presentation addresses the transformation of the classical city during the first three hundred years of the “Byzantine” Empire as cities became centres of Christianity. The discussion is based upon and exemplified by the architectural remains of the civic landscape, largely employing examples from the southern coasts of Anatolia.

The aim of the paper is to compare the unfolding of urban trajectories in some coastal urban centers located in southern and western Anatolia, and in the so-called Adriatic crescent during the passage from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages (i.e. between 550 and 800 CE). In this light, the contribution will focus on a number of important harbors and/or coastal sites across the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean (Ephesos, Athens, Limyra, and Patara among the others) as compared with the trajectory of similar settlement in the northern Adriatic sea (Torcello, Civitas Nova Heracliana, and Comacchio) and it will be based on archaeology and material culture. By using harbors and in particular those which showed more pronounced urban connotations as opposed to simple “gateway communities”, it is possible to trace evidence for resilient networks of more regionalized economic activities as well as the changing facies and functionality of urban spaces in what can be loosely defined as Byzantine Mediterranean.

Indeed, the increased focus on the coins, seals and ceramics as yielded in stratigraphically-aware excavations allows to sketch commonalities in the spatial coherence of urban fabric located in areas- like the southern coast of Anatolia or the Adriatic itself- too often regarded as peripheral to the so-called Byzantine heartland (the Aegean and the Anatolian plateau) in the period under scrutiny. Moreover, it can also help to enhance the role played by residential state officials and ecclesiastical hierarchies, as well as local elites, in underpinning resilient economic activities (commercial and artisanal) mirrored by a reasonable density and coherence of settlement at the expense of public spaces and monuments.

The paper will also try to demonstrate how, despite its different economic, administrative and religious functional structures or its peculiar, as Decker puts it, “forms of public, private and sacred space, planning and economic activity” Byzantine urbanism could nevertheless develop. Regional peculiarities, as predicated upon the importance and significance of these different urban functions, contributed to mold a type of urban fabric (the so-called “city of islands”) and social organization, which clearly differs from the Classical one.

This not to deny that  Mediterranean became an economically fragmented, politically conflictual, religiously divided and culturally disputed space at the turn of the eighth century; but rather to use archaeology of major harbor-urban sites on the coast to show that harbors showed good level of economic activity predicated upon resilient trade links and shipping routes between the western and eastern half on the Mediterranean, chance of these different urban functions contributed to mold a type of urban fabric (the so-called “city of islands”) and social organization, which clearly differs from the Classical one.