FROM TEMPLE TO CHURCH TO GRAVEYARD
Ine Jacobs, Koen Demarsin and Marc Waelkens*
On top of an artificially enlarged hill to the west of the Lower Agora of Sagalassos, the remains of a
late antique church are visible (fig. 1). The nature of its building elements suggested that a temple had
once been situated on the same location. An architectural survey was carried out in the area in 1988, 1
and in 2005 the first archaeological test soundings were accomplished in the north transept of the
church. In 2006 and 2007 the eastern end of the church, including the apse, the southern transept and
the eastern ends of the northern and central nave, were exposed. The southern nave remained
untouched, as it is completely covered with large architectural fragments, documenting the collapse of
the building. Excavations in 2008 concentrated on the western end, uncovering part of the atrium and
the church entrance.
The Apollo Klarios Temple
Based on the architectural fragments found in the area, the original temple was reconstructed as an
Ionic peripteros with 6 by 11 unfluted columns on top a temple podium. The temple’s entablature
consisted of an architrave, a pulvinated frieze and a cornice, all completely plain, and supported a
steep, also undecorated gable. The temple was surrounded by a temenos wall - enclosing an area of
nearly 59 by 52 m - with several gates giving access to the sanctuary from different directions. The
remains of this sanctuary indicate that it was changed several times throughout its existence. The
oldest architectural blocks found in this area dated to the Augustan period (fig. 2).2 A major
reorganisation, possible after earthquake damage, involved the construction of a new peristasis to
which the current columns and the plain entablature may belong, as well as the application of interior
wall veneer. This second phase could be dated to AD 103-104, on the basis of a building inscription on
the temple’s architraves, which was partially recorded - although with many mistakes - by the Polish
count Kristof Lanckoronski in the late 19th c.3 and of which, in the meantime, three virtually complete
architraves as well as a few extra fragments were unearthed. At least from this period onwards the
temple was dedicated to the emperor Augustus and Apollo Klarios.4
Although the presence of a temple was further ascertained by the finds of an inscription referring to a
silver statue (agalma) and the reused statuary base in the northwest corner of the southern transept, in
situ elements of the original building are not numerous. It seems that the bedrock on top of the hill was
flattened for the construction began. The row of stones on which today the northern columnar row of
the church are positioned may have already been put in place in the Roman period, possibly as support
for the original cella walls. A pavement slab found in a sounding underneath a church pavement
probably dates back to the original phase of construction. The remains of a similar pavement were
found to the south of the present church, where it was re-used as floor for some of the tombs in the
graveyard. In addition, to the east of the church apse, the upper section of a staircase cut in the rock
was encountered. This connected the temenos area with a cryptoporticus established in between the
temple terrace and the Lower Agora. Most important, in a sounding to the west of the present church,
the remains of the original foundation sacrifice of the temple were discovered. The finds of Late
Hellenistic ceramics amidst ash remains confirmed the stylistic dating.
A late antique church
At some moment in time, probably by the end of the 4th c., the temple went out of use. The
colonnades on the building’s shorter east and west sides were dismantled and the longer colonnades on
* Ine Jacobs is a Postdoctoral Researcher of the Research Fund-Flanders, Koen Demarsin is affiliated with the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Marc Waelkens is the director of the Sagalassos Archaeological Research
Project and professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
1
Mitchell/Owens/Waelkens 1989, 70-73.
2
Waelkens et al. 1993, 45-46; Vandeput 1997, 50-57, 198-202 for a description and date of architectural
elements belonging to the several temple phases.
3
Lanckoronski 1892, n° 200; Devijver 1996, 113, n° 2; Waelkens 2002, 346-347.
4
See Waelkens 2002, 335, 346 and Talloen/Waelkens 2005, 222-225 for the dedication of this temple.
the north and south were used to create three aisles separated by two rows of 11 columns. At the same
time, the walls of the cella as well as the steps of the krepis were dismantled and reused in the
construction of new walls built outside the colonnades.5 The reuse of the architraves, pulvinated
friezes and cornices of the original peripteros was not random, but the position of their collapse
suggests they were again integrated in the walls of the church on top of the more ordinary rectangular
ashlars of the cella.
The main building possessed a length of 31.30 m and a width of 16.60 m. A small transept, which on
the inside was only 1.3 m wider than the nave, was inserted near the eastern end of the basilica, in
front of the apse (fig. 3). Preceding the apse was a bema or altar podium with a length of 5.63-5.80 m.
The altar area was closed off by a chancel screen consisting of marble piers holding marble plates with
geometric, figurative and relief decoration, while its floor was originally covered with marble slabs.
Marble veneer were also found in situ against the east wall of the transept within the bema area. To the
west, the nave was preceded by a narthex and a small atrium, which could be entered from the main
propylon of the former temple.
