--KAPAK ARAÞTIRMA kopya - Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı

- 36 pieces of Byzantine church decoration (from the 5th-6th cent. to the 10th-11th centuries);
- 10 fragments of inscriptions (all in the 1924 depot of the museum);
- 3 mosaic fragments, possibly from the 1924 excavation.
- 4 Furthermore, we found in the depot of the museum some beautiful marble pieces
coming from a village, close to Antioch (Ileğli or Eleğli), whose ancient Byzantine
name was quoted in historical texts, though the site was never localised.
What seems somehow strange is that there is no reference about the provenance
of these pieces. Some of the findings do bear marks of a catalogue, but in vain we
checked the museum’s registers in order to set a precise connection of the pieces with
the city’s spots. Given the evidence that many of them do belong to the Middle Byzantine
period, one has to envisage a church of that period that can require that sort of decoration.
Most of the pieces are epistyles, fragmented indeed, but certainly put on something
to match the setting of at least a templon. Robinson and colleagues mentioned
in their diary the Basilica church (that is what is called today St. Paul’s) and the Byzantine
church (the church laying down west of the Tiberius plateia): from the diary unfortunately
one cannot infer a connection of these pieces to any of them. The building
phases of the churches are not clearly shown, nor has the former director of the museum
given any additional information about all this matter. We hold that we cannot at
the moment argue without any further and more detailed excavation of the monuments.
Due to the historical reference offered by the last finding, we think it opportune
to present this first (Fig. 1). All together there are eight pieces of white marble: two of
them belong to the arch bearing the inscription, two pieces are fragments of an epistyle5,
two fragments6 of one (or two) arch(s) 7, finally, two broken marble colonnettes
(high 90 cm.; diameter 16 and 14 cm. [at the bottom]; height of the capital 16, abacus
4 cm.). The thickness of the decorated moulding reaches 18 cm. at the bottom, while
the reconstructed diameter at the basis of the arch calls for 53 cm. The flat moulding
on top, bearing the inscription, measures 4 cm., and the acanthus leaves decoration
spans for 12.5 cm. The height of the arch is 50 cm., and right at its centre we found an
iron ring pouring 22 mm. out from the stone and large 7 mm. The drilling technique reversed
on all the pieces is of high quality. On the arch fragments the acanthus occupies
the main register of the decoration, supported at the bottom by an egg or phytomorphic
motif. What we can at the present think of is either the upper decoration of a
templon8, made of three different arches supported by an architrave, or (unlikely) fragments
of a ciborium.
According to the entry in the museum register9, these pieces came from the village
of Eleği, 10 km. NW of Yalvaç. Thanks to the inscription running on the upper moulding
of the arch, we are told that the village was called in antiquity Pidron. The inscription
runs as follows:
(cross) EÈx± xvr¤ou P¤drvn §stØ tÚ ¶rgon §p‹ Dvrou°ou ±goum°nou ka‹
: Asklhpio [.....
The inscription is not complete, for the final part of the arch is missing. The last
name (and there is ground to read either Askepiodotus or Asklepios) might have been
5 There is another piece of epistyle, very similar to these, but it was kept within the depot of 1924. We believe, however,
that this piece does not belong to the former excavation, but rather it too came to the musuem with the others.
6 The one attached by the former restorer to the main arch bore an inscription whose letters unfortunately are illegible.
The lettering and the height of the letters, however, differ from the inscription we produce in these pages.
7 The decoration running at the bottom differs from the larger arch, being here, as it seems, more refined in technique
and motifs.
8 It suffices here to mention: C. Mango, On the History of the Templon and the Martyrion of St. Artemios at Constantinople,
Zograf 10 (1981) 40-43 and fig. 3.
9 The inventory number is 350, the museum bought the pieces the 25 th of Feb. 1965. The photo accompanying the
entry in the museum catalogue missed an arched piece, which later was mistakenly attached to the main arch.
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