Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:17:58.795Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Amorium Excavations 1995: The Eighth Preliminary Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

C. S. Lightfoot  and
E. A. Ivison
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Amorium Project's eighth season of excavations took place between July 4 and August 19. The team comprised Dr. Chris Lightfoot (Director), Dr. Eric Ivison (Assistant Director), Dr. Margaret Gill (Glass), Karen Barker (Conservator), Yalçın Mergen, Simon Mortimer (Field Archaeologists) and Osman Kızılkılıç (General Assistant). Seven students from universities in Turkey, Britain and the United States of America also took part in the excavations and contributed greatly to the success of the season; they were Mücahide Koçak, Ayşe Taşkın, Ferüzat Ülker and Hasan Yılmazyaşar (all from the University of Anatolia, Eskişehir), Betül Şahin (DTCF, Ankara University), Paola Pugsley (Exeter University) and Thomas Bihl (Indiana University). The government representative was Mrs. Sema Dayan from the Directorate of Monuments and Museums in Ankara. Fourteen workmen, all from Hisarköy, were employed for the four weeks of digging, while another eight men were employed on conservation and repair work both on site and at the Dig House during the full season. Kazim Eryiğit again took charge of the cooking, ably assisted by two of the village women, İlknur and Gülnur Usluer.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 46 , December 1996 , pp. 91 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Much of the excavation work was supported by other funds and, as a consequence, will be reported elsewhere.

2 Each block was carefully marked, so that the repair work can in future be distinguished from the original masonry.

3 Observations on this Report and additional advice were kindly provided by Mr. J. G. Crow.

4 A reference to the Church in a recently published report as “standing almost to the roof” is grossly misleading and inaccurate since it is not based on any real knowledge of the site (sadly, the Review Committee did not visit Amorium during their inspection of the Institute in May 1995); see The British Schools and Institutes Overseas and Sponsored Societies. An enquiry by the British Academy Review Committee 1994–95. Interim Report, October 1995, §B21, to be compared with a view of the apse and synthronon in AnSt XLII (1992)Google Scholar, pl. XLVII (a).

5 For previous work in this area, see AnSt XXXIX (1989), 173Google Scholar, fig. 5 and pl. XLVII (b).

6 It was reported that the tomb had been discovered accidentally during ploughing some years ago. It may have been inspected by Professor Harrison during one of the earlier seasons (prior to 1992).

7 See Limbrey, S., Soil science and archaeology, London 1975, 143–5Google Scholar.

8 Length 4.5 cm.; width 3.3 cm; length of pin 2.5 cm. See J. Russell, Byzantine instrumenta domestica from Anemurium: the significance of context. In Hohlfelder, R. L. (ed.), City, Town and Countryside in the Early Byzantine Era, New York 1982, 133–63Google Scholar, esp. 141–2 and fig. 7.14–15. Two very similar examples are recorded at Sardis; Waldbaum, J. C., Metalwork from Sardis, the finds through 1974, (Archaeological Exploration of Sardis Monograph 8) Cambridge, Mass. 1983, p. 118Google Scholar nos. 689–690, pl. 44. Three more close parallels were found in the Church of St. Thecla at Meriamlık during excavations by Silifke Museum in 1979; Dagron, G. and Feissel, D., Inscriptions de Cilicie, Paris 1987, 252–3Google Scholar and pl. LXIV, 1–3. Three examples are also displayed in the British Museum: M&LA 1910.6–22.2 (from Sofia, Bulgaria), M&LA 1856.10–4.29 and M&LA 1910.4–16.70 (both from Kerch, Ukranian SSR).

9 A fine example of one such Roman funerary stele (T547) was uncovered at Amorium in Trench L on the Upper City mound in 1993. For other examples from Amorium, see Waelkens, M., Die kleinasiatischen Türsteine, 2 vols., Mainz 1980, nos. 515Google Scholar (Upper City) and 535 (at Hamzahacılı). For the funerary symbolism of the comb, see Wujewski, T., Anatolian sepulchral stelae in Roman times, Poznan 1991, 18–20Google Scholar.

10 It is also worth noting that no glass fragments were found.

11 See AnSt XLIV (1994), 121Google Scholar and pl. XXI (a).

12 T486 and T850; see AnSt XLV (1995), 129Google Scholar and pl. XVIII (a).

13 These, and other painted blocks, are to be the subject of a special study during the 1996 season.

14 This work was undertaken largely by Hasan Yılmazyaşar, who also took most of the season's photographs for the Project archives.

15 AnSt XLIV (1994), 128–9Google Scholar and pl. XXVI (b).

16 AnSt XLV (1995), 133Google Scholar.

17 See AnSt XLIV (1994), 124–5Google Scholar and pl. XXIV (a).

18 Schwartz, E., Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum (ACO) Tome 2, Vol. 1, Part 3, Berlin & Leipzig 1935, 70Google Scholar (line 11) and 73 (line 12). These references were kindly provided by Professor Greg Horsley. Compare also the use of the term πρωταναγνώστης, attested at Aphrodisias; Roueché, C., Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity, London (Journal of Roman Studies Monograph No. 5) 1989, 173 no. 115Google Scholar.

19 Casts were taken for future reference, while the coins themselves were deposited at the end of the season in the Afyon Archaeological Museum.

20 Identified with the help of John Casey. Numerous coins of the same type have been found at Sardis (43 examples); Buttrey, T. V. et al. , Greek, Roman and Islamic Coins from Sardis, Cambridge, Mass. 1981, p. 135 no. 93Google Scholar.

21 Because of its significance, this coin has already been published in a separate note; Lightfoot, C. S., “A New Anonymous Follis from Amorium”. Spink's Numismatic Circular CIII/10 (1995), 376Google Scholar.

22 The database has recently been substantially augmented by 54 examples in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, details and casts of which were kindly supplied by Michel Amandry, Directeur du départment des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiques.

23 The Project's principal ceramicist, Lucy Bown, was unable to attend the dig in 1995 because of family commitments.

24 See AnSt XLV (1995), 122Google Scholar.

25 The Project wishes to acknowledge the help and interest of Pamela Armstrong in this work.

26 See AnSt XLII (1992), 220Google Scholar fig. 6.18 & 29, and AnSt XLIV (1994), 125Google Scholar fig. 3.6.

27 Davidson, G. L., Corinth XII, The Minor Objects, Princeton 1952, 264 no. 2149Google Scholar.

28 See footnote 8 (above). Two buckles, with a similar openwork plate and trilobe projection but a more ornate surround, are displayed in the British Museum: M&LA 1905.5–20.317 (from Herpes, Charente, France) and M&LA 1923.7–16.81 (from Kerch, Ukranian SSR). Note also a buckle found at the Seljuk palace of Kubad-Âbâd; Arık, R., 1987 yılı Kubad-Âbâd kazısı. KSTX/2, Ankara 1989, p. 408Google Scholar and pl. 27.

29 Only one other gem has been recovered so far from the excavations; see AnSt XXXIX (1989), 173Google Scholar.

30 Compare Walters, H. B., Catalogue of the Engraved Gems and Cameos. Greek, Etruscan and Roman in the British Museum, London 1926, 262Google Scholar, esp. nos. 2673, 2675, 2676 & 2678; Richter, G. M. A., Catalogue of Engraved Gems and Cameos. Greek, Etruscan and Roman. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rome 1956, 118Google Scholar no. 572, pl. LXIV.