Pepouza

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The New Jerusalem on a 14th century tapestry

Pepouza ( Greek  Πέπουζα , also Pepuza ) was a city in Phrygia ( Asia Minor ), south of today's Uşak in western Turkey , which was declared the " New Jerusalem " by the Christian prophetic movement of the Montanists in the 2nd century . According to the expectations of the Montanists, Pepouza should be a new city, a new Jerusalem, at the end of the Apocalypse , according to a vision from the New Testament book of Revelation of John , chapters 21 and 22 arise on earth.

location

The ruins of the city of Pepouza are located in the area of ​​the village of Karayakuplu, 16 km from Karahallı, Uşak province ; in the valley of the Banaz River, west of the Cilandras Bridge.

history

In Pepouza, Montanus founded the Montanist movement in the middle of the 2nd century AD . He claimed to be the eschatological paraclete . Epiphanius , Bishop of Salamis, reported in his Panárion that after the death of the founding prophets Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla , Pepouza became a place of pilgrimage for Montanists, who were "introduced to the secret rites there". In Pepouza there were hostels for pilgrims, churches and a monastery, it was the headquarters of a movement spread throughout the Roman Empire . 550 Pepouza was on the orders of the Roman Emperor Justinian I destroyed.

Research history

Since the 19th century, scholars tried to identify Pepouza. Between 1883 and 1931 the British epigrapher William Ramsay tried to find traces of the town of the Montanists.

In July 2000, an international team of researchers, including the American Montanism expert William Tabbernee from Tulsa and the early Christian historian Peter Lampe from the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, discovered a previously unknown Roman urban settlement in the area of ​​the Turkish village of Karayakuplu, which was previously in is the most promising candidate for identification with Pepouza in the history of research. The clues are z. B. Sources such as the travel guide Synekdemos of Hierocles, enriched with geographical references, or council acts that document a Byzantine monastery in Pepouza can be found. The newly discovered urban settlement includes a rock monastery that is unparalleled within a 100 km radius.

Settlement archaeological surveys under the direction of Peter Lampe have provided evidence of continuous, intensive settlement since the Hellenistic period . Ceramic shards, coins, architectural fragments, a necropolis as well as remnants of the infrastructure at that time, two Roman roads and a bridge, as well as two marble quarries were found as evidence of the existence of a city with formerly several thousand inhabitants.

In addition, not far from a village near Karayakuplu, an inscription was found on which the Roman emperor Septimius Severus informed the residents of the village of Tymion , who as farmers complained about unlawful taxes and oppressions by magistrates and imperial slaves traveling through, that he had them through his procurator will support. Tymion was next to the central place Pepouza one of the main places of the montanism and according to the ancient sources it was near Pepouza. The stele with the favorable imperial rescript was set up near the town in the early 3rd century on the street to deter future oppressors. There are no indications that the inscription was subsequently carried over to the site. In this way, the village area of ​​Şükranje, which shows clear traces of Roman settlement, was made likely as a settlement area of ​​ancient Tymion. Şükranje is only about 10 km away from the urban area near Karayakuplu, which is designated as Pepouza.

literature

  • Peter Lampe: The montanist Tymion and Pepouza in the light of the new Tymion inscription . In: Zeitschrift für Antikes Christianentum 8, 2005, pp. 498-512.
  • William Tabbernee, Peter Lampe: Pepouza and Tymion: The Discovery and Archeological Exploration of a Lost Ancient City and an Imperial Estate. de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019455-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Farnell: The Montanist Crisis . (PDF; 211 kB)
  2. ↑ Article from 2004 (PDF) DOI: 10.1515 / zach.2005.8.3.498 . See also the two references above.
  3. ↑ Urs Willmann: On the trail of ecstasy. In: Die Zeit , No. 23/2002

Coordinates: 38 ° 24 '  N , 29 ° 28'  E