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Seven Byzantine lead seals from the museum of Ödemiş in western Anatolia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2020

Ergün Laflı  and
Werner Seibt
Ergün Laflı
Affiliation:
Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi, İzmir ergun.lafli@deu.edu.tr
Werner Seibt
Affiliation:
Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Viennawerner.seibt@oeaw.ac.at
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Abstract

This short essay presents seven Byzantine lead seals, all of which originate from the local museum in Ödemiş in the province of Izmir in western Turkey. Almost all of them came as acquisition to Ödemiş by local antique dealers. All the pieces have been treated and interpreted here sigillographically for the first time. This small collection of seals is important regarding the administration of the theme of Thrakesion, especially about the offices of the seal owners, and the society of Cayster valley during the Byzantine period.

Keywords

Lead sealsthe museum of ÖdemişCayster valleyIzmirwestern Asia MinorThrakesionsigillographyEarly Byzantine periodMiddle Byzantine periodLate Byzantine period
Type
Articles
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , April 2020 , pp. 21 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2020

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References

1 So far, the most detailed study of the Cayster valley during the Byzantine period is done by Andreas Külzer: Külzer, A., ‘Streifzüge durch das Tal des Kaӱstrios (Küçük Menderes): Historisch-geographische Impressionen aus Westanatolien’, in idem and Popović, M.S. (eds.), Space, landscapes and settlements in Byzantium. Studies in historical geography of the eastern Mediterranean, presented to Johannes Koder (Vienna and Novi Sad 2017) 195–213 and 475–78Google Scholar.

2 Hypaepa was as protothronos a suffragan epishopric of Ephesus (Asia) and became a metropolis under Isaac II Angelos, but was again reduced to a bishopric under Theodore I Laskaris in A.D. 1216. Cf. Preiser-Kapeller, J., Der Episkopat im späten Byzanz. Ein Verzeichnis der Metropoliten und Bischöfe des Patriarchats von Konstantinopel in der Zeit von 1204 bis 1453 (Saarbrücken 2008) 115Google Scholar; Darrouzès, J., Notitiae episcopatuum ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Paris 1981) e.g. 310Google Scholar, notitia 10, 11 and apparatus criticus.

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11 Çetin, ‘Palaiapolis’, 77. Byzantine epigraphic finds in the museum of Ödemiş are currently being studied by E. Laflı.

12 Unpublished; personal observation in March 2017.

13 So far, this excavation remains as unpublished; some architectural blocks, such as an impost capital with a cross, are being exposed in the garden of the museum of Ödemiş. We would like to thank Mrs Feride Kat, the new director of the museum, for this information.

14 Çetin, ‘Palaiapolis’, 78.

15 Schultze, V., Altchristliche Städte und Landschaften, vol. 2/2: Kleinasien (Leipzig 1926) 84–85Google Scholarhttps://archive.org/details/altchristlichest22schu. Also cf. Çetin, ‘Palaiapolis’, figs. at pp. 77–78. On the topography and archaeological remains of this site cf. Sevin, V., Sevin, N. Arslan and Çetin, S., Neikeia, Unutulmuş Bir Antik Kent, Ödemiş Müzesi Yayını 1 (Ödemiş 2013)Google Scholar; and Sevim, V., ‘Neikaia: Kadim Bir Madenci Kenti’, in Arslan, M. and Baz, F. (eds.), Arkeoloji, Tarih ve Epigrafi'nin Arasında: Prof. Dr. Vedat Çelgin'in 68. Doğum Günü Onuruna Makaleler (Istanbul 2018) 803–808Google Scholar.

16 Unpublished.

17 Unpublished.

18 Some fibulae as well as Armenian inscriptions were published from this museum: Laflı, E. and Buora, M., ‘Fibulae in the museum of Ödemiş (western Turkey)’, Archiv orientální 80/3 (2012) 417–34Google Scholar; idem and Bozkuş, Y. Deveci, ‘Some epigraphic and archaeological documents from western Anatolia during the late Ottoman period’, Post-Medieval Archaeology 48/2 (2014) 295–99, nos. 5–8Google Scholar.

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21 A Meligalas was mentioned by some seals of the ninth century A.D.; cf. Zacos, G. and Veglery, A., Byzantine lead seals I (Basel 1972) nos. 2172–2178Google Scholar.

22 This monogram is similar to the type 453 in: Zacos and Veglery, I, pl. 241.

23 From the fourth to the sixth century A.D. the Latin magister militum could be translated as στρατηγός or στρατηλάτης, but after the reforms of Heraclius at the latest only στρατηγός was the terminus technicus for the highest military commands, and στρατηλάτης one step lower. Cf. Wassiliou-Seibt, A.-K., ‘From magister militum to strategos: The evolution of the highest military commands in early Byzantium (5th-7th c.)’, Travaux et Mémoires 21/1 (=Mélanges J.-Cl. Cheynet) (Paris 2017) 789–96Google Scholar.

24 Cf. Zacos and Veglery, I, no. 1945 and pl. 236.

25 For the civil functions of the anthypatos in the seventh century A.D. cf. Brubaker, L. and Haldon, J., Byzantium in the iconoclast era c. 680–850. A history (Cambridge 2011) 671–79Google Scholar.

