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Amorium Excavations 1994: the Seventh Preliminary Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

C. S. Lightfoot  and
E. A. Ivison et al
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Extract

The seventh season of excavations took place between July 7 and August 20, although actual digging only lasted for four weeks because of the Project's limited resources this year. Part of the season was devoted to continuing the regional survey that was started on behalf of the Ministry of Culture in 1993. The Project is extremely grateful to the Kaymakan of Emirdağ, the Mayor and Municipality of Emirdağ, the local Jandarma Komutanlığı, and to the many muhtars and villagers who facilitated the survey work with their help, knowledge and advice. A bonus from this work was that 23 stones inventoried in the neighbouring villages at the end of last season were gathered up by the staff of Afyon Museum (with the help of the Emirdağ Kaymakamı) and deposited at the Amorium Dig House for safe-keeping. This year's survey took us up into the northern foothills of the Emirdağ mountains, where we visited 30 villages and sites, recording an impressive number of individual monuments and inscriptions. The survey thus enabled us to see something of the hinterland to Amorium, which appears to have been extensively occupied in the Byzantine period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 45 , December 1995 , pp. 105 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1995

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References

1 AS XLI (1991), 222–4 and fig. 5Google Scholar; AS XLII (1992), 208, 210–11Google Scholar; AS XLIII (1993), 149–50Google Scholar; AS XLIV (1994), 107Google Scholar; and Amorium. A Brief Guide to a Late Roman and Byzantine City in Central Anatolia, İstanbul, 1994, 22–5Google Scholar.

2 AS XLIII (1993), 149Google Scholar.

3 The excavation of Trench Al was supervised by Simon Young, and this report draws on information provided in his field notes and records.

4 Scraps of the mortar remain on some walls and on the reverse sides of revetment reused in the opus sectile pavement (Pavement B).

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6 Mathews, T. F., The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy, University Park-London 1971, 23–7Google Scholar, figs. 7–8 (plans), fig. 9 (profile), and pls. 13–4. For a discussion on a revised date for the Studios Basilica, see Mango, C.. “The date of the Studius Basilica at Istanbul”, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies IV (1978), 115–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Mathews (op.cit., n. 6), 23–5, fig. 8.

8 Reisch, E., Forschungen in Ephesos IV.1: Die Marienkirche in Ephesos, Vienna 1932, 67–8, fig. 83Google Scholar. The design and mouldings indicate a fifth-century date for construction rather than one in the mid-fourth century as suggested by Riesch and Knoll; see Krautheimer, R., Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, New Haven-London 1986, 106–8Google Scholar.

9 The Amorium profile is closest to that of the altar base from the basilica church at Brauron in Attica; see Orlandos, A. K., ἫΞυλόστεγος ΠαλαιοΧριστιανική Βασιλική τῆς Μεσογειακῆς Λεκάνης, Vol. II, Athens 1952, 450Google Scholar fig 409.2 (profile).

10 For a general discussion and a reconstruction drawing of one example (from Basilica B at Nicopolis in Greece), see Orlandos (op. cit., n. 9), 448–50 and fig. 405.

11 Orlandos (op. cit., n. 9), 466–8.

12 AS XLIV (1994), 118Google Scholar. On reliquary caskets found in Turkey, see Eyice, S., “Reliquaires en forme de sarcophage en Anatolie et à Istanbul”, İstanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri Yıllığı XV–XVI (1969), 115–45Google Scholar. The Amorium casket is a trough fragment, which most closely resembles an alabaster example in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum (Inv. no. 4079), see Eyice (op. cit.), 138 no. 19 and pl. 21.

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26 Initial conservation was carried out by Karen Barker during excavation in 1993, and it is largely to her credit that the skeletons were still in such a good state of preservation when this study was undertaken. Further cleaning was carried out by Kate Hughes before detailed study was undertaken. Any bones that were beginning to disintegrate were consolidated with a PVA-water (1:3) solution, while those that were already broken were reconstructed with undiluted PVA.

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33 At the end of the season the archaeobotanical samples were taken to the UK for further sorting and study. We are grateful to Sayın Ahmet Ilaslı and the Afyon Museum Directorate for granting permission and facilitating the export of this material.

