Strobilos and Related Sites

1988 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 147-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clive Foss
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
New Towns ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
Byzantine Period

In the Byzantine period, urban life in Anatolia underwent a decay in which ancient cities shrank behind reduced circuits of walls or withdrew to the fortified hilltops whence they had descended in the Hellenistic age. Even the greatest city of the empire, Constantinople, saw a drastic diminution of population and resources, abandonment of its ancient public works and services, and consequent transformation from a classical to a medieval city. These changes began with the devastating invasions of Persians and Arabs in the seventh century. Sources reveal little about Anatolia between the early seventh and mid-ninth century, a true dark age, but the evidence of archaeology often makes it possible to visualize conditions at the time.The Byzantines, whose empire long survived these troubles, generally occupied existing sites in Asia Minor where their ruins are superimposed on those of the Romans or earlier cultures. In only a few instances, usually occasioned by the needs of defence or of a militarized administration, were new sites founded. Although the Dark Ages were not a propitious time for urban development, some new towns did come into existence or prominence. Few of them have been studied. Strobilos on the Carian coast, therefore, is of some potential interest as an example of a Byzantine town which first appears in the historical record in the eighth century, and whose remains have been preserved.

Byzantine Malagina and the Lower Sangarius

1990 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 161-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clive Foss
Keyword(s):  
Seventh Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Precise Location ◽  
Military Base ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ottoman History ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Byzantine Period

Malagina was a place of considerable strategic importance in the Byzantine period, from the Dark Ages until the final collapse of imperial rule in Asia Minor. Frequent mentions in the sources indicate that it was a major base, a station on the route of imperial armies to the East, and the seat of the stables from which the expeditions were supplied. It had an administration of its own, and grew in importance as the Empire shrank. Although its general location, on the Sangarius river, has never been in doubt, the site has so far failed to be convincingly identified, in spite of serious attempts. Thanks to investigations in the field, it is now possible to provide Malagina with a precise location, and to identify and describe its fortress, whose remains add considerably to our knowledge of the site and its history. For the sake of completeness, these remains will be discussed in the context of what is known of the Byzantine and Ottoman history of the site.The first appearance of Malagina is in a curious text, an apocalyptic prophecy attributed to St. Methodius, but actually dating from the late seventh century. Its chronology can be determined from its forecast that the Arabs would break into Constantinople. Although that never happened, the prophecy has reasonably been associated with the great siege of 674–8. In preparation for that attack, the Arabs would, it announces, divide their forces into three parts, of which one would winter in Ephesus, another in Pergamum, and the third in Malagina. Although this provides no specific information about the site, it shows that Malagina was then considered an important military base, a likely goal for an Arab attack. It may also indicate that the place was actually taken and occupied by the Arabs on that occasion. In any case, Malagina was in existence by the seventh century.

The Oxford University/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Survey of Medieval Castles of Anatolia (1992) Mastaura Kalesi: a Preliminary Report

1993 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 117-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Barnes ◽  
Mark Whittow
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
River Systems ◽  
Western Turkey ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Different Types ◽  
British Institute ◽  
Geographical Context

