Ken Dark

Houses, streets and shops in Byzantine Constantinople from the fifth to the twelfth centuries

This paper presents an analysis and reinterpretation of current evidence for houses, streets and shops in fifth- to twelfth-century Byzantine Constantinople, focussing on archaeological evidence. Previously unidentified townhouses and residential blocks are located. These show greater similarities to Roman-period domestic architecture than might be expected. Changes in the architectural style may be related to social change in the seventh century. Berger’s reconstruction of the early Byzantine street plan is shown to be archaeologically untenable. This has implications for the identification of formal planning and the boundaries of urban districts in the Byzantine capital. The limited archaeological evidence for streets and shops is also discussed.

New evidence for the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles from Fatih Camii, Istanbul

The Church of the Holy Apostles was one of the most important buildings in Byzantine Constantinople. The mausolea of Constantine the Great (the main imperial burial place until the eleventh century) and of Justinian I were in the complex surrounding this vast cruciform church. Nothing of this complex appeared to have survived its demolition to clear the site of the Ottoman mosque complex of Fatih Camii after 1461. Fieldwork in 2001 recorded walls pre-dating the fifteenth-century phase of the mosque complex, still standing above ground level and apparently including a large rectilinear structure. This is identified as the Church of the Holy Apostles and an adjacent enclosure may be that containing the mausoleum of Constantine the Great. The reconstructed church plan resembles those of St John of Ephesus and St Marks (San Marco), Venice - churches known to have been modelled on the Church of the Holy Apostles, Constantinople.

ROMAN-PERIOD AND BYZANTINE LANDSCAPES BETWEEN SEPPHORIS AND NAZARETH

Abstract A reinterpretation of the Roman-period (late first century BC to fourth century AD) and Byzantine-period (early fifth to early seventh century AD) landscapes between Sepphoris and Nazareth, in the Lower Galilee, Israel, is presented. This derives from a multi-period archaeological survey, in September 2004 and September 2005, of a 5 km×3 km transect — Israel grid 1760–2340, 1790–2390. Some of the relevant results from the 2004–2005 seasons are outlined, rather than providing a full report on this survey, which will form part of a forthcoming PEF monograph. For this reason, survey data are described in summary form and — as it is the Roman-period and Byzantine evidence that is the focus of attention — both earlier and later material are mentioned here only in relation to those periods.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR A PREVIOUSLY UNRECOGNISED ROMAN TOWN NEAR THE SEA OF GALILEE

Abstract Fieldwalking in the Ginosar valley recorded an extensive spread of Late Hellenistic, Roman-period and Byzantine ceramics, tesserae, glass shards, and stone vessel fragments. Architectural stonework in modern Migdal, on the hilltop immediately west of this, seems, in part, to derive from the same site, which extended into the area of the present town. This suggests an urban centre immediately adjacent to, but probably separate from, the Roman-period site usually identified as Magdala, providing a context for the first-century boat currently displayed in the Yigdal Allon museum. The settlement may be identified with one of the un-located toponyms of the coast.

THE BYZANTINE CHURCH OF THE NUTRITION IN NAZARETH REDISCOVERED

Abstract Although Nazareth has usually been seen by scholars as a relatively minor Byzantine pilgrimage centre, it contained perhaps the most important ‘lost’ Byzantine church in the Holy Land, the Church of the Nutrition – according to De Locis Sanctis built over the house where it was believed that Jesus Christ had been a child. This article, part of a series of final interim reports of the PEF-funded ‘Nazareth Archaeological Project’, presents evidence that this church has been discovered at the present Sisters of Nazareth convent in central Nazareth. The scale of the church and its surrounding structures suggests that Nazareth was a much larger, and more important, centre for Byzantine-period pilgrimage than previously supposed. The church was used in the Crusader period, after a phase of desertion, prior to destruction by fire, probably in the 13th century.