26 Zacos and Veglery, I, no. 2881; cf. Martindale, J.R., The prosopography of the Later Roman Empire 3/1-2. A.D. 527–641 (Cambridge 1992) 698Google Scholar, Ioannes 212 (dated to A.D. 550–650). In this case we do not know its provenance, perhaps Istanbul, where most of the Zacos collection was acquired.

27 Several thematic kometes of korte are attested in sigillographic sources; see, for example, a later κόμης τῆς κόρτης τοῦ Ὀψικίου in Nesbitt, J. and Oikonomides, N., Catalogue of Byzantine seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art (hereafter DOSeals) III: West, Northwest and Central Asia Minor and the Orient (Washington D.C. 1996) 39.40Google Scholar. For κόμης τῆς κόρτης under the strategos cf. Oikonomides, N., Les listes de préséance byzantines des IXe et Xe siècles. Introduction, texte et commentaire (Paris 1972) 341Google Scholar.

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29 Cf. Wassiliou-Seibt, ‘From magister militum to strategos’, 799–800, 802.

30 DO 55.1.1213 (photo no. BZS 1955.1.1213), eds. Zacos and Veglery, I, no. 2462; DOSeals III 2.53. Cf. Lilie, R.-J., Ludwig, C., Pratsch, T., Rochow, I. et al. , Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit. Erste Abteilung (641–867), 6 vols. (Berlin-New York, 1999–2002)Google Scholar (hereafter PmbZ) #7618.

31 Istanbul, Archaeological Museum 370, ed. Bulgurlu, V., Bizans Kurşun Mühürleri (Istanbul 2007) no. 191Google Scholar; Cheynet, J.-Cl., Gökyıldırım, T. and Bulgurlu, V., Les sceaux byzantins du Musée archéologique d'Istanbul (Istanbul 2012) no. 3.129Google Scholar. This seal was already mentioned in Ebersolt, J., ‘Sceaux byzantins du musée de Constantinople’, Revue numismatique IV/18 (1919) 403, no. 534Google Scholar, though with the incorrect name Ioannes. The same mistake is repeated in PmbZ #3275.

32 Zacos and Veglery, I, no. 2132; DOSeals III 2.43.

33 Theophanes I 431. Cf. also Seibt, W., ‘Drei byzantinische Bleisiegel aus Ephesos’, Litterae Numismaticae Vindobonenses 1 (1979) 148–151Google Scholar (seal of a Leon patrikios and hypostrategos of Thrakesion).

34 Their pictures were published in an exhibition catalogue: Ödekan, A. (ed.), “Kalanlar”, 12.-13. Yüzyıllarda Türkiye'de Bizans / The “remnants”, 12th and 13th centuries Byzantine objects in Turkey (Istanbul 2007)Google Scholar.

35 E.g. G. Schlumberger, ‘Amulettes byzantins anciens, destinés à combattre les maléfices et maladies', REG 1892, l.c. 137; and Spier, J., ‘Medieval Byzantine magical amulets and their tradition’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 56 (1993) pl. 3, no. 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Bonner, C., Studies in magical amulets chiefly Graeco-Egyptian, University of Michigan Studies (Ann Arbor, MI 1950) 90Google Scholar; and Björklund, H., ‘Classical traces of metamorphosis in the Byzantine hystera formula’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 70 (2016) 151–66Google Scholar. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26497732.

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38 The story of St Sisinnios (also Sissinnios and latinized as Sisinnius), assisting his sister Melitene against the demon Gyllou and depicted in “holy rider” charms, occurs in a group of different texts, material and contexts: Cf. Greenfield, R.P.H., ‘Saint Sisinnios, the Archangel Michael and the Female Demon Gylou: the typology of the Greek literary stories’, Βυζαντινά 15 (1989), 83–142Google Scholar; Fauth, W., ‘Der christliche Reiterheilige des Sisinnios-Typs im Kampf gegen eine vielnamige Dämonin’, Vigiliae Christianae 53/4 (1999) 401–25Google Scholar <https://www.jstor.org/stable/1584489>; P. Donceel-Voûte, ‘The (in)visible evil in sacred space: Codes, keys and clues to reading its image’, in W.E. Keil, S. Kiyanrad, C. Theis and L. Willer (eds.), Zeichentragende Artefakte im sakralen Raum, Zwischen Präsenz und UnSichtbarkeit, Materiale Textkulturen 20 (Open access 2018) 17–54 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbkk499.5>; Demirer, Ü. and Kraus, T.J., ‘Ein Bronze-Amulett aus Kibyra mit Reiterheiligem und griechischem Psalm 90,1’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 195 (2015) 58–62Google Scholar <https://www.jstor.org/stable/43909895>; and Pancaroğlu, O., ‘The itinerant dragon-slayer: Forging paths of image and identity in Medieval Anatolia’, Gesta 43/2 (2004) 152–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar <https://www.jstor.org/stable/25067102>. Furthermore, a boundary stone from Dorylaeum near modern Eskişehir (=MAMA V 55) refers to a church or a monastery named after Sisinnios: Nowakowski, P., Inscribing the saints in Late Antique Anatolia, Supplements to the Journal of Juristic Papyrology 34 (Warsaw 2018) 418Google Scholar.