--KAPAK ARAÞTIRMA kopya - Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı

doubtless very scarce. The provincial character of the piece may only partially explain
the low quality of the execution. The capital should, however, be imagined within a Medieval
church, a building which must be pictured in Antioch in order to set the several
pieces of epistyles (see below) belonging to a Middle Byzantine church.
c) Fragment of a Medieval Byzantine Epistyle (in the 1924 depot) 13
The fragment, numbered 1189 14, shows the following dimensions: length 81 cm.,
height 34., width 15.5 cm. (Fig. 4). Apart from the fragmentary state, the piece we present
seems to be an unfinished part of a templon. A closer look at the bottom, where
the larger decoration is engraved (a maltese cross within a circle bordered to the left
by an open rosette) shows the unfinished design of the rosette. The flower, 20 cm.
high, was ready to receive another moulding to be completed; as a matter of fact the
piece has been left as we found it. As for the maltese cross, too, the engraving skill is
very poor; the cross has been left without a final polishing and not justified in its vertical
position within the circle. Furthermore, on this face there is no trace of border mouldings,
as one would have expected. The facing decoration (one ought to assume that
the left edge of the fragment is the original one) shows a series of six small arcades
(13 cm. high), with a quatrefoil rosette bordered by a roughly round moulding. The fluted
columns are rough and short compared with the spanning of the arcades, and the
joints over the capitals are surmounted by a spiral half leaf. The "series of arcades"
typology is well known and quite common in Anatolia 15 and its presence here marks
again the repetitiveness of this sort of decoration.
From this short presentation, and giving the fact that some other fragments of
such unfinished quality are preserved in the depot, we may think that perhaps in Antioch
there was an officina of marble in the 10 th-11 th century. Elsewhere we hope to show
the ordinary occurrence of these decorative motifs in territory of the city; in this instance,
however, it seems important to underline the local production.
c1) Fragment of a Medieval Byzantine Epistyle (in the 1924 depot).
The marble fragment, numbered 211, was brought to the museum on the 27 th of
Dec. 1984 from Bahtiyar Köyü (near Yalvaç). It has the following dimensions: length 78
cm.; height 33.5; width 17.5 cm. (Fig. 5). It is evident that in this case we can match roughly
the same dimensions, and the decoration of both faces, clearly in a better fashion
and cleanness, and it calls to mind the previous fragment. The epistyle presents a
high quality of execution, though in a repeated typology. The bottom decoration is flanked,
to the left, by the empty space due to the setting of the stone on the sustaining
colonnettes of the barrier. Then it follows with a clearly defined register bordered by a
flat moulding (3 cm. large) including interlacing circles with soleil, lanceolate petals,
maltese cross (there should have been at least another circle after the cross). The upper
register retains a well known decoration, albeit it is the sole case here at Antioch;
the usual series of small arches is introduced to the left by a zoomorphic motif. A goat,
in fact, is standing on a long branch which starts from the base of the first column
to the left; heart leaves, too, are springing from the same imaginative root creating so
far a full complement to the goat. Only two arches are preserved in this fragment: the
first, from left, frames a plant within; the second encloses a small maltese cross. The
13 It is important to document the presence of a similar piece of epistyle in the huge mass of marble pieces piled up in
the depot. The fragment, of the same marble and decorative quality of the one under analysis, shows a series of six
arches with the same features as those described below. Due to the perilous position of the block within the pile, we
have only filmed it.
14 The piece came to the museum the 26 th of Oct, 1967, it was found among the foundation stone of the new house of
M. Biner's house in Yalvaç.
15 Cf H. Buchwald, Chancel Barrier Lintels Decorated with Carved Arcades, Jarhbuch der Österr. Byzantinistik 45 (1995)
233-276 with many examples from Asia Minor, we do not agree with Buchwald’s interpretation of the ornamentation.
14