1992 was the first season of the Oxford University/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Survey of Medieval Castles of Anatolia. Over the next five years it is planned to survey and record in as much detail as practicable five Byzantine castles in the area of the Büyük and Küçük Menderes river systems in western Turkey. The five castles will eventually be published in a single monograph where they can be discussed as a group and placed in their historical and geographical context. An annual preliminary report will appear in Anatolian Studies, which we hope will serve as a forum to test ideas, raise problems, and encourage other historians and archaeologists to suggest further ways of obtaining the most from these sites.The five sites—indicated on Fig. 1—are Mastaura kalesi (near Bozyurt, in Aydın ili, Nazilli ilçesi, merkez bucağı); Yılanlı kalesi (on the side of the Boz dağ near Kemer in İzmir ili, Ödemiş. ilçesi, Birgi bucağı); Çardak kalesi (near Çardak in Denizli ili, Çardak ilçesi, merkez bucağı); Yöre kalesi (near Yöre köy in Aydın ili, Kuyucak ilçesi, Pamukören bucağı); and Ulubey kalesi (on the Kazancı deresi near Ulubey in Uşak ili, Ulubey ilçesi). None has received more than brief notice before; none has been planned or studied in any detail. They have been chosen to cover the whole period of Byzantine rule in the area from the seventh century to the early fourteenth, and a variety of the different types and functions of Byzantine castles. Yılanlı is possibly a late seventh-century fortress, built in the context of the Arab attempts to take Constantinople and the consequent struggle to control the western coastlands of Asia Minor. Çardak appears to have been built between the seventh and the ninth century principally to act as a look-out point in the Byzantine defensive system against Arab raids.

The hidden material culture of the Dark Ages. Early medieval ceramics at Sagalassos (Turkey): new evidence (ca AD 650–800)

2009 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 147-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios K. Vionis ◽  
Jeroen Poblome ◽  
Marc Waelkens
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
General Decline

AbstractOn the basis of recent archaeological evidence unearthed in the course of systematic excavations by the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) in southwestern Turkey, this paper attempts to pull together different strings of ceramic data in order to bridge the era between late antiquity and the Middle Ages (mid seventh century to ninth century AD). Our aim is to present samples of the ceramic assemblages excavated at the site of ancient Sagalassos from layers that are most probably dated to the late seventh and eighth centuries. An attempt has been made to examine rigorously the stratigraphy and its contents that are admittedly completely different to the known ceramic forms of the late Roman/early Byzantine (fourth century to mid seventh century) and middle Byzantine (early tenth century to mid 13th century) periods at Sagalassos. Five different pottery types are presented, both kitchenwares and tablewares. The fact that all the ware types presented here are local products should not be seen necessarily as a result of a general decline in trade, rural and/or urban life, but rather as a local response to a generally changing economic system and an emerging local pottery tradition based on household-organised production. The shift from the Roman mass-produced and customised wares (that started to disappear from the market) to non-specialised local/regional production (that started to satisfy basic household needs) need not have been a sudden one. Our ultimate aim is to contribute to recent attempts to throw more light on the archaeologically ‘hidden’ material culture of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’.

The way of the peasant

1984 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Brett
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
High Standard ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Legal Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Source Materials

The book under review here is to be compared with the volume published over ten years ago under the editorship of Michael Cook, Studies in the economic history of the Middle East (London, 1970). It covers essentially the same subject over the same period of time in the same fashion, by a series of papers contributed to a major international conference. It differs first of all in the length of time it has taken to produce the work, seven years from the original conference at Princeton in 1974, compared with three from the conference at S.O.A.S. in 1967 to the publication of the earlier collection. It is in fact much longer, with more space and time allowed to the contributors to rewrite their papers and annotate them, in great and often discursive detail. The editor is to be complimented on the very high standard of the production of the mammoth tome which results. The weight is heavily on the countryside and the agricultural economy; neither trade, nor industry, nor urban life make much of an appearance except as their adjuncts. Only historical demography (4 articles) stands in any way as a separate subject. More usual is the emphasis upon Egypt, which once again receives the greatest attention, in ten or eleven out of the total twenty-four contributions. Atypical as the Nile valley may seem, its source materials continue to influence the pattern of research in the much wider field of the book's title. Elsewhere it is something of a shock to find, in the papers of Morony on seventh-century Iraq, Talbi on ninth-century Ifrīqiya, Burns on fourteenth-century Valencia, and Rafeq on eighteenth-century Syria, the wealth of detail that comes from a legal literature, an archive or court records, and to realize how few and far between such studies are outside Egypt.

