Thyateira
Coordinates: 38 ° 55 ' N , 27 ° 50' E
Thyateira (partly as Thyatira called; ancient Greek τά Θυάτειρα ), today Akhisar in Turkey , was in ancient times an important commercial and industrial city in Asia Minor landscape Lydia . It was in the Lycostal, on the road from Pergamon to Sardis .
history
The name Thyateiras suggests that it was originally a Lydian settlement. During the Hellenism , after 281 BC. BC, Seleukos I settled military colonists there. The city remained for about a hundred years until 188 BC. BC, under Seleucid control and then fell into the hands of the Attalid Eumenes II of Pergamon. With their entire empire Thyateira came after the Aristonikos rising in 129 BC. To Rome and from then on belonged to the province of Asia .
Thyateira was for its textile industry and purple dyeing known that several times in inscriptions is occupied. Emperor Caracalla elevated the city to the suburb of its own conventus iuridicus in 215 , after it had previously belonged to the judicial region of Pergamon. Since 297 Thyateira belonged to the province of Lydia, in Byzantine times on the subject of Thrakesion . At the Battle of Thyatira , Emperor Valens defeated the usurper Procopius in the spring of 366 .
Early Christianity
In the New Testament, Thyateira meets in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts) 16:14 and the Apocalypse 1:11; 2.18.24.
Acts 16:14 f. contains a singular reference to a purple merchant named Lydia from Thyateira , who was the first in Europe to be baptized by Paul with her whole house. It is unlikely that this episode was originally to be read as the founding legend of the Christian community in Thyateira.
The mention of Thyateira in the Apocalypse of John is far more important. The Christian community is the recipient of the fourth of the seven letters to communities in Asia Minor (Rev 2: 18-29). In addition to praise for the congregation for not having decreased but increased in their spiritual life (2.19), there is also a rebuke here: There is a group in the congregation against which the congregation only inadequately demarcates itself (2 , 20). This group is under the direction of a self-appointed prophetess, who is called the Old Testament Queen Jezebel (cf. 1 Kings 16-2. Kings 9) because of her pernicious effect : She seduces parts of the community to "fornication" and to consumption of meat offered to idols .
This reproach is identical to the one made against the community in Pergamon (2.14) and is related there to “ Nicolaitans ” (2.15; cf. 2.6). This obviously heretical grouping is only known from the Apocalypse and is therefore difficult to describe or even to identify. In any case, it appears to have been a libertine group, led by a prophetic woman, possibly a manifestation of early Gnosis .
The patristic tradition traces the name “Nicolaitans” back to Nikolaos of Antioch (6.5) mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles , one of the Jerusalem Seven. It is possible that this memory contains a historical core, but it cannot be proven with certainty either.
In the early church history, Thyateira played an important role as a center of Montanism ( Epiphanios , Haereses 51,33).
The name continues as an orthodox titular bishopric. The Greek Orthodox bishop responsible for the British Isles with his seat in London is called Metropolitan of Thyateira. The Catholic Church also has a titular bishopric of this name.
Excavation site
Extensive excavations were carried out in Thyateira from 1974 to 1975. The excavation site is in a fenced rectangle in the center of Akhisar city. You can see the ruins of a basilica from the 5th or 6th century on the site of the earlier agora as well as the remains of columned streets and arcades from the 4th century. Some of the numerous inscriptions found have been taken to the Manisa Museum .
literature
- Josef Keil : Thyateira. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VI A, 1, Stuttgart 1936, Col. 657-659.
- Otto FA Meinardus: The Greeks of Thyatira . Athens 1974.
- Ümit Serdaroğlu : Thyateira W Anatolia . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .
- Peter Herrmann : Tituli Asiae Minoris . tape 5 : Tituli Lydiae linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti Fasc. 2: Regio septentrionalis ad occidentem vergens . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Science, Vienna [u. a.] 1989, ISBN 3-7001-1516-4 (Greek and Latin inscriptions from Thyateira, partly published from Josef Keil 's notes ).
- Hans Kaletsch : Thyateira. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 12/1, Metzler, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-476-01482-7 , Sp. 518.
Web links
- Stephan Witetschek: Thyatira. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.
- Coins of Thyateira
- Sacred Destinations