Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:01:01.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Recent Finds at Alahan (Koja Kalessi)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Michael Gough
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Of the many Byzantine churches in Cilicia which have survived, in a greater or lesser state of ruin, to the present day, there can be no doubt that the best known and most remarkable is the monastery church at Alahan in Isauria. During July, 1890, Professor W. M. Ramsay, D. G. Hogarth and A. C. Headlam visited the site, and in 1892 published their results under the title “Ecclesiastical Sites in Isauria (Cilicia Trachea)” in Supplementary Papers No. II of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. This publication completely superseded that of Laborde who had been at Alahan in 1826, and to-day it is still the only authoritative work on the subject of the architecture and relief sculpture of the monastery.

Headlam's description of the site is brief and accurate. “The ruins of Koja Kalessi (i.e. Alahan) are situated about 3,000 feet above the Calycadnus valley and 4,000 feet above the sea, facing south and southwest and looking over the junction of the two great river valleys through which the branches of the ancient Calycadnus run. They consist of a large monastery with buildings of various characters too much destroyed to be easily identified, and a church in very good preservation. They are built on a terrace running due east and west, partly cut out of the side of the hill, with the ground falling away very steeply below and rising almost precipitously above.” (Pl. IX, b).

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 5 , December 1955 , pp. 115 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1955

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 Laborde, , Voyage en Orient, pp. 124, 126Google Scholar; Pls. 68, 69. Headlam's account is the sole source of practically all that has ever been written on the subject of the monastery at Alahan, with the exception of an interesting article published by E. Peck, British Consul at Alexandretta, in ILN.

2 Op. cit., p. 9.

3 Laborde, , Revue Archéologique, IV, 1847, p. 175Google Scholar.

4 That the same Tarasis is the subject of both epitaphs seems fairly clear, though certain difficulties do arise. In Y, ll. 5/6, T is stated to have begun his residence at the monastery during the first eight months of the year 461 (see below, p. 117), while from Z, ll. 3/7, he is known to have died in February 462. He cannot, therefore, have lived at the monastery for more than thirteen and a half months at most—with a minimum of five and a half months—during which time he founded the ἀπαντητήρια and worked in the capacity of παραμονάριος (see below, p. 117, n. 9). On the other hand, it is most improbable that two different men, both called Tarasis, should have been buried so close to each other with epitaphs so similar that each man might have used the other's.

5 Op. cit., p. 25. Hogarth, who copied it, was in no doubt.

6 See Mitford, T. B., “New Inscriptions from Early Christian Cyprus,” Byzantion, Vol. XX, 1950, p. 153Google Scholar, n. 1. I quote this source since the subject of the inscription with which Mitford deals is not dissimilar from that of Z.

7 Ibid., pp. 153–4.

8 This is suggested by the Kom Ombo inscription in the British Museum, which is quoted by Mitford, ibid.

9 Headlam, op. cit., p. 25, discusses the possible meanings of παραμονάριος in this connection. For more recent instances of the same word, see Keil, and Wilhelm, , Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, Vol. III, 1931, p. 191Google Scholar, No. 538, and p. 196, No. 590.

10 Headlam, op. cit., p. 9, n. 2, quotes Laborde's description of the ruins at the foot of the hill. He thought it exaggerated or that the buildings had been “much destroyed since his time”. The latter would not be surprising, for sixty-five years separated the visits of Headlam and Laborde. L's words are particularly interesting with reference to the theory of the survival of a staging post at Alahan from Byzantine until comparatively modern times. “Nous trouvons un monument qui doit avoir été une chapelle et un vaste édifice qui sera notre khan; et qui était une église.” Even to-day, a great heap of masonry still exists at the site, but this has not so far been examined.

11 The consuls for the year 462 were the Emperors Leo II and Libius Severus Augustus. The Fifteenth Indiction had, however, begun in September 451, when Dagalaifus and Severinus were still in office. See Degrassi, A., I Fasti Consolari dell' Impero Romano, Rome, 1952, p. 92Google Scholar.

12 Before the Fourth Century no document is known in which the Lenten fast is specifically mentioned. By the fifth canon of the Council of Nicea, however, bishops were recommended to hold two synods a year, the first πρὸ τῆς τεσσαρακόστης. Thereafter, examples are frequent.

13 Its architectural importance was recognized from the first, and in this connection it is perhaps enough to say that it has played no inconsiderable part in the Orient oder Rom controversy. Strzygowski's, Kleinasien, ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte, 1903, pp. 109–112Google Scholar, claimed it as the earliest known example of a domed basilica and wanted to push back its date from the Fifth to the Fourth Century, while Rivoira, , Moslem Architecture, 1918, p. 151Google Scholar, dismissed it—rather conveniently (it has to be admitted) for his argument—as possessing “no indications of date”. It must be stressed, however, that much of the argument since has been “about it and about”, since Headlam's account is not quite detailed enough to be the starting point for new theories. Furthermore, the artistic importance of the sculpture at Alahan, particularly of the reliefs, on the doorway at the western end of the monastery, has never yet been sufficiently appreciated.

