Secrets from the Stacks
Today I happened upon a copy of the Synopsis of Histories, an 11th century chronicle by the monk John Skylitzes. In it was the full inscription that the bishop of Melitene wrote on the sarcophagus of the great warrior-emperor Nicephorus Phocas. (Usually only the final line is given- a reference to Phocas’ wife Theophano who betrayed him) It’s quite a beautiful little poem, and judging from the end, was probably placed there several decades after the emperor’s grisly murder.
There is a nice symmetry to the poem. It begins and ends with betrayal; in between it’s a kind of Byzantine Ozymandius- a wistful musing about greatness and the inevitable fate of man. Most striking to me is when the tone changes to one of agonized pleading; begging the great emperor to either rise from the dead or make room in his grave. It’s well worth the read. I give it here in its entirety:
“Who once sliced men more sharply than the sword
Is the victim of a woman and a glaive.
Who once retained the whole world in his power
Now small, is housed in but a yard of earth.
Whom once it seemed by wild beasts was revered
His wife has slain as though he were a sheep.
Who chose to sleep but little in the night
Now sleeps the lasting slumber of the tomb.
A bitter sight; good ruler, rouse yourself!
Take footmen, horsemen, archers to the fight,
The regiments and units of your host
For Russians, fully armed, assail our ports,
The scythes are anxious to be slaughtering
While every people does your city harm
Who once was frightened by your graven face
Before the gates of your Byzantium.
Do not ignore these things; cast off the stone
Which now detains you here and stone the beasts,
Repel the gentiles; give us built in stone
A firm foundation, solid and secure.
Or if you would not leave your tomb a while,
At least cry out from earth against the foe
For that alone might scatter them in flight.
If not, make room for us there in your tomb
For death, as you well know, is safety and
Salvation for th’entire Christian folk,
Nicephorus, who vanquished all but Eve.”
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January 2, 2013
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Ruins of Forgotten Byzantine Port Yield Some Answers, Yet Mysteries Remain [Slide Show]
After a drought revealed the seawall of a Byzantine Empire harbor town near Istanbul, archeologists excavated what was a thriving ancient center. But how does it fit into the city’s 1,600-year history?
By Jennifer Pinkowski
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inShare.9
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Palace: The remains of a well-appointed villa continue to yield evidence of its residents’ wealth.
View the Bathonea Slide Show here Image: Steven Bartoo
More In This Article
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Ruins of Forgotten Byzantine Port Yield Some Answers, Yet Mysteries Remain [Slide Show]
.
Hidden for a millennium, it took a 21st-century drought to reveal the ruins of a long-lost port city. Five years after archaeologists discovered its four-kilometer-long seawall on a polluted lake 20 kilometers from Istanbul, they continue to unearth Bathonea, which is yielding a wealth of rare artifacts and architecture spanning a thousand years of the Byzantine era.
Excavations this year have essentially doubled Bathonea’s known size, bolstering the idea that it was a well-connected, wealthy, fully outfitted harbor city that thrived from the fourth to 11th century, when a massive earthquake leveled much of it.
Bathonea is a rare and important find because little remains in Byzantium proper (now the modern city of Istanbul) of the first few centuries of the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, Empire. The ancient urban center has been built over too many times in its 1,600-year history to leave much behind.
» View the Bathonea Slide Show
Located on a long-farmed peninsula on Lake Kucukcekmece, once an inlet on the Marmara Sea, Bathonea reappeared in 2007 after a drought lowered the lake’s water table, exposing portions of the seawall. It turned out to be almost half the length of the wall that once surrounded Constantinople (as Byzantium had been renamed for Constantine the Great).
The wall’s substantial size suggested Bathonea was a significant safe harbor for ships on their way to Constantinople beginning in the fourth century, just as the city became the seat of power for the Eastern Roman Empire.
In previous years archaeologists, led by Kocaeli University’s Sengül Aydingün, have unearthed some of the seawall, a multistory villa or palace, an enormous cistern, the round foundations of a Greek temple, and the toppled remains of a Byzantine church and cemetery. Nearby, stone roads crisscross each other and 1,500 years of history.
This year they discovered a large multistory building and a series of smaller rooms adjacent to the villa that artifacts indicate was a monastery with workshops for making metal, jewelry and glass that began production in the fourth century. The jewelry molds they discovered may be the first archaeological evidence for jewelry production in Constantinople, a tradition known from historical sources.
Another key find is the exceptionally preserved, two-part network of underground water channels hundreds of meters long that kept Bathonea’s cistern and buildings supplied with freshwater. They also found a Hellenistic building hiding in plain sight among 19th-century structures and a road connecting it to a second-century B.C. harbor, providing more evidence of Bathonea’s earliest days.
A massive earthquake in the 11th century seems to have largely destroyed Bathonea. Archaeologists continue to find toppled walls (including one that killed the three men found beneath the rubble) from all the buildings. Yet judging from the pottery found, some residents eked out a life at Bathonea as late as the 12th century.
