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Agricultural production and installations in Byzantine Cappadocia: a case study focusing on Mavrucandere

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2020

Nilüfer Peker
Nilüfer Peker*
Affiliation:
Hacı Bektaş Veli [email protected]
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Abstract

While there has been extensive research conducted on Byzantine religious architecture in Cappadocia, little work has been done on agricultural installations there. The valley of Mavrucandere in Cappadocia contains a settlement which has a remarkable agrarian installation complex. Resembling a factory, this area highlights the architectural and the organizational structure of the wine-presses in Cappadocia. In the light of the new findings, this article aims to examine the organization of the wine-making process, the location of the installations in the settlement, and the importance of the installations for the region's trade activities during the Byzantine period.

Keywords

Byzantine CappadociaByzantine wine productionwine-pressesByzantine agricultureagrarian economy
Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , April 2020 , pp. 40 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2020

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Footnotes

I conducted this research at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford. My project is funded by Tübitak (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) in the framework of a postdoctoral research fellowship. I am grateful to Ine Jakobs and Marlia Mango for inviting me to deliver a paper entitled ‘An Agrarian Settlement in Byzantine Cappadocia: Winepresses and Wine Production in Mavrucandere’ at the The Late Antique and Byzantine Archaeology and Art Seminar and for giving me the opportunity to share and discuss the results of my research. I thank the two anonymous readers for making valuable suggestions on an earlier version of this article.

References

2 I organized and conducted the survey in collaboration with my colleague B. Tolga Uyar, whom I thank for sharing his scientific perspective. I would also like to thank Aykut Fenerci and my colleagues Maria Xenaki and Fatma Gül Öztürk.

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4 Karakaya briefly talks about the Byzantine wineries in Erdemli valley. Karakaya, N., ‘Erdemli'de Ekmek ve Şarap’ Anadolu ve Çevresinde Ortaçağ, II, (2008) 33–52Google Scholar. Decker and Cooper mention the agricultural life of Byzantine Cappadocia in general. Cooper, J. E., Decker, M., Life and Society in Byzantine Cappadocia (London 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; E. Balta focuses on the wine production activities of the Rums in the nineteenth century. Balta, E., ‘The underground rock-cut wine-presses of Cappadocia’, Journal of Turkish Studies 32/1 (2008) [In memoriam Sinasi Tekin, III] 61–88Google Scholar.

5 I am particularly grateful to Billur Tekkök for her valuable comments regarding the ceramic material.

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9 Eski kilise cami, Panagia church, St. Nicolas church, Emin kilise, Ağaçlık kilise.

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23 In Cappadocia, a number of linseed oil installations, or so-called bezirhane, cannot be easily dated. Kalas indicates that, in Belisırma, two rectangular rooms appear to have been carved at the same time as Ala kilise. However, it is difficult to ascertain their original function. Kalas, V., ‘Middle Byzantine art and architecture in Cappadocia. The Ala Kilise in Belisırma in the Peristrema Valley’, in Alchermes, J., Evans, H., and Thomas, T. (eds), Anathemata Eortika: Studies in Honor of Thomas F. Mathews (Mainz 2009) 187Google Scholar.

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26 Harvey indicates that in the late Roman and Byzantine periods the water-mill was used more intensively than before, although the invention had been known at least from the first century BC. The regional sources give specific examples of the existence of water-mills in Byzantium but no information about the type of water-mill in operation. Harvey, A., Economic Expansion in the Byzantine Empire, 900–1200 (Cambridge 2003) 128–29Google Scholar. For ancient water-mill technology see, Wikander, O., (ed.), Handbook of Ancient Water Technology (Leiden 2000)Google Scholar; Moritz, L. A., Grain Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity (Oxford 1958) 122–39Google Scholar.

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29 Some sources mentioned that many of the vineyards and gardens were located near streams and they were built near irrigation installations. Harvey, Economic Expansion, 142, 44.

