ANOMALÍAS DE LA INTELIGENCIA

Ivison’s thesis revolves around the construction of a ‘capital model’. The capital model is based on the statement that the archaeological and textual record from Constantinople “offers the only account of how a Byzantine population centre buried its dead” (Ivison 1993:25). Ivison argues that the requirements for burial for those in the capital cannot have been so very different from

cemeteries in the peripheral zones, defining them as; “the allocation of land for burial, ensuring the burial of the dead in the interests of public health and mores, the role of the church in the

performance of burial and the perceived needs of the soul thereafter” (Ivison 1993:26). Although Ivison does not project the nature of Constantinopolitan burial wholesale across the entire Empire, he begins his analysis from a position which ascribes the same values surrounding burial to

inhabitants of Constantinople and urban centres within the wider Empire. This produces a

framework which allows Ivison to consider the centre and periphery of the Empire as discrete units (ibid.). This model produces a valid means of comparison for Constantinople and other urban centres, but excludes non-urban field cemeteries, such as some of those included in this thesis at Ilipinar, Barcιn and Çatalhöyük.

Ivison uses the textual sources which relate to burial in Constantinople to split burial places into nine categories;

“1. Imperial and aristocratic burial churches, 2. Monastic cemeteries and burial places, 3. Common Cemeteries, often termed πολυάνδρια, which were for the use of the whole population, and particularly the urban poor, and 4. Emergency burial places in times of disaster, such as war or plague… 5. Places for the disposal of suicides and criminals. 6. Latin (Frankish) burial churches. 7. Jewish cemeteries, and possibly 8. Armenian and 9. Moslem cemeteries.” (Ivison 1993:27).

These categories focus on the practicalities of burial in an urban, and relatively cosmopolitan environment. In the previous section of this chapter (2.1), I argued that discussions of Medieval Byzantine ideology based on textual material, privilege understandings of Constantinople and the Constantinopolitan diaspora. There are obvious connections between practice in Constantinople and in the rest of the Empire, which makes comparison between the capital and periphery a useful analytical tool, however if we start from a situation where isolated regional examples are analysed primarily in opposition to Constantinople, rather than potentially in relation to one another, it becomes difficult to assess regionalisation.

This discussion of categories and regionalisation returns to the issues of ethnicity and practice discussed in the last section of this chapter (e.g. Jones 1997). Although Constantinople was undoubtedly the centre of literary and political life, the existence of a powerful central place does not translate to non-Constantinopolitan sites being a cohesive unit. In applying the capital model to

mortuary practices Ivison drew on a standard approach to Byzantine archaeology comparing

periphery to centre. This tradition is notably present in discussions of church architecture. Within my analysis I will take a different approach, grouping the sites not only by location but also by their character (e.g. the presence or absence of a church and morphological features of the graves). Section 3.1 aims to summarize the archaeological evidence on which this thesis is based examining the sites individually, and comparing them laterally against a typology of sites and chronological position which was created without first separating the sites into categories of Constantinopolitan and non-Constantinopolitan cemeteries.

The most common forms of graves throughout the period studied by Ivison were pit graves and cist graves; both forms of burial remained largely the same throughout the period (Ivison 1993:278). Ivison finds these to have been similarly common in the Late Antique period, and both forms continued to be used in Islamic burial. Arcosolia were common in mainland Anatolia prior to 1074, but only became common in Constantinople from the twelfth century onwards. Ivison suggests that this indicates a reversal of the standard pattern of influence, which is usually Constantinople to periphery, as the rural elites were displaced by the Seljuk invasion, and began to influence burial styles within the capital (Ivison 1993:137). This is an example of a situation where the polarisation of Constantinopolitan data and the evidence from peripheral zones of the Empire has highlighted a pattern which would not necessarily have been as visible in a study which compared regional sites laterally. In this case, Ivison’s capital model enabled him to persuasively argue the inverse

hypothesis of the generally accepted model in Byzantine studies which is that the centre influenced the periphery.