Many questions remain: What was Bathonea’s connection to Constantinople? Who lived there? If it was a major harbor inhabited by the wealthy and powerful—the region was a well-known country retreat for Constantinople’s elite for centuries—why doesn’t it appear in known historical sources? (Its name is a placeholder, inspired by two references eight centuries apart.) And what was its relationship to Rhegion, an imperial compound located just across the lake on the Marmara Sea?
To try to answer these questions, Aydingün and her team will focus next year’s dig on the seaward tip of the peninsula, where ground-penetrating radar has detected underground anomalies that may be structures. They also hope to restart underwater exploration. In 2008 they discovered an edifice that may have been a lighthouse. Local lore holds that it is a magical minaret that rises in warning whenever nearby villagers sin too much.
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1. greenhome123 04:13 PM 1/2/13
Istanbul was Constantinople now its Istanbul not Constantinople, so if you’ve got a date in Constantinople she’ll be waiting in Istanbul.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
2. ErnestPayne 05:50 PM 1/2/13
Fascinating. I am awaiting a documentary on the subject. A date in Constantinople? I am afraid she might be past her “best by” date.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
3. JRWermuth 12:04 PM 1/3/13
I once had love for one who loved Gordion
That dig on Anatolia’s plains for historians
She made Ankara’s kale sing
Even Midas would ring
But her heart endeared only Gordion
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
4. Sinibaldi 11:51 AM 1/7/13
Dans le flux la mélodie….
Gentiment,
comme le son
de la neige
qui donne le
matin, comme
la voix du soleil
qui chante
avec toi dans
l’aube d’une
pensée….
Francesco Sinibaldi
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
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——————————————————————————–
Hidden for a millennium, it took a 21st-century drought to reveal the ruins of a long-lost port city. Five years after archaeologists discovered its four-kilometer-long seawall on a polluted lake 20 kilometers from Istanbul, they continue to unearth Bathonea, which is yielding a wealth of rare artifacts and architecture spanning a thousand years of the Byzantine era.
Excavations this year have essentially doubled Bathonea’s known size, bolstering the idea that it was a well-connected, wealthy, fully outfitted harbor city that thrived from the fourth to 11th century, when a massive earthquake leveled much of it.
Bathonea is a rare and important find because little remains in Byzantium proper (now the modern city of Istanbul) of the first few centuries of the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman, Empire. The ancient urban center has been built over too many times in its 1,600-year history to leave much behind.
» View the Bathonea Slide Show
Located on a long-farmed peninsula on Lake Kucukcekmece, once an inlet on the Marmara Sea, Bathonea reappeared in 2007 after a drought lowered the lake’s water table, exposing portions of the seawall. It turned out to be almost half the length of the wall that once surrounded Constantinople (as Byzantium had been renamed for Constantine the Great).
The wall’s substantial size suggested Bathonea was a significant safe harbor for ships on their way to Constantinople beginning in the fourth century, just as the city became the seat of power for the power for the Eastern Roman Empire
In previous years archaeologists, led by Kocaeli University’s Sengül Aydingün, have unearthed some of the seawall, a multistory villa or palace, an enormous cistern, the round foundations of a Greek temple, and the toppled remains of a Byzantine church and cemetery. Nearby, stone roads crisscross each other and 1,500 years of history.
This year they discovered a large multistory building and a series of smaller rooms adjacent to the villa that artifacts indicate was a monastery with workshops for making metal, jewelry and glass that began production in the fourth century. The jewelry molds they discovered may be the first archaeological evidence for jewelry production in Constantinople, a tradition known from historical sources.
Another key find is the exceptionally preserved, two-part network of underground water channels hundreds of meters long that kept Bathonea’s cistern and buildings supplied with freshwater. They also found a Hellenistic building hiding in plain sight among 19th-century structures and a road connecting it to a second-century B.C. harbor, providing more evidence of Bathonea’s earliest days.
A massive earthquake in the 11th century seems to have largely destroyed Bathonea. Archaeologists continue to find toppled walls (includingone that killed the three men found beneath the rubble) from all the buildings. Yet judging from the pottery found, some residents eked out a life at Bathonea as late as the 12th century.
Many questions remain: What was Bathonea’s connection to Constantinople? Who lived there? If it was a major harbor inhabited by the wealthy and powerful—the region was a well-known country retreat for Constantinople’s elite for centuries—why doesn’t it appear in known historical sources? (Its name is a placeholder, inspired by two references eight centuries apart.) And what was its relationship to Rhegion, an imperial compound located just across the lake on the Marmara Sea?
To try to answer these questions, Aydingün and her team will focus next year’s dig on the seaward tip of the peninsula, where ground-penetrating radar has detected underground anomalies that may be structures. They also hope to restart underwater exploration. In 2008 they discovered an edifice that may have been a lighthouse. Local lore holds that it is a magical minaret that rises in warning whenever nearby villagers sin too much.
.
Not actually the same subject matter but discovery are cming to found out what these byzantine places might have looked like.