Işıkkale
Coordinates: 36 ° 26 ′ 22 ″ N , 34 ° 0 ′ 34 ″ E
Işıkkale is the Turkish name of a ruin site in Rough Cilicia , which was inhabited from Roman to Byzantine times.
location
Işıkkale is located in the mountainous hinterland of Seleukia on Kalykadnos, today's Silifke , in the district of the same name in the Turkish province of Mersin , about ten kilometers northeast of the district town and seven kilometers northwest of Atakent . It is located on the west side of the Yenibahçe Valley , one kilometer north of the somewhat larger settlement of Karakabaklı from the same period, on the road that ran from ancient Korasion (now Atakent) on the Mediterranean via İmamlı and Keşlitürkmenli to Uzuncaburç (in ancient times Olba and Diokaisareia ) leads. About 600 meters to the north, a dirt road branches off to the sinkhole Aşağı Dünya , where another ancient settlement is located, a little later at Kültesir a path to the villa rustica of Sinekkale follows .
Research history
Işıkkale was first described in the 1970s by the Turkish Byzantinist Semavi Eyice as part of an inventory program of the Byzantine remains in the Seleukia area on the Kalykadnos. Friedrich Hild and Hansgerd Hellenkemper visited the place in the 1980s. Ina Eichner carried out a survey project between 1998–2000 and 2003 to record early Byzantine houses in Cilicia and also examined and re-measured houses in Işıkkale. The Turkish Byzantinist Günder Varinlioğlu also researched Karakabaklı and Işıkkale in a survey of the settlements west of the Yenibahçe Valley from 2003 to 2007.
description
The small town consists of two districts divided by a depression, which are about 200 meters apart. They were connected by a paved road still partially preserved and are now separated by the modern road. According to Varinlioğlu, they emerged as individual hamlets, a complex of three larger buildings in between, which may have had administrative or commercial functions, was built later. The residential buildings in both parts are single-storey, closely staggered and built according to no recognizable plan. A necropolis with numerous sarcophagi belongs to the western district .
In the eastern part there is a three-aisled basilica of 25 × 30 meters with a narthex in the west. Its apse faces east, next to it are two pastophoria , which are divided into two rooms by a belt arch and also have a small apse. The naves are separated by arcades supported by four columns each. In the south of the church there is a large covered cistern . In their surroundings there are more sarcophagi, one of which is decorated with garlands, leaves and doves.
Günder Varinlioğlu, who, among other things, examined the masonry techniques in Işıkkale, found both polygonal and isodomic masonry and small ashlar walls. By comparing it with other sites, it consequently dates the development of the site to the time from the late 4th to the early 6th century. For the basilica, which is made of ashlar masonry in the main walls and in the lower area and with small ashlars in the upper parts, it indicates the first half of the 6th century.
Church from the south with cistern in the foreground
Central nave with apse from the west
Northern Pastophorion
Decorated sarcophagus
literature
- Semavi Eyice: Some Byzantine small towns in the Rough Cilicia , in: 150 years of the German Archaeological Institute . Philipp von Zabern 1981 p. 208 ISBN 9783805304771
- Friedrich Hild, Hansgerd Hellenkemper: Kilikien and Isaurien. (= Tabula Imperii Byzantini Volume 5). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-7001-1811-2 , pp. 276-277
- Ina Eichner: Early Byzantine houses in Cilicia. Work report on the 2003 campaign and some results of the project . In: 22. Araştırma Sonuçları Toplantısı Vol. 2, TC Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, Konya 2004, pp. 201–212 ( PDF ).
- Ina Eichner: Early Byzantine houses in Cilicia. Architectural history study of the types of housing in the region around Seleukeia on the Kalykadnos (= Istanbul Research Vol. 52). Wasmuth, Tübingen 2011, pp. 258-281 ISBN 978-3-8030-1773-4 .
- Günder Varinlioğlu: Rural Habitat in the Hinterland of Seleucia ad Calycadnum during Late Antiquity In: Michael C. Hoff, Rhys F. Townsend (Ed.): Rough Cilicia - New Historical and Archaeological Approaches . Oxford 2013, ISBN 978-1-84217-518-7 , pp. 199-209.
