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Excavations at Amorium: 1992 Interim Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

R. M. Harrison  and
N. Christie et al
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Extract

August 1992 marked the sixth season of survey and excavation at the east Phrygian site of Amorium, located 170 km. south-west of Ankara. Excavation has so far sampled only a tiny part of what was in Roman and Byzantine times an extensive urban site, but results have consistently revealed that an exciting range of data can be drawn from this largely unexplored centre. Indeed, despite evident modern robbing for stone, the trenched areas have revealed that substantial zones may remain archaeologically intact.

The ancient site of Amorium comprised two distinct fortified zones: a compact upper town, and a larger lower town, part of which is now overlain by the modern village of Hisarköy. A particular aim of the excavations so far carried out at Amorium has been to define the relationship between these two urban areas in the overall occupational sequence, with special interest placed on elucidating the transitional phase from the Early to Middle Byzantine period—a period in Amorium's long history which is fairly well documented by both Byzantine and Arab sources.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 43 , December 1993 , pp. 147 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1993

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References

1 Annual interims have appeared in Anatolian Studies since 1988: AS XXXVIII (1988), 175–84Google Scholar; XXXIX (1989), 167–74; XL (1990), 205–18; XLI (1991), 215–29; XLII (1992), 207–22. A monograph is planned for early 1994, summarizing the excavation and survey seasons 1987–92.

The staff for the 1992 season were: Prof. R. M. Harrison (director), Dr. C. S. Lightfoot (sub-director and numismatist); G. R. J. Lawson (architect), Dr. N. Christie, A. Claridge, S. Farid, I. Sjöström-Welsby (trench supervisors), J. A. Giorgi (environmental specialist), L. Bown and Dr. R. Tomber (ceramic specialists), Dr. M. H. Ballance (epigraphist), E. A. Ivison (sculpture specialist), Dr. M. A. V. Gill (small finds and glass specialist), E. A. Harrison (photographer), E. Yazoğlu (finds assistant), J. Harrison (assistant), O. Kızılkılıç (accountant), and M. Harrison (caterer). We must thank the most helpful Turkish representative Erdoğan Bilen (Istanbul Archaeological Museum), and also gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Directorate General in Ankara, and of Ahmet Topbaş, Museum Director at Afyon and Cemal Polat, Kaymakam in Emirdağ. Thirty eager Turkish workmen were employed from the village for the three weeks of excavation, and four local ladies assisted in finds cleaning and domestic activities.

Generous grants were received from The British Academy, the EC, The Craven Committee (Oxford), The British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, All Souls College, Koç Holdings A.S. (Istanbul), Lincoln College (Oxford), The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, The Byzantine Society, the Denis Buxton Trust, and the National Westminster Bank plc, in addition to three anonymous gifts. We must also thank the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara for the loan of a 12-seater van, an EDM, and other equipment; the Institute of Archaeology at Oxford provided a microscope.

2 The coin was formerly recorded as “an imperial Roman coin (of Hadrian?)”; see AS XLI (1991), 219Google Scholar. Obv. DN FL CL IVLI-[A]NVS PF AVG. Bust draped, pearldiademed, bearded. Rev. Illegible. Inv. no. SF 1200. AE. 29 mm. 9·35 g. As RIC 8: 161–4 (mint of Constantinople).

3 See AS XXXIX (1989), 174Google Scholar no. 7; for other earlier references to coin finds, see also AS XL (1990), 215–16Google Scholar.

4 Gough, M. R. E. “The Emperor Zeno and some Cilician Churches” AS XXII (1972), 199–212Google Scholar; The so-called Kuppelkirche, Meriamlik, 202–3, and the “Cathedral” at Korykos, 211. For the architectural sculpture of these churches see MAMA Vol. II, ed. Herzfeld, and Guyer, (1930) Abb. 54, 56–9, 96–8 (capitals)Google Scholar.

5 Barsanti, Claudia “Scultura anatolica di epoca mediobizantina” Milion I (1988), 275–95; 281–2, for example, Tav. IV, 1Google Scholar.