Turkey - Marmara

Expedition title

Marmara expedition (Survey of Byzantine monasteries on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara)

Research topic

Research on Byzantine monasteries in the Bithynia province (south coast of the Sea of Marmara).

Overview

The purpose of the survey is to compare data from Byzantine Saints’ Lives with data from travellers and archaeological evidence so as to establish a map that lists the locations of Byzantine monasteries along the south coast of the Sea of Marmara, where they were particularly common.

The survey covers a relatively broad area in a large part of the region where monks/saints were active in the period when Bithynian monasticism was most prevalent (9th-12th centuries) i.e. the southern part of the Roman-Byzantine province of Bithynia and the north-eastern part of the Hellespont province, or, roughly, the region which goes from Uludag/the Legendary Mount Olympus and the sea to the Erdek/Cyzicus peninsula and the islands which surround it. The expedition consists of a series of two-week campaigns (end of August/beginning of September) over four years.

During the 2005 and 2006 campaigns, a number of previously unidentified monastic sites were discovered, including at Kilise Mevkii near Arnavutköy, on the south coast of the Gulf of Izmit, at Ayazma at the mouth of the Gulf of Gemlik, on the south coast, at Sivzi a little further east along the same coast, at Gebekilise on the Karadere close to the city of Karacabey, and at Dayirt on the left bank of the Kocadere, also close to Karacabey. Our knowledge of Byzantine Bithynia also improved thanks to the discovery of port settlements (Ketenderesi, Kapanca, on the south coast of the Gulf of Gemlik) and fortified settlements (Dedebayiri near Karacabey).