In contrast to what was thought previously, the conversion was likely not postponed until the end of
the 5th c. A floor substrate encountered in the northern aisle of the church contained ceramics from the
local ceramic production that could be assigned to the first half of the 5th c. If this can be connected to
the construction of the church, this is one of the earliest churches in Anatolia, as most churches in the
region are to be dated in the late 5th and early 6th c. AD. This early dating is not surprising when
looking at the importance of the location within the city: the hill dominated the vista of both the main
north-south colonnaded street and that of the Lower Agora. The presence of a ruin on such a
dominating position would not have contributed to the attractive appearance of the city. Also in other
cities of Asia Minor, ruins with a high-visibility were removed from the cityscape as soon as possible,
either by reusing them as church, either by dismantling them and integrating their building materials in
other construction projects elsewhere in the city.6
Like the temple, the church building has known more than one building phase. For instance, the
present-day atrium was only laid out only between AD 525 and 575 (fig. 4). Judging by the
architectural elements found in the collapse layers in this area, the original temple cornices were
collected here. They in any case constituted an impressive decoration, and, in addition, may also have
served an apotropaic function. Their exact manner of application could no longer be established, as it
was likely that part of the walls surrounding the atrium were partially dismantled in a later period.
Remains related to the interior furniture and decoration of the church were scanty. In the middle of the
central aisle the remains of an ambo were discovered. The original floors were all removed. The
installation of a new substrate on top of the bedrock containing ceramics belonging to phase 8 of the
local ceramic production (AD 450/75-550/75), suggests that the removal of the original decoration
could have occurred quite early in time. Thereafter, the side aisles were separate from the main nave
and further subdivided by orderly walls in mortared rubble.
The church after the 6th c.
The late antique church was not destroyed in the late 6th c., when a violent earthquake seems to have
leveled large parts of the city. After a period of abandonment, the area was re-occupied. Entrances in
the walls of the church’s transepts were sealed off by shoddy walls, a new fill was installed in both the
northern and the southern transept, and a new floor was laid out in the southern transept. The presence
of a mortarium indicates that the space was at this time used for secular purposes. A new construction
in the central aisle, consisting mainly of tuff blocks, incorporated elements of the church decoration.
The chronology of these later changes as well as the function of the separate spaces remains uncertain.
Ceramics found in the new substrate of the southern transept suggested a date as late as the11th c.,
whereas ceramics in the substrate of the northern transept indicate occupation of the building
continued in the late 7th/8th to 9th c. AD. This last date was corroborated by remains of later
habitation encountered to the northwest of the main church building: the area behind the entrance
portal of the temple/church was in the late 7th/8th century walled up on all sides. Middle-Byzantine
sherds found in the collapse layers then again indicate further activities in the area also in later periods.
5
6
Talloen 2003 II, 166. Bayliss 2004, 40-41 called this rare form of temple conversion ‘inverted transformation’.
Jacobs in press.
Finally, the main building was not an alone-standing structure: to the south of the building a network
of rubble walls indicated the presence of related structures, most of which remain unexcavated. These
structures were dismantled when the Mid-Byzantine cemetery was installed.
The Mid-Byzantine cemetery
Immediately south of the church and east of the apse in the debris covering the Lower Agora, 7 a
graveyard was discovered. Until now, a total of 58 tombs (15 to the south of the church and 43 in the
debris on the Lower Agora). C14 samples taken from six skeletons from the graveyard have been
dated between the 11th and 13th c. AD. Nevertheless, there are some indications that burial started
earlier, since, during the campaign of 2008, superposed graves have been discovered (fig. 5).
Moreover, the fill encountered in some of the graves included scattered parts of human bone, out of
their original context, coming from earlier, disturbed tombs. Finally, a funerary slab depicting two
dolphins strongly stylistically belongs to the 6th c. AD.
The appearance of the graveyard is overall very simple: virtually all tombs were oriented in an eastwest direction and constructed with care. Many of them made use of older architectural remains
present on site: next to the reuse of the temple floor, some graves abutted the foundations of the smallscale structures mentioned above, as well as an older water channel (fig. 6). Until now, only one tomb
marker has been found, but the overall separation and organization of the graveyard suggests that they
were once more numerous.
Illustrations:
Fig. 1. Phase plan of the Apollo Klarios site (© Ine Jacobs and SARS)
Fig. 2. Overview of the site (© Ine Jacobs and SARS)
Fig. 3. The eastern end of the church after excavation and conservation (© Bruno Vermeulen and
SARS)
Fig. 4. The atrium of the church (© Ine Jacobs and SARS)
Fig. 5. Two tombs in superposition (© Koen Demarsin and SARS)
Fig. 6. One of the tombs abutting an earlier water channel (© Koen Demarsin and SARS)
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