Within the capital model Ivison uses the spatial organisation of graves from within Constantinople and other urban centres, such as Antioch, to argue for urban graveyards throughout the Empire which were rigidly maintained and centrally planned, radiating out from the church (Ivison 1993:60). Ivison’s discussion of the shift from universally extramural burial in the Late Roman period to the largely exclusive burial of individuals in or near churches by the Medieval Byzantine period is based on the Corpus Juris Civilis and its antecedents and the redaction of the ancient laws by Leo VI (886- 912) (Corpus Juris Civilis Digest XLVII, 12, Leo VI Novels ed. Noailles and Dain 1944: 202-205 cited in Ivison 1993:26). Ivison reads this change as a natural progression. The extramural basilicas erected over the graves of the martyrs were attractive for burial ad sanctus, since their relics sanctified their locale, and so blessed and protected the deceased… when relics moved into cities it was natural that burial should follow” (Ivison 1993:26). I agree with Ivison’s reading of the importance of the

relationship between the bodies of saints and the bodies of the less exceptional dead is developed in section 4.2 on the practice of reopening graves for multiple burial.

In a discussion of extramural burial and the nature of burial outside Constantinople Ivison states that “in a rural context the size of the cemetery would be constrained by the desire to avoid wasting valuable agricultural land on the dead” (Ivison 1993:25). This functional argument is drawn from a contemporary common-sense understanding of Byzantine values rather than archaeological evidence as Ivison’s core data set is from urban contexts. Within my analysis of rural cemeteries in section 3.1 of this thesis it became clear that individual burial was more common in rural cemeteries than urban ones, this may be taken to suggest that while space was at a premium in urban contexts it was more readily available in rural ones.

Ivison’s wider interpretation of intra- or extramural burial highlights the fact that Constantinople is unique in that as the city grew, large cemeteries were located between the Constantinian and Theodosian walls, Cyril Mango has argued that this space was in any case not originally or

conceptually intramural (Ivison 1993:56, Mango 1980:76). If we stick to Mango’s conception of the space it seems that in neither my own, nor Ivison’s dataset, were intramural cemeteries deliberately created, but that the prohibition against the burial of the dead inside the city walls was not so strong as to require the prohibition of the existence of 12th _{century burials at Kalenderhane and St.}

Polyeuktos at Saraçhane. This dovetails neatly with Ivison’s conclusion that prohibitions on intramural burial and burial within churches reduced as we move into the Medieval Byzantine period.

Closely entwined with this discussion of extra- and intramural burial is the issue of burial within churches. Ivison argues that formal cemeteries are always associated with churches “to protect the dead in hallowed ground, and to provide a setting for [memorial services]” (Ivison 1993:56). This is not the case at Ilipinar, Barcιn or Çatalhöyük, unless the church buildings are present but have not been excavated, it is possible that the church buildings were located off the mounds.

A number of the elements of Ivison’s capital model are supported by the by the data set examined by this thesis, particularly the ubiquity of extramural burial in the Medieval Byzantine period,

however the model does not seem to be universally applicable. At Barcιn and Ilipinar, the graves are regularly spaced and rarely intercut, conforming to Ivison’s model, however they are not associated with a church. Additionally, at Çatalhöyük, the graves intercut and are not rigidly aligned, suggesting the absence of a formal plan and once again are not arranged around a church. Ivison’s conclusions

on the structure of urban cemeteries facilitate a discussion of hierarchy, which is summarized and critiqued below.

Hierarchy and social status

As previously stated, the central goal of Ivison’s thesis was to discuss social hierarchy and status (Ivison 1993:1). Ivison uses the three terms of hierarchy, rank and status largely interchangeably. When discussing this aspect of his thesis, I have distinguished between hierarchy and status. Hierarchy and rank are largely synonymous concepts, which endow a restricted, socially-proscribed set of individuals with social capital and power to a greater extent than others, while status is more fluid, conveying a wider range of possible meanings. A transformation of status might be from living to dead, or from catechumen to initiate, while rank or hierarchy implies promotion or demotion along a scale of power.