30 ‘…Make self-sufficient investments for yourself, such as mills and workshops and gardens, and any other things that will give you their fruits every year, through rents and produce. Plant trees of every sort, and reed-beds, from which you will have an income that doesn't involve effort every year; these will provide you with rest. Have livestock such as ploughing oxen, and pigs, and sheep, and other animals which are born and grow and increase every year; these will supply you with plenty for your table. You will rejoice in everything, in abundant supplies of corn, wine, and all other planted produce, and animals, both for food and for work.’ Kekaumenos, Advice and Anecdotes, Roueche, C. (ed.) (London 2013)Google Scholar.

31 Leo the Deacon mentioned a vinedresser near Kayseri (Caesarea) while he was narrating Bardas Phokas’ rebellion in Kayseri in 970. ‘…The rebellion was also supported by the above-mentioned Parsakoutenoi, who mustered troops with great zeal, and by Symeon, a cultivator of vineyards, who took his sobriquet from his work and was called Ambelas [Vinedresser], a man of obscure and low-born origins, but who, on account of his courage and physical strength, was second to none among men celebrated for their force and might’ (Leo the Deacon, History, Talbot, A. M., Sullivan, D. F. (eds), (Washington D.C. 2005) 162–3Google Scholar).

32 In Mavrucandere, domestic dwellings do not have the decorated façades such as those seen at Açıksaray, Çanlı kilise settlement or Selime. Therefore, it is unlikely that these secular halls and rooms belonged to a courtyard complex for rural elites as seen elsewhere in Cappadocia.

33 Dalby, Geoponika, VI, 2, 150.

34 Kingsley, S., ‘The economic impact of Palestinian wine trade in late antiquity’, Economy and Exchange in the East Mediterranean During Late Antiquity, Proceedings of a Conference at Somerville College (Oxford 1999) 49Google Scholar.

35 Yamanlı kilise: Demesnil, N. Lemaigre, Architecture rupestre et décor sculpté en Cappadoce (Ve-IXe siècle), BAR International Series 2093 (Oxford 2010), 9, pl. 4dGoogle Scholar; Zelve no. 1: Lemaigre Demesnil, Architecture rupestre, 18, 19, pl. 12e, 13d; Zelve no 6: Lemaigre Demesni, Architecture rupestre, 28, pl. 22b.

36 Maçan Basilica Hall: Thierry, N., La Cappadoce de l'antiquité au moyen âge (Turnhout 2002), 78, 81, fig. 48Google Scholar; Lemaigre Demesnil, Architecture rupestre, 60–2, pl. 45a; Karacaören Kapılı valley no. 2: Lemaigre Demesnil, Architecture rupestre, 83–4, pl. 57b; Cemil Archangelos monastery refectory: Lemaigre Demesnil, Architecture rupestre, 127, pl. 80e,f; Ousterhout, R. G., Visualizing Community: Art, Material Culture, and Settlement in Byzantine Cappadocia (Washington 2017) 392–5Google Scholar; Cemil Archangelos monastery: St. Michael church: Lemaigre Demesnil, Architecture rupestre, pl. 80a, b, c, d.

37 Ostrogorsky, G., ‘Agrarian conditions in the Byzantine empire in the Middle Ages’, in Postan, M. M. (ed.), The Cambridge Economic History of Europe I (Cambridge 1966) 216Google Scholar; Haldon, J., ‘Social elites, wealth, and power’, in Haldon, J. (ed.), The Social History of Byzantium (Oxford 2009) 168–210Google Scholar.

