Grant-funded Project Nr. 469/2004/A-HN/FF Final Report
Project title:
Byzantinian architecture of Istanbul
Research leader:
Mgr. Jan Kostìnec, 1999
Co-researcher:
Prof.PhDr. Jan Bouzek, DrSc.;
PhDr. Jiĝí Musil, PhD.
Period of project:
2004-2004
Overall grant:
110 000 CZK
Project Results
The project aimed primarily at recording of Byzantine and pre-Byzantine material at risk of damage or loss in Bakirköy (Byzantine Hebdomon) and Yeşilköy (Byzantine village of Hagios Stephanos, later Ayastefanos) in the district of Bakirköy/Istanbul. A full report of the projects results is approaching completion. Hebdomon was in the Byzantine period known as a place where two imperial palaces and several important churches stood. Majority of new Byzantine material comes from two Bakirköy´s hospitals: Kizilay Ahmet Bahadirli Tip Merkezi (near the sea and the so-called Tribunal) and Bakirköy Akil ve Sinir Hastaliklari Hastanesi. In the former several column shafts and capitals dated in the late 5th early 6th c. and other fragments and objects (including one mortarium) lie in the garden and form a kind of small open air archaeological collection . All pieces were salvaged when the modern hospital was being built. In the park belonging to the Mental and Neurological Diseases Hospital , just about one hundred meters west of the hypogeum discovered in 1914, there are 6th c. column capitals, a marble bathtub sarcophagus, an unfinished (probably) Roman seated male statue and fragments of a possible sanctuary enclosure displayed on a paved area. Two column shafts and one capital were recorded in yards of two houses near the site where the remains of now completely destroyed church of St. John Baptist were excavated. In the area of the former shore line, now extended into the sea after a new costal communication had been built, photos of heavily eroded stones possibly once forming part of a mole were taken and columns, fragments of capitals and water conduits, apparently from the nearby early Byzantine Cistern of Gunpowder factory, were recorded in Doga garden restaurant. We visited also Fildami cistern and the so-called Tribunal where attention was paid to their building materials and construction techniques. According to the results of our research, it seems probable that both structures are of a post-6th c. date (broadly between 7th and 10th c.). The history of Byzantine settlement in Yeşilköy is associated with the translation of St. Stephen´s relics from Constantinople to Rome. The present 19th c-orthodox church is said to have been built on the same spot as its Byzantine predecessor(s). In the church yard there is a beautiful late 5th/early 6th c.-marble sarcophagus with acroteria, decorated with christograms, crosses and leaves (its relation to the hypogeum excavated in the late 70s not far from the church is unclear). An ionic impost capital (datable in the 6th c.) lies immediately east of the sarcophagus. South of the church we recorded another piece of church architectural decoration built in an Ottoman wall. It appears to be a decorated impost once resting on a colonnette and supporting an architrave of a middle Byzantine templon. In the yard of the Greek elementary school, is a fragment of 6th c.-corinthian or composite capital. All this suggests that in the Byzantine period there was an important church which also attracted rich people who wished to be buried nearby.Ayasofya Müzesi Finally, thanks to an unexpected permit given by the Turkish Ministry of culture, we were given a chance to start a research in SW annexes to the Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia and in its baptistery, normally closed to the public. A detailed photosurvey and taking measurements were carried out in order to determine possible successive bulding phases in the structures once belonging to the Patriarcheion. Results of it will be published as an article written in collaboration with Dr. Ken Dark, director of Late Antiquity Research Group (based in Reading) in 2005 the article in progress is in the attachments to this report.