14 Op. cit., p. 18.

15 Procopius, , De Aedificiis, V, 9Google Scholar.

16 The immediate objectives were (i) to study the construction of the tower and associated squinches, to determine, if possible, how the tower was roofed; (ii) to record more fully the reliefs of the doorway marked O on Pl. I, Fig. 1, of Headlam's report, which contains only a summary description of them. Laborde, , Voyage en Orient, p. 124Google Scholar, was the only traveller to observe the important relief on the underside of the lintel block (see Pl. IXa), but failed to understand its significance.

17 Ezekiel, Ch. I, v. 10Google Scholar; Apocalypse, Ch. IV, v. 7Google Scholar.

18 My most grateful thanks are due to my wife for her accurate drawing of this relief and for all her other help to me. I am also indebted to Mr. Michael Ballance, who collaborated with me in my work at Alahan in 1953, and to Mr. David Wilson for his excellent squeezes of inscription Y and of the architectural mouldings on the south door of the church.

19 It is not clear who these two figures are, though it is perhaps likely that they represent local saints.

20 The penetration of “colourism” is a feature of the Late Antique period. Always strong as an element in the sculpture of the Eastern Roman provinces, it rapidly gained ground in the West from the beginning of the Third Century A.D.; e.g. the reliefs on the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome.

21 Irenaeus, , Adv. haereses, III, xi, 11Google Scholar, identifies the man with St. Matthew, the eagle with St. Mark, the ox with St. Luke and the lion with St. John. Irenaeus is known to have made use of the works (now lost) of Papias, a disciple of St. John, so that this identification, made late in the Second Century, carries the greatest weight of authority.

The identification more generally accepted later, and the one with the greatest popularity to-day, was that of Jerome, , In Apocal., IV, 4Google Scholar, who suggested St. Mark for the lion and St. John for the eagle. On the other hand, Ambrose took the view that Christ was indicated by the beasts, in that the principle for unity for the four Gospels was that they were just so many aspects of Christ. It may be admissible to suppose from this that Ambrose was familiar with a tetramorph rather than with separate representations of the four beasts. For this and other most helpful suggestions I am indebted to the Rev. J. H. Crehan, S. J., Professor of Patristic Studies at Heythrop College.

22 The Rabula Gospels, in the Laurentian Library in Florence, since they are precisely dated in the colophon, are of the greatest importance for the early Christian iconography of the East. Unfortunately, the miniatures have never been adequately reproduced. Morey, C. R., Early Christian Art, 1942, p. 215Google Scholar, n. 227, lists the works in which these reproductions may best be studied.

23 Roth, H., Kleinasiatische Denkmäler, 1908, pp. 147, 207, 232Google Scholar.

24 For an interesting discussion of this work, see Hinks, R., Carolingian Art, 1935, pp. 41–2Google Scholar; also Kitzinger, E., Early Mediaeval Art, 1940, p. 24Google Scholar.

25 Gardiner, A., “Horus the Beḥdetite,” JEA, Vol. 30, 1944, pp. 46–7Google Scholar, discusses the origin and meaning of the symbol, and quotes a First Dynasty example. Bittel, K., Grundzüge der Vor u. Frühgeschichte Kleinasiens, 1945, p. 52Google Scholar, comments on the Hittite borrowing of the sun-disc from Hurrian sources. D'Alviella, , The Migration of Symbols, 1891Google Scholar, Ch. VI, discusses the spread of the symbol's use outside Egypt, as also does Gurney, O., The Hittites, 1952, pp. 211–12Google Scholar. The winged sun-disc is also found at the Late Hittite sites of Domuztepe and Karatepe, on orthostat reliefs of the Ninth and Eighth Centuries B.C. respectively.

26 Headlam, op. cit., p. 15. An interesting parallel is to be seen in the Fifth Century domed basilica at Meryemlik, near Silifke (Seleucea on the Calycadnus). See Herzfeld, and Guyer, , Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua, Vol. II, 1930, pp. 59–60Google Scholar, Pl. 59.

27 This is very marked in the case of numerous grave-reliefs found near the ruined towns and villages of Cilicia Trachea. Many of these reliefs date from a period before the Roman occupation and betray little dependence on the contemporary sculptural canons of the Hellenistic world; e.g. Keil, and Wilhelm, , MAMA, Vol. III, Taf. 37Google Scholar, No. 114; Taf. 45, Nos. 144–5.