38 Harvey, Economic Expansion, 14–5.

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40 Alyattes, Ampelas, Goudeles, Skepides, Lecapenus, Diogenes, Ducas, Maleinus, Phocas, Boilas: Vryonis, S., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor: And the Process of Islamization From the Eleventh Through the Fifteenth Century IV (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1971) 25, fn.132Google Scholar. In particular, the Phokas family, originally from Caesarea, produced several distinguished generals, including the Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas (963–69), who had been strategos of the Anatolikon theme before he ascended to the throne. For further reading, Dennis, G. T. (ed.), ‘Skirmishing’, Three Byzantine Military Treatises (Washington 1985) 139Google Scholar; Vryonis, S., ‘The will of a provincial magnate, Eustathius Boilas (1059)’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 11 (1957) 263–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Another well-known aristocrat from Cappadocia for the same period is Eustathios Maleinos, a cousin of Nikephoros II who gained his fortune when he was appointed the first strategos of reconquered Antioch in 969. He provided his enormously large estate for Basil II and his army during his campaigns against the Fatimids. Cheynet, J. C., ‘The Byzantine aristocracy (8th–13th centuries)’, in Cheynet, J. C., The Byzantine Aristocracy and its Military Function (Aldershot 2006), I, 1–43Google Scholar.

41 ‘…And in this place I built my house and the holy temple from the foundations and (I created) meadows, parks, vineyards, gardens, aqueducts, small farms, water mills and (I bought) animals for use both necessary and useful.’ Vryonis, Eustathius Boilas, 266.

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43 Ostrogorsky, Agrarian Conditions; Ashburner, Farmer's Law.

44 Lefort (The Rural Economy, 237) also remarks that not all the cultivators on the estate lived there, and not all enjoyed a special status. Some of them, whether slaves or wage laborers, lived there due to legal or economic necessity, whereas other cultivators lived in a village, because they either held short- or long-term leases or were simply wage laborers.

45 For the protection of small landowners, the implementation of legislation began with the novel of Romanos I Lecapenus (919–44). Ostrogorsky, Agrarian Conditions, 216.

46 Vryonis indicates that, amongst aristocratic families, a sentiment of nobility by birth arose, and a solidarity of feeling resulting from close intermarriage within the group. They were anti-imperial but not separatist, that is to say, they generally aimed at replacing the ruling dynasty with their own family, rather than setting up independent states. In the tenth century, their energies had been largely harnessed by the central government in the eastern wars against Islam. However, even in the tenth century, they had been difficult to control. As the source of their wealth was land, their appetite for land was insatiable, and in the tenth century they had begun to absorb the free peasantry and peasant soldiery, the source of the empire's financial and military strength. Here, the government had only limited success against the magnates in its program of agrarian legislation. Vryonis, S., ‘Byzantium: The social basis of decline in the eleventh century’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 2, 2 (1959) 162Google Scholar.

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48 Whittow states that the military fortresses were built by the state, possibly as communal defences and refuge centres in Anatolia during the Byzantine era. The physical evidence of Byzantine kastra suggest that they were not private fortresses. Whittow, M., ‘Rural fortifications in western Europe and Byzantium, tenth to twelfth century’, Byzantinische Forschungen 21 (1995) 72Google Scholar.

49 Morrisson and Cheynet state that the military ration of wine was 365 xestai per annum. Morrisson, C., Cheynet, J. C., ‘Prices and wages in the Byzantine world’, in Laiou, A. (ed.), The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh Through the Fifteenth Century (Washington 2002), 871Google Scholar; Emperor John Tzimiskes ordered flasks of wine and water to be brought to thirsty soldiers at the battle of Dorostolon. Skylitzes, A Synopsis of Byzantine History, ed. Wortley, J. (Cambridge 2010) 290Google Scholar.

50 Haldon, J., Byzantium at War AD 600–1453 (Oxford 2004) 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Haldon, J., ‘The organisation and support of an expeditionary force: Manpower and logistics in the middle Byzantine period’, Byzantium at War (9th-12th c.), The National Hellenic Research Foundation, International Symposium 4 (Athens 1997), 118–19Google Scholar; in the expedition to Crete, the protonotarios of the Thrakesion theme prepared the supplies, including 30,000 measures of wine for the expedition. Constantine Porphyrogennetos, The Book of Ceremonies, trans. Moffatt, A., Tall, M. (Leiden 2017) 658Google Scholar.

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53 Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism, 483.

54 The village economy of Cappadocia was precisely based upon the agrarian economy. For further reading see Ousterhout, Visualizing Community, 271–368.