A primary conclusion of Ivison’s thesis is that the hierarchical structure represented in mortuary practices was bi-zonal. Rather than a single vertical ladder, political and ecclesiastical power were relatively separate, interacting, but without much direct influence on each other. This argument rests on a discussion of spatial hierarchy within churches which Ivison considers to have been fully developed by the twelfth century. The individuals who were elite enough to be interred within churches included both high ranking clergy and (separately) the political elite (Ivison 1993:70). Ivison emphasises the contribution of the textual record in recognising that differentiation and hierarchy were acknowledged verbally in funerals rather than necessarily through acts which created an archaeological record (Ivison 1993:284). Within my masters’ thesis, I similarly argued that Byzantine society had two essentially parallel streams of hierarchy, political and ecclesiastical power (Moore 2009). In addition, I found that there was no archaeologically discernible distinction between monastic and ‘secular’ cemeteries although the textual record may be interpreted to suggest that they were separate (Gautier (ed) 1985, Gautier (ed) 1974, Petit (ed) 1908 cited in Ivison 1993:28). The statements that monastic cemeteries were conceptually separate from secular ones (Ivison 1993:28) but archaeologically indistinguishable from them (Moore 2009) relate to Ivison’s argument that multiple burials reflect the monastic ideal of communal living (Ivison 1993:53). The lack of clear archaeological distinction between monastic and worldly4 cemeteries supports the hypothesis put forward independently by both Ivison and myself that while Medieval Byzantine society had a bi- zonal hierarchical structure, mortuary practices converged at the point of death. In terms of multiple

4 _{The term worldly, rather than secular is used here after II Corinthians 7:10, referring to the two types of grief,}

worldly as opposed to godly. The term secular is not necessarily applicable in a Byzantine context where it would have little meaning.

burial, while the practice is likely to stem from a ‘monastic ideal’ (Ivison 1993:53) it was aspired to in worldly circles as the ‘ideal life’ (Mango 1980: 218-231).

In his discussion of space and hierarchy, Ivison uses the locations of the tombs of the emperors and known members of the ecclesiastical elite to argue for a relatively strict model of hierarchical burial within churches, with burial taking place in the narthex from an early date, expanding to the naos and located as close to the bema as possible (Ivison 1993:70). Burials were ideally on the south side, possibly because the right hand side of Christ was being reserved for the saved in depictions of the resurrection. It is probable that hierarchy was established through burial in churches, and to some extent by the spatial arrangement of the burials (something I discuss further in section 4.2), however there is little hard archaeological evidence either way for the burial of elite groups in church

contexts outside of the major urban centres which form the core of Ivison’s data set.

One recently published data set which can contribute to the discussion of hierarchy comes from Elaiussa Sebaste (which is arguably within the same tradition as the church burials from the Medieval Byzantine period, despite occupation at the site probably ending in the seventh or eighth century), the population buried in the church cemetery show signs of hard physical labour and poor diet hardly commensurate with ‘elite’ status, although the entirely male profile of the narthex makes it possible that the burial population of the narthex were priests. If this is the case, the narthex at Elaiussa Sebaste is a rare example of the archaeological record preserving a trend we might expect to find from the texts, the separation of political and ecclesiastical elite.

Negotiation of hierarchical status was almost certainly one of the intentions and effects of burial in a privileged place, but this does not mean that mortuary practice was a straightforward expression of the status of the living. Mortuary practices generally act to rework the status of those participating, transforming both the living and the dead. Display of wealth and rank during mortuary practices was not necessarily more overt than at any other time, particularly in a Byzantine context where

asceticism and the monastic ideal was valued (the significance of the general lack of grave goods in Medieval Byzantine graves is discussed further in section 4.7). Although it is possible to make statements about social hierarchy through burial, this is not the only possibility. My research aims to move laterally from discussions of rank to think about experience, part of which is informed by rank and hierarchical status.

Grave furnishings and chronology

The Late Byzantine, or Palaeologian period was witness to a number of changes in mortuary practice, largely ascribed by Ivison to the influence of the crusader presence (Ivison 1993:181). The

major conclusions within Ivison’s thesis focus on the period between 1204 and 1453, at least partially because Ivison’s dataset is weighted towards the later period. A further factor is that Ivison’s thesis embraces a methodological perspective where change, and not continuity is

emphasised. With the positive evidence for change located in the period after 1204, this inevitably emphasises the later period and largely takes more of the knowledge relating to earlier practice as read. These combined factors of source availability and methodological focus have meant that there is something of a lacuna to be filled for the practices common before 1204 (many of which

continued largely unchanging into the later Medieval Byzantine period). The next section of my thesis discusses the trends which Ivison identifies as diagnostic of the Later Medieval Byzantine or Palaologian period, which in turn have allowed me to identify a number of burials within my data set as pre, or post 1204.

