Byzantine Cappadocia : the planning and function of its ecclesiastical structures
Creators: name: Wallace, Sue-Anne
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 1991
Subjects: subject: Cave monasteries Turkey Cappadocia
subject: Architecture, Byzantine Turkey Cappadocia
subject: Church architecture Turkey Cappadocia

description: In this thesis the rock-cut monuments of Byzantine Cappadocia on the central Anatolian plateau of modem-day Turkey are considered from a new perspective and within a new structure. Studies which have investigated the churches of Cappadocia have not hitherto been framed around theoretical considerations, largely because of the absence of written sources which relate directly to the region. However, there is a body of documentary evidence contemporary with the majority of the Cappadocian churches which can be profitably analyzed to provide a framework within which the architectural disposition and liturgical planning of churches are considered. The documentary evidence of liturgical practices drawn from liturgical commentaries, hagiographic texts, typika and episcopal lists, together with all available evidence of patronage included in epigraphic sources in the churches is considered and analyzed. Discussion proceeds from documentary to archaeological evidence, focussing on the critical elements, the altar and the apse screen, the use of which is described in the literary evidence. In this synthetic approach, particular architectural dispositions and liturgical arrangements are shown to cluster in geographical patterns, the reason for which is demonstrated through an examination of other structures including refectories and funerary chambers. Scholars have undertaken systematic exploration in Cappadocia from the beginning of this century but the focus of their work has been primarily directed toward the decoration of the churches. Much of the material concerning liturgical planning has not been published and has been documented in this thesis for the first time based on fieldwork surveys undertaken between 1986 and 1988. The data of this fieldwork are collated in the appendix where one hundred and twenty-seven monuments are recorded including thirty-five hitherto unpublished and forty previously incompletely-published churches. A glossary in the appendix defines the relevant architectural terminology. More than six hundred rock-cut structures are believed to be located in Cappadocia, their highest concentration in Goreme. Although the total picture in Cappadocia cannot be satisfactorily reconstructed as losses have been considerable and are continuing, there is no reason to assume that the material which is extant is not representative of the situation which once existed in the region. That so many monuments are located within a confined area may suggest it was easier to carve a new church out of the tufaceous rock than to adapt an existing one to recent liturgical requirements. However, consideration of the liturgical furnishings and the question of how the architectural disposition and liturgical planning relate to specific ecclesiastical practices provide evidence that many of the churches had purposes other than normal liturgical use.
description: v. 1. The text. -- v. 2. The Appendix (3 parts)