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A Church of the Iconoclast (?) Period in Byzantine Isauria1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2015

Michael Gough
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Extract

The rock-cut church of Al Oda (the Red Room) does not seem to have been visited in the past by any European traveller. In September, 1953, on the advice of Bay Neşri Atlay, then headmaster of the Primary School at Mut, a party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Gough, Mr. Michael Ballance and Mr. David Wilson visited the site and made a preliminary investigation. It was then decided to carry out a full examination at a later date, and this was done in August, 1955. The work was under the immediate charge of Mr. Martin Harrison of Lincoln College, Oxford, who also made reproductions in water-colour of some of the paintings and of the mosaics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 7 , December 1957 , pp. 153 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1957

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References

2 A very brief account of Al Oda is given by the present writer in “Early Churches in Cilicia”, Byzantinoslavica XVI, 2 (1955), pp. 210–11Google Scholar.

3 I am indebted to Mr. Harrison for permission to use photographic reproductions of these water colours to illustrate the text.

4 See Gough, M., A Temple and Church at Ayaş, AS. IV (1954), p. 61Google Scholar and Pl. III, 1. The cave church at Alahan (Kodja Kalessi) is to the north-west of the monastery complex. It was partially examined in 1955 and found to contain several sarcophagi in the nave as well as in the apsidal recess.

5 The northern bench was built of rubble masonry cased in white plaster and painted with a trailing scroll design in red. The seating in the south-east apse was rock-cut, but was similarly coated with painted plaster. In the centre was a single seat with arm rests.

6 This motive is known, in its simple form, as early as the second millennium B.C. See Wace, , Mycenae (1949), Pl. 57aGoogle Scholar. As a recurrent element in Mediterranean art, see Levi, Doro, Antioch Mosaic Pavements (1947), Vol. I, pp. 472–5Google Scholar, and especially nn. 286–9.

7 This is fundamentally an elaboration of the simple motive of intersecting circles found at Pompeii as early as the first century B.C. See also Levi, op. cit. Vol. II, Pls. IIb and c, IXa, for exx. of the first and second centuries A.D. Between the sixth and tenth centuries, geometric decoration by means of interlacing bands was common currency in the Middle East, the Mediterranean and much of Northern Europe, where it appealed to the nomads with their strong tradition of non-representational art. A most interesting parallel to the Al Oda motive is to be found in stone at Ertazminda in Georgia; see Baltrusaitis, , L'Art Médiéval en Géorgie et en Arménie, Paris (1929), Pls. III (6) and IV (8)Google Scholar.

8 This motive is, of itself, of no great intrinsic interest, apart from the foliate sprays enclosed in the rhomboid figures which separate the circles. It is perhaps significant that two close parallels exist, one in stone, in the Gagik church in Ani, which is dated to c. 1000, and another, in wood, from Georgia, now in the Tiflis Museum. See Strzygowski, , Altai-Iran und Völkerwänderung (1917), pp. 130–2Google Scholar and 218–9, Abb. 126 and 183.

9 Byzantine Art and Archaeology, p. 388.

10 Probably started by a cigarette end, thrown down by either my wife or myself, or by one of the workmen.

11 Cf. figures published by Levi, op. cit. Vol. I, pp. 632–4. The average number of tesserae per square decimetre tends to decrease from the second half of the fifth century. Forty-nine is exceptionally low, even for border patterns which were normally coarser than the rest of the mosaic.

12 Perspective in geometrical and quasi-architectural motives is not unusual, though the pattern described above seems to be unique. The pelta, or Scythian shield, has a very wide distribution from the first century B.C. down to the Middle Ages. It was particularly popular in the peripheral provinces, and nowhere more so than in Britain. For its survival see Kendrick, T. D., Anglo-Saxon Art (1938), pp. 36 ffGoogle Scholar; also R. B. K. Stevenson's allusion to the motive in Pictish art, published in Wainwright, , The Problem of the Picts (1955), pp. 101–6Google Scholar. The double axe occurs as early as the House of Pansa in Pompeii, and in company with the pelta on several Antiochene mosaics; see Levi, op. cit. Vol. II, Pls. CIIIf and CVIIa. In the Corbridge Museum is an inscribed slab decorated with a pelta, into which has been stuck a double axe; there is a similar example in the Museum of Vaison-la-romaine.

13 For a similar combination of the two scenes in a Cappadocian fresco, in Karabaş Kilise, see Jerphanion, G., Les Églises Rupestres de Cappadoce (1929), Pl. 199 (2)Google Scholar.

14 Byzantine Art, p. 23.

15 Op. cit., p. 388. Closest in feeling to Al Oda are the murals of Haghios Vasilios and Haghios Stephanos. In the former a great cross takes pride of place on the ceiling, while an inscription, with letter forms like those of Al Oda, runs round the top of the walls. On the ceiling of Haghios Stephanos is the interlaced circle motive, this time with included rosettes, but the treatment is coarser than at Al Oda. See Jerphanion, op. cit., Pls. 154–5. At Göreme, the archivolt of the main entrances into Tokalı and Elmalı Kilise is decorated with the perspective step pattern to be seen in the same position above the door into the West Room at Al Oda. (Ibid., Pls. 33 and 132.)

16 See above nn. 7 and 8. Coptic textile motives may also have played a part.

17 The complete inscription reads (until a break in the plaster) Παναγήα ∆έσπυνα ϴεοτὠκε Μἠ(τη)ρ τοū Κυ(ρίου). The lettering appears later than that used in any of the Antioch mosaic inscriptions. Cf. Levi, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 627–9. It does, however, much resemble the lettering of the eighth century inscription in the apse of the Church of St. Irene at Constantinople. See Dalton, op. cit., Fig. 227, where the forms of κ, ∆, and Μ are noteworthy.

18 For exx. see Levi, op. cit., Vol. II, Pl. LXXXVII-LXXXIX (the Martyrium at Seleucia on the Orontes); Gough, op. cit. pp. 59–62, Pls. V and VI; also Fig. 5; also Herzfeld, and Guyer, , MAMA. II, pp. 106–7Google Scholar, Pls. 104–5 (a paradeisos in the “Cathedral” at Corycus).