--KAPAK ARAÞTIRMA kopya - Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı

uts a very interesting phenomenon. In fact, while after the great season of St Polyeuktos’,
of Ss Serge and Bacchus’ and of St Sophia’s, in the Capital we notice few innovatory
layouts 40, we can observe in those towns a new trend and richer layouts. This
phenomenon perhaps starts from Constantinople, but, - when in the Capital, at the end
of the Justinianian age, a cycle seems to come to an end –it flourished in different places
we can call Aegean, in the second half of the 6th century, and anticipates the elements
we will observe in Middle-Byzantine sculpture. In this group we can also include
the famous slab of Hyacinthus, the founder of the Koimesis in Nicaea (inv. n. 736) 41
(Fig. 9) that, in this way we can date it at the second half of the 6 th century and not at
the beginning of the 8th century 42.
We must list Ephesus among the centres where, in the second half of the 6th
century, there are many innovative layouts created by Aegean workers 43 (Figs. 10, 11).
In the Justinianian age in the case of St John’s and St Mary’s in Ephesus, we can see
the whole range of the possibilities we have already listed: products imported from the
quarries in Proconnesian island, that are already finished or rough cast works made in
loco by workers of various origins: Constantinopolitan, Greek-Constantinopolitan, Aegean,
local, marbles from classic buildings reworked, etc. 44.
In Ephesus we can ascertain a continuity of the workers which contradicts the
conclusions Professor Deichmann was sure to have reached. The German scholar has
rightly placed the roots of Constantinople art in the craftsmen’s traditions of Western
and Southern Asia Minor 45 but,- as he considers Constantinople as the centre, along
with Zollt 46 - has considered that this has happened to the detriment of the big centres
in Asia Minor because of the moving of workers to the "new Capital", so that the production
"had nearly completely ended" in Ephesus, in Aphrodisia and in Pamphylia as,
for example, Side and Perge 47. Elsewhere I have outlined the development of the Ephesus
sculpture denying such a conclusion 48. Today, at the end of my lecture, I would
like recall a series of three capitals of Ephesus (Fig. 12), dating to the first decades of
the 5th century; they show a classicist and retrospective structure, the work of a high
level Ephesian workers 49. Their form and their decoration actually explain both the capital
of Marcianus’ column in Constantinople, about 450-452 A.D. 50 and the capital and
know because of the publication of S. Eyıce, DOP, 17 (1963), p. 378, fig. 16, of the floor of a church near Yakacık in
Bythinia, found in 1962, where also the slab is published; by means of this publication we can now identify the slab.
About this slab see for the moment Russo, Bizantinistica, serie seconda, 4 (2002), pp. 7-8, fig. 29.
40 See a list ibid., pp. 7-8, notes 29, 30, 36.
41 Ibid., pp. 10-11, fig. 39 (6 th c. second half).
42 The date to the second half of the 6 th century is also in Th. Schmit, Die Koimesis-Kirche von Nikaia, Berlin–Leipzig
1927, p. 20. C. Mango, Architettura bizantina, Venezia 1974, p. 165, dated the church, probably, at the end of the 6 th
century, but more recently, in accordance with the inscription found on the marble lintel, perhaps from the central portal
of the entrance from the outside to the nartex, with the Hyacinth monogram in the middle, and compared with the
inscription of Artauasdos, done shortly after 727, in the town-walls, changed his opinion and he suggest the end of
the 7 th century: C. Mango, TravMem, 12 (1994), pp. 350-353, figs. 4-6. In any case, the Hyacinth slab and the Hyacinth
lintel are contemporary, but C. Mango himself observed the difference between the monogram on the slab and
monogram on the lintel (ibid., p. 352). In my opinion is chiefly a problem of quality, because of the same inscription
of Artauasdos has letters of higher workmanship than those of the lintel. So the problem is solved admitting at Nicaea
the presence and the work of different craftsmen, of different technicall skill, craftsmen from abroad for the Hyacinth
slab and for other marble decorations of the church (see Russo, Bizantinistica, serie seconda, 4, 2002, pp. 8-9,
figs. 32-34), and local craftsmen for the lintel with the monogram, with letters, E, for example, whose form appears
earlier confronted with those of Artauasdos inscription.
43 About the early indications see Russo, in Efeso paleocristiana e bizantina, pp. 45-46, 52, figs. 54-55.
44 Ibid., pp. 30-34, 39-49, 50, figs. 9-11, 28-31, 36-58, 60-67, 69.
45 Deichmann, Studien zur Architektur Konstantinopels im 5. und 6. Jahrhundert nach Christus, passim and pp. 37, 56-
63, 91; in Mélanges Mansel, p. 550; Rom, Ravenna, Konstantinopel, Naher Osten. Gesammelte Studien zur spätantiken
Architektur, Kunst und Geschichte, Wiesbaden 1982, pp. 620-621.
46 Zollt, Kapitellplastik Konstantinopels vom 4. bis 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr., pp. 334-366.
47F.W. Deichmann, Corsi Ravenna, 29 (1982), p. 150; in Mélanges Mansel, p. 551.
48 Russo, in Efeso paleocristiana e bizantina, pp. 26-53.
49 Ibid., pp. 37-39, figg. 26-27; in Festschrift für Friedrich Krinzinger, in the press.
50 Kautzsch, Kapitellstudien, pp. 47-49, n. 156, figs. 3-4, pl. 11; J. Kollwitz, Oströmische Plastik der theodosianischen
Zeit, Berlin 1941, pp. 69-70, 74-75 (P. Schatzmann), pl. 10; Peschlow, in Studien zur spätantiken und byzantinischen
Kunst, pp. 26-28, fig. 6 left si-de, pl. 5; Zollt, Kapitellplastik Konstantinopels vom 4. bis 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr., n. 586.
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