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St. John's Church, Ephesus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

H. Plommer
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Extract

The design of Justinian's domed cruciform Basilica of St. John on the hill of Ayasoluk, long an interesting, has now become an urgent question. Partly uncovered and published by Sotiriou in 1922, it was excavated more extensively by the Austrians and at last described and restored by H. Hoermann and edited by Josef Keil, with the aid of a grant from Dumbarton Oaks, in one of the most lavish Austrian volumes on Ephesus to be published to date. The seeming exhaustiveness and accuracy of this book have tempted certain syndicates to rebuild the church for the use of pilgrims to Ephesus, even though, when uncovered, it stood to a general height of merely 10 or 12 feet, about one-sixth of its original height, and even though Keil had set a wiser precedent for its treatment. “Auf grössere Wiederherstellungsarbeiten wurde, abgesehen von der Aufstellung einer Säule, verzichtet, weil solche Wiederaufstellungen erfahrungsgemäss den Anreiz zu schädigenden Umstürzen erwecken” (FE. p. 16).

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 12 , December 1962 , pp. 119 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1962

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References

1 In Archaiologikon Deltion for 1921–1922, pp. 89–226Google Scholar; henceforward referred to as AD.

2 Forschungen in Ephesus IV, 3: Die Johanneskirche (1951). Henceforward referred to as FE.

3 The lettering, too, on the “templum” that it supported (AD. p. 155, Fig. 33) is close to that in the sixth-century Codex Purpureus of Rossano (Grabar, A., Byzantine Painting, Skira, pp. 162–3)Google Scholar.

4 The evidence here is not so clear as the excavators would have it—compare my Fig. 2, No. 2; and the “rebuilding” (“Anastylosis”) may destroy the rest at any time.

5 Nikolaos of Mesara (cited in AD. p. 214) says the Holy Apostles had about seventy columns. Sotiriou gives its ground floor twenty-four columns in the arcades (six in each limb) and twenty-four wall-columns, and the tribune (triforium) only twenty-four columns, in the arcades alone. So he gets his total of seventy-two columns. But this arrangement is not so easy and obvious as Sotiriou seems to think (at Ephesus there were fewer columns against the walls than in the arcades); and S. Sophia, which had wall-columns in both storeys, makes against him. Nikolaos, too, could have been referring to the columns directly visible from the main body of the church. (N.B. In Fig. 1, 2 I have inadvertently omitted three columns from the North Transept at Ephesus.)

6 If only one could maintain that the eastern dome collapsed, and the Synthronon's foundations were merely a makeshift, late Byzantine apse! One could then have a sixth-century church like Fig. 2, No. 1. But this seems impossible. Sotiriou found no encircling seats round the eastern apse, although, indeed, his low marble dado seems to have stopped short of the actual apse (AD. p. 108, Fig. 22); and the eastern limb seems to have remained intact down to the later twelfth century, according to the writers cited by Sotiriou (AD. p. 122). At the same time, the join of bema and synthronon, already nearly obliterated by the “rebuilders”, was, I think, not quite accurately recorded by Sotiriou and Hoermann (compare my Fig. 2, Nos. 2 and 3).

7 Note that at Sardis, as on our stone, the palmettes point outwards, whereas on the North Door of the Erechtheum (Paton and Stevens, The Erechtheum, Plates 25 and 37) they point inwards. It is interesting to see so great a variation, which involves a dispute in architectural logic. The Athenians are surely more correct. But one can see why the Ionians wished their beautiful palmettes to be seen the right way up.