Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T07:12:30.232Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Excavations at Alahan Monastery: Third Preliminary Report*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

Last year, during the months of July and August, the Institute completed a third season of excavation at Alahan Monastery in Isauria and, although the season was fairly short—six weeks in all—more workmen were taken on to ensure a maximum effort. Many of these, with six or seven years experience of early Christian excavations at Daǧ Pazarı and Alahan, quickly instructed the newcomers. Of the British staff, Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Martineau helped Mrs. Gough with the administration as well as on the site. Miss Hall, Mr. Harper and Mr. Hayes acted as site supervisors, while Mrs. Gerard Bakker was again responsible for pottery and small finds. The expedition's architect and draughtsman was Mr. Adrian Cave, of the Architectural Institute. Finally, by a happy coincidence, the representative of the Turkish Government was Bay Süleyman Gönçer, who found himself after his retirement from the Directorship of the Afyon Museum with a British expedition again, after so many years of collaboration between the wars with Dr. Winifred Lamb at Kusura and with Sir William Calder during his Phrygian explorations.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1964

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 So, in Van der Meer, and Mohrmann, , Atlas of the Early Christian World, Nelson, 1959, p. 106Google Scholar, where it appears as Koca Kalesi.

2 See Gough, M., “The Church of the Evangelists at Alahan,” AS. XII (1962), pp. 173184Google Scholar, and Excavations at Alahan Monastery”, AS. XIII (1963), pp. 105115Google Scholar.

3 Its measurements are: w. 1·54 m.; th. 1·06 m. In the Western Basilica, the comparable figures for the altar base itself are: w. 1·64 m.; th. 0·83 m.

4 Illustrated by Verzone, , Alahan Monastır, Turin, 1956Google Scholar, Tav. VI and VII. Also, Gough, M., The Early Christians, London, 1961Google Scholar, Pl. 44.

5 See Verzone, op. cit., Fig. 33. The decoration may be seen on two panels flanking the niche.

6 The exact measurements of bases, shafts, capitals and intercolumniations are all known.

7 See Gough, M., “Excavations at Alahan Monastery,” AS. XIII (1963), p. 109Google Scholar, nn. 4 and 5.

8 ibid., pp. 113–14. The plinth measurements of these small columns vary slightly between 0·63 × 0·63 m., and 0·605 × 0·59 m.

9 I am republishing a photograph of this inscription as a confirmation of my earlier reading published in Some Recent Finds at Alahan (Koja Kalessi)”, AS. V, 1955Google Scholar, Fig. 1, and to supplement the photograph in Verzone, op. cit., Fig. 124. There has been a slight deterioration of the stone in the last decade.

10 During 1963, a sounding was made in the colonnade in the area of the second pilaster complex to the west of the narthex of the Eastern Church. The northern respond of the complex and the level of the original floor were both established, and the coin was discovered in the course of the sounding.