34 Grabar, A., Sculptures Byzantines du Moyen Age II: XIe-XIVe siècle, Paris 1976, 66–7 nosGoogle Scholar. 55–6 and pls. XXXV (a)–(b); 68–9 no. 62 and pl. XXXIX (a); and pl. LXVIII (a).

35 Macridy, T., Megaw, A. H. S., Mango, C., Hawkins, E. J. W., “The monastery of Lips (Fenari İsa Camii) at Istanbul”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers XVIII (1964), 262Google Scholar, fig. 17 (lower register, left) and especially fig. 31. For another slab fragment depicting a hare held by the talons of an eagle also found during Macridy's excavations at Fenari İsa Camii, see Fıratlı, N., La sculpture byzantine figurée au Musée archéologique d'Istanbul, Paris 1990, 192 no. 413Google Scholar.

36 Grabar (op. cit., n. 34), 102–3 no. 85 and pls. LXXIV (a), (c)–(d), LXXV (d) (third register from the top).

37 See also AS XLIV (1994), 121–2, pl. XXII (b)Google Scholar; AS XLIII (1993)Google Scholar, pl. XXVIII (c) (templon epistyle fragment at the top of the photograph).

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39 AS XLIV (1994), 121Google Scholar.

40 AS XLIV (1994), 120Google Scholar.

41 From Trench AB only 14 examples (or 0·08% of the total) have been recorded, from the various trenches in the Large Building another 22 (or 0·12% of the total), and from Trench L a total of 96 tesserae (or 0·54% of the total).

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45 See Dodge, H., “Brick Construction in Roman Greece and Asia Minor”, in Macready, S. and Thompson, F. H. (eds.), Roman Architecture in the Greek World, London (The Society of Antiquaries Occasional Papers, New Series, X) 1987, 112Google Scholar. The bricks used in the bonding courses in the Church at Dereağzı, which can in other ways be usefully compared with Phase II of the Lower City Church, have markedly different dimensions; see Morganstern, J., The Byzantine Church at Dereağzı and its Decoration, Tübingen (Istanbuler Mitteilungen, Beiheft XXIX) 1983, 62Google Scholar.

46 On one example (B025) the hole tapers, having a diameter of 0·033 m. on one side and only 0·02 m. on the other.

47 Only four examples of this type have been identified so far.

48 See AS XLIII (1993)Google Scholar, pl. XXVI (b) and AS XLIV (1994), 107 and 109Google Scholar.

49 Casts were taken of all the coins after they had been cleaned and consolidated by the conservators, Karen Barker and Hande Günyol. They were then all deposited in Afyon Museum. One coin (SF2817) remains to be identified.

50 Another coin (SF2829) from a similar context in the same area may also be Islamic.

51 AE; 18–17 mm.; 5·30 g; 0°. BMC 7.

52 See AS XLIII (1993), 150–1 and 162Google Scholar.

53 Three of these are described in the Appendix (see below, pp. 137–8—nos. 1, 3 & 4).

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55 AS XLIV (1994), 124–5Google Scholar and pl. XXIV (a). Corrigendum: the Ortaca inscription, published in MAMA X (no. 307), refers to Μήτηρ Ὀριηνή.

56 These villages are not covered in either MAMA Vol. VII, ed. Calder, W. M., Manchester 1956Google Scholar, or Waelkens, M., Die kleinasiatischen Türsteine I–II, Mainz 1980Google Scholar.

57 The former is mentioned in an earlier survey of the Afyon region, see Mermerci, D., “Afyon Bölgesi ve Hinterlandında M.Ö. II. Bin Yerleşme Birimleri”, VIII. Türk Tarihi Kongresi. Ankara—11–15 Ekim 1976. Kongreye Sunulan Bildiriler Vol. I, Ankara 1979, 161–2Google Scholar.

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63 For general comments on such literary epitaphs in central Anatolia in late antiquity, see Mitchell (op. cit., n. 32), 105.

64 Mango, C., “Byzantine epigraphy (4th to 10th centuries)” in Harlfinger, D. and Prato, G. (ed.), Paleografia e Codicologia Greca. Atti del II Colloquio internazionale (Berlino-Wolfenbüttel, 17–21 ottobre 1983), Alessandria 1991, 238 and pl. 5Google Scholar.

65 See AS XXXIX (1989), 174Google Scholar.