Istanbul Rescue Archaeology project
The 1998 Season
The 1999 Season
The 2001 Season
The 2002 Season
The 2003 Season
The 2004 Season
This
project, initiated by Dr Ken Dark early in 1997, began fieldwork in
1998 and is co-directed by him and Dr Ferudun
Özgümüş (Istanbul University). Focussing on
the, relatively archaeologically neglected, western part of the
Byzantine capital, it uses site-watching and street-by-street
intensive survey methods to record all unpublished material of
pre-circa AD 1500 date being destroyed or damaged by human or
natural means in the areas of the modern city of Istanbul being
investigated.
The project operates under permission of the Turkish
authorities and was initially funded by LARG. Later it was provided
with additional funding by The British Museum, Istanbul University
and other organisations.
The 1998 Season
The first season of work (in 1998) examined the southwest of the
area within the Theodosian walls of Byzantine Constantinople. This
produced new evidence from a range of sites, some already well
known as standing monuments (such as St John Studius and the Golden
Gate) or through historical scholarship (such as St Mary
Peribleptos), and others (such as Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa
mosque) not previously suspected of containing Roman- or
Byzantine-period material.
The 1999 Season
A second season (in 1999) investigated the northwest of the
walled city. This discovered substantial structural remains in the
area associated in texts with the imperial palace of the Blachernae, at several modern churches and mosques – as at
the churches of St Demetrios Kananou and Panaghia Tis Sudas – and
also parts of what may be the famous, but ‘lost’, Petra
monastery.
The 2001 Season
The third season (in 2001) concentrated on the centre of the
west of the Byzantine city. This is the area in which the Church of
the Holy Apostles, the burial place of the Byzantine emperors, once
stood. Potentially the most important discovery was of walls that
might represent parts of that structure.
The 2002 Season
In 2002, a fourth season of work continued to the immediate south of the 2001 area.
This revealed substantial structures near the Byzantine Forum of Marcian, in addition to important new evidence from several other
sites, including inscriptions. Two discoveries, of special interest
to scholars of Byzantine art and architecture, were recently exposed
fragments from the Byzantine church of Constantine Lips, and a
Byzantine brick substructure near the Kariye Museum (the Byzantine
church of St Saviour in Chora), where other structural evidence had
been recognised during our survey in 1999.
The 2003 Season
A fifth fieldwork season took place in August and September 2003 in the
area to the south of the Forum of Marcian.
This examined the environs
of the Topkapı gate in the Theodosian walls and of the Harbour of Theodosius.
Byzantine material was again recorded at several sites - including the church of
St Nicholas, where a marble sculpted human head and an Early Byzantine
relief of the Good Shepherd were found built into walls, and the remains of a
portico (once probably 11.38m long) along the Byzantine harbour-side on Atmaca
sk. At Istanbul University Hospital, Çapa, a, probably Middle Byzantine,
cross-decorated marble sarcophagus was discovered during building work, and a
large, but enigmatic, Byzantine substructure was recorded on Kumsal sk., again
close to the former edge of the Harbour of Theodosius.
The 2004 Season
Our sixth season of work took place in September 2004. A summary of the results shall be posted on this website in due
course.
For further information about this project and details of recent
publications and interim reports, please contact the Research Centre
Director.
A Late Antiquity Research Group
Project
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