Crusader influence

Two trends which Ivison identifies as diagnostic of a post-twelfth century date, and attributes to Latin Catholic (crusader) influence are cephalic burial (where the cranium is surrounded by stones and propped up to face east), and bowl burials, where the individual is buried with a bowl, often of a yellow glazed ware (Ivison 1993: 282). Ivison finds all cephalic burials to be post-twelfth century, roughly aligning with the spread of bowl burials as a firmly later Byzantine trend (Ivison 1993:86-7). Ivison also concludes that the use of stones and body posture in examples of cephalic burial suggests that the body was not secured with bindings or chords (Ivison 1993:37). Examples of burials which could be described as cephalic within my data set include three at Çatalhöyük; CAT3801.1,

CAT1450.1, CAT1451.1 and one at Kilise Tepe, KT005. The carbon date for KT005 was taken from a level 1 human rib from grave 09/01, and produced the result BP998+/-26 AD994-1115 (Jackson pers. comm.). The date of this burial suggests that Ivison’s chronology is not entirely secure.However this does not discount an interpretation of crusader influence for any of the cephalic burials, only shifts the evidence for western influence earlier. It is plausible that any one of these burials may have been influenced by cruisader burial customs, particularly the burial at Kilise Tepe, which dates from the tenth to the twelfth century and is located on a major access route to the south coast along which crusaders passed semi-regularly from the early eleventh century. Unfortunately, the level of recording and publication available for Elaiussa Sebaste, Kalenderhane, Saraçhane, Tyanna

Kemmerhisar, Yumuktepe, Barcιn, Ilipinar and Amorium is such that it is not possible to tell the position of the cranium.

Further elements of deposition practice which Ivison credits to western influences are bowl burials and shoes. Ivison refers to this influence as ‘Frankish’, Crusader and Latin or Catholic, attributing the

adoption of these customs in Byzantine contexts to ‘peer group interaction’ between local Byzantine elites and groups of Latin Christians , mostly from France, traveling in Anatolia between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries (Ivison 1993:249). The presence of bowl burials at Yumuktepe (Caneva and Köroğlu 2008:154, 2009:340), supports Ivison’s hypothesis. The cemetery at Yumuktepe is dated to the eleventh and twelfth century by other items of material culture found on the site, details of which are listed in the catalogue entry for Yumuktepe in the appendix to this thesis (Caneva and Köroğlu 2007:678, Caneva and Köroğlu 2009:3420 343). Yumuktepe is in a likely position for crusader influenced burials in the eleventh and twelfth century as it is within the region disputed between the Arab caliphates and the Byzantine Empire, and was on one of the direct land routes from Europe to the Holy Land (see figures 4, 5 and 6 in section 2.1 of this thesis).Ivison traces the tradition of placing bowls within the graves to a similar practice which appears to develop contemporaneously in Western Europe, citing the position of every-day vessels in graves in Paris, Normandy, Liege and Provence as a parallel tradition (Young 1978:319-29, Young 1979:43-52, Perin 1977: 6-15, Bacs 1992 and Fixot and Vallavri 1990:28, all cited in Ivison 1993:247).

From Ivison’s dataset, the presence of shoes as an indication of crusader influence seemed highly likely, as shoes were present in crusader contexts in Syria and Palestine, and in Late Medieval Byzantine graves at both the Bema church at Corinth and the Hephaisteion at Athens (Ivison 1993:181 and Johns 1932-3, cited in Ivison 1993). The additional evidence from recent excavations at Amorium and Çatalhöyük allows the opportunity to reassess this hypothesis. The shoes in graves AMR006, AMR007, AMR008 and AMR013 at Amorium could be taken as further evidence for crusader influence, dating as they do to the tenth or eleventh century and being located in an urban centre which is likely to have had contact with Franks. Although the assemblages from urban church cemeteries seem to cite western tradition in their slightly larger quantities of dress accessories, the presence of shoes at Amorium might not indicate crusader influence specifically as much as the changing field of reference in the tenth and eleventh centuries to a tradition of mortuary practice which increasingly gazes west to other Christian traditions, rather than east to the maintained absence of grave furnishing in Islamic tradition.

The evidence for shoes at Çatalhöyük in graves CAT1603 and CAT2161 is much less likely to explicitly cite a western tradition. Grave CAT1603 is likely to be Roman in date, and the only other items of