Ceramics

2021 ◽  
pp. 550-564
Author(s):  
Demetra Papanikola-Bakirtzi
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Major Change ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
North African ◽  
Local Characteristics ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Ceramic Vessels ◽  
White Clay ◽  
Slip Layer

During the Early Byzantine period, ceramic vessels evolved from Roman pottery; red-slip tableware produced by Asia Minor and North African workshops dominated the market. Christian motifs enriched the decorative repertoire. From the seventh century onward, glazing signaled a major change in the appearance of vessels during the Middle and Late Byzantine periods. Glazed White Ware from Constantinople monopolized the tableware market until the eleventh century. From this time onward a light-colored slip layer on red fabric ensured a surface suitable for decoration and allowed for the development of sgraffito decoration, the Byzantine pottery decorative technique par excellence. It also made the production of glazed decorated ceramics possible in parts of the empire without white clay. During the Late Byzantine period, decentralization of pottery workshops allowed the development of local characteristics.

scholarly journals Sennacherib and the Ionians

1910 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. W. King
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Maritime Provinces ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Political Success

We possess few contemporary records of the Ionian expansion, even in its later stages, and the gradual hellenization of the coast-lands of southern Asia Minor is a process that, in the absence of historical documents, has largely to be inferred from later developments and by archaeological research. At least as early as the eighth century the sea-faring Greeks were known to the Assyrians, under the generic name of Ionians, as pirates and freebooters who troubled the coasts of their maritime provinces. That they should occasionally come into armed conflict with the Assyrian power was to be expected, but it has not hitherto been realized that at the beginning of the seventh century they were sufficiently numerous and powerful within the area of Assyrian control to join other adventurous and discontented elements in conducting a land campaign of some magnitude, and in defying, for a time successfully, the Assyrian forces. That they were capable of doing so may be taken as evidence of a considerable Ionian expansion eastwards at the close of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh centuries, and, though the Assyrians had little difficulty in checking the movement, it is probable that fresh conflicts of a like nature would have been recorded in the later Assyrian annals, were it not that a few years afterwards the centre of Ionian power in Western Asia Minor began to be held in check by Lydia, and later, in company with Lydia, was shaken to its foundation by the Cimmerian invaders. In fact those Ionians, whom Sennacherib met and defeated, achieved little political success, and that of a temporary character. It is possible that the effects of their cultural relations with their conquerors were more lasting.

After Chalcedon

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian E. Daley, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Eighth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
John Of Damascus ◽  
Perceived Impact ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Maximus The Confessor ◽  
Severus Of Antioch

The Council of Chalcedon’s definition of the terms in which Nicene orthodoxy should conceive of Christ’s person remained controversial. Leontius of Byzantium argued for the correctness of the Council’s formulation, especially against the arguments of Severus of Antioch, but suggested that more than academic issues were at stake: the debate concerned the lived, permanently dialectical unity between God and humanity. In the mid-seventh century, imperially sponsored efforts to lessen the perceived impact of Chalcedonian language by stressing that Christ’s two natures were activated by “a single, theandric energy,” also remained without effect: largely because of the monk Maximus “the Confessor”, who argued that two complete spheres of activity and two wills remained evident in Christ’s life. Maximus’s position was ratified at the Lateran Synod and at the Third Council of Constantinople. The eighth-century Palestinian monk John of Damascus incorporated these arguments into his own influential synthesis of orthodox theology.

Merovingian Meditations on Jesus

2020 ◽  
pp. 1070-1105
Author(s):  
Lynda Coon
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Lives Of Saints ◽  
External Influences ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Biblical Texts

The final chapter of this volume explores the conversation on Jesus held between material and textual sources, where monumental works of sculpture extend salvific themes found in the lives of saints and the verses of poets. Merovingian meditations on Jesus are multivocal, reflecting the cross-cultural rhythms of a world open to and receptive of external influences, whether originating in classical or biblical texts or hailing from Mediterranean or Northern lands. In order to prove this hypothesis on the Merovingian body and the embodied savior, three works of sculpture produced during the early Middle Ages serve as sounding boards for Jesus’ earthly ministry as enacted by human players: the crucified savior featured on the seventh-century Moselkern Stele; the eighth-century Hypogée des Dunes’s sculpted relief of the two thieves crucified along with Jesus; and the so-called Niederdollendorf “Christ,” carved most likely in the seventh century. Saintly actors, such as Radegund of Poitiers (d. 587), animate three themes expressed in the sculpted sources respectively: (1) absence, (2) torture, and (3) light. The three subjects—light, torture, and absence—all point to strategies of integrating the realm of humanity within the celestial spheres, and each motif tracks different styles of meditating on Merovingian Jesus.

scholarly journals BUILDING HIGH-PRECISION AMS 14C BAYESIAN MODELS FOR THE FORMATION OF PERI-ABANDONMENT DEPOSITS AT BAKING POT, BELIZE

Radiocarbon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Julie A Hoggarth ◽  
Brendan J Culleton ◽  
Jaime J Awe ◽  
Christophe Helmke ◽  
Sydney Lonaker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Models ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Human Skeletal Remains ◽  
Late Ninth Century ◽  
Baking Pot ◽  
Group B

ABSTRACT Deposits linked to abandonment have been widely recorded across the Maya lowlands, associated with the final activities occurring in ceremonial areas of Classic Maya centers. Various models have been applied to explain the activities that lie behind the formation of these contexts, including those linked to rapid abandonment (e.g., warfare) and others focused on more protracted events (termination rituals, and/or pilgrimages). Here, we assess Bayesian models for three chronological scenarios of varying tempo to explain the formation of peri-abandonment deposits at Baking Pot, Belize. Using stratigraphic information from these deposits, hieroglyphic dates recovered on artifacts, and direct dates on human skeletal remains and faunal remains from distinct layers in three deposits in Group B at Baking Pot, we identify multiple depositional events that spanned the eighth to ninth centuries AD. These results suggest that the processes associated with the breakdown of institutionalized rulership and its command of labor to construct and maintain ceremonial spaces were protracted at Baking Pot, with evidence for the final depositional activity dated to the mid-to-late ninth century. This interval of deposition was temporally distinct from the earlier deposition(s) in the eighth century. Together, these data offer a detailed view of the end of the Classic period at Baking Pot, in which the ceremonial spaces of the site slowly fell into disuse over a period of more than a century.

An Anglo-Saxon mass for St Willibrord and its later liturgical uses

1995 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Nicholas Orchard
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The Commons

Of all the services held in a saint's honour in the course of his or her feast-day, mass was the most important: and central to the mass were the prayers invoking the saint's intercession said by the celebrant. Together with the canon, these ‘proper’ prayers – by the ninth century normally a collect (collecta), secret (super oblata or secreta), preface (prefatio) and postcommunion (ad complendum or postcommunio) – formed the backbone around which chant and readings were arranged, and they were gathered together in the sacramentary, the book used by the celebrant alone. Further forms might be provided as ‘alternatives’ (aliae orationes); for the conclusion of mass (super populum); and occasionally, for vespers of the day before the feast and of the feast itself (ad vesperas), but generally speaking, these are rare. As ‘informal’ cults became formal, or prize relics came to hand, so the need for new suites of prayers arose. These could be composed afresh, ‘borrowed’ from existing saints' masses (an easy option, necessitating little more than the insertion of the new saint's name in the relevant prayers); or if the precentor's creative powers failed him completely, they could be taken from the ‘commons’, that is, from the series of ready-made masses contained in almost every medieval sacramentary or missal for a ‘confessor’, a ‘martyr’ or a ‘virgin’, and so on. Some houses attracted the services of gifted writers; other seem not to have been so fortunate. It is my intention to analyse here the genesis and dissemination of a mass from a house of the former class which throws interesting light on the liturgical links between England and the Continent in the eighth century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document