Download PDF | Paul Magdalino_ Nevra Necipoglu (Eds.) - Trade in Byzantium_ Papers from the Third International Sevgi Gönül Byzantine Studies Symposium-Koc University Press (2021).
523 Pages
PREFACE
OMER M. KOG Symposium Honorary Chairman
Since 2007 the International Sevgi Goniil Byzantine Studies Symposium is organized every three years in memory of my late aunt Sevgi Gontil (1938-2003), who supported the development of awareness about cultural heritage and the growth of Byzantine Studies in Turkey.
The Scientific Advisory Board selected “Trade in Byzantium” as the theme of the Third International Sevgi Gontil Byzantine Studies Symposium which was held on 24-27 June 2013. In the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople served not only as an administrative, military, and religious center, but also as one of trade and commerce. The city was selected as the new imperial capital due to its geographical advantages, its vast hinterland, its situation as an ideal vantage point for travel by land and sea, and its safe natural harbors, making it a perfect location for trade. Considering that medieval Anatolia, and especially Constantinople, was located at the center of a broad trade network and was a center of both production and consumption, trade is rightfully a continuing subject matter of Byzantine studies. In addition, since 2004, the Directorate of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums has carried out archaeological research in Uskiidar, Sirkeci, and Yenikapi, as part of the Marmaray and Metro projects. The excavations have revealed spectacular artifacts and new knowledge on Byzantine trade, ship-building technology, and ships and their cargo. In light of harbor excavation results and information accumulated from other ongoing research, it was the right time to reevaluate trade in Byzantium. New findings and knowledge arising from the Yenikap1 excavations, in particular, gave reason to revisit issues of trade in Byzantium again.
As with the first symposium held in 2007, the Istanbul Archaeological Museums once again supported the third symposium with an exhibition. The exhibition “Stories from the Hidden Harbor: Shipwrecks of Yenikapi” opened in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums on 24 June 2013. It was a great honor and joy to facilitate the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue carrying the same title. We hope that the exhibition and its catalogue shed more light on the history of Istanbul as a major trade center. The proceedings of the Third International Sevgi Gontil Byzantine Studies Symposium, too, contributes significantly to revealing original new research on aspects of trade in Byzantium.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Vehbi Koc Foundation; to Koc University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, for all the material and moral support it contributed towards establishing the symposium; to the Scientific Advisory Board and the Executive Board members of the symposium, for their devoted work; and, last but not least, to both the symposium participants, who made the “Papers from the Third International Sevgi Gontil Byzantine Studies Symposium” a reality, and to the editors of this volume, Paul Magdalino and Nevra Necipoglu, for their meticulous work in bringing this volume to publication.
EDITORS’ FOREWORD
PAUL MAGDALINO and NEVRA NECiPOGLU
The articles collected in this volume derive from papers presented at the Third International Sevgi Gontil Byzantine Studies Symposium on “Trade in Byzantium,” held in Istanbul on 24-27 June 2013. The symposium was made possible with the generous financial and moral support of the Vehbi Koc Foundation, and the editors would like to thank especially Omer M. Koc, who has been the principal driving force behind the establishment of this symposium series organized every three years since 2007. Unlike the first two symposia, which were held at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, the Third International Sevgi Goniil Byzantine Studies Symposium took place at Koc University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED). We are grateful to the then director of ANAMED, Scott Redford, and to its entire staff, particularly Buket Coskuner, for their help and support in the organization of the symposium. We also would like to extend our thanks to the Scientific Advisory Board for having entrusted us with editing the symposium proceedings.
Presented in this volume are twenty-eight of the thirty-three papers delivered at the symposium. We wish to thank all the speakers who revised their papers for this publication, as well as those who decided not to publish their contributions to the symposium in the present volume. Among the latter, Harun Ozdas submitted only his joint paper with Lale Doger, while withholding from publication his general survey of the Byzantine shipwrecks discovered on the Aegean coast of Turkey. The other contributions missing from this volume are those by Rahmi Asal, who presented the new discoveries from the Marmaray excavations at Sirkeci, on the site of the Prosphorion Harbor; Koray Durak and Dionysios Stathakopoulos, who each offered the results of their ongoing research on drugs as commodities in the trade of the eastern Mediterranean; and Chris Entwistle, who analyzed Byzantine weights in terms of their typology and geographical distribution, based on the extensive collections in the British Museum. Given its largely interactive nature, it has also not been possible to include in the present volume the Closing Panel, in which the participants—Nevra Necipoglu, John Haldon, and Michael McCormick—evaluated the symposium and commented on future prospects for the study of trade in Byzantium.
In preparing the papers for publication, we received invaluable assistance from Ivana Jevti¢, which we acknowledge with gratitude. Thanks are also due to Buket Coskuner, Cicek Oztek, Alican Kutlay, and M. Kemal Baran for their help with the copyediting. Finally, we are grateful to Burak Susut of FIKA, who prepared the design and layout of the book, and to ANAMED Publications for agreeing to publish it .
McCormick—evaluated the symposium and commented on future prospects for the study of trade in Byzantium.
In preparing the papers for publication, we received invaluable assistance from Ivana Jevti¢, which we acknowledge with gratitude. Thanks are also due to Buket Coskuner, Cicek Oztek, Alican Kutlay, and M. Kemal Baran for their help with the copyediting. Finally, we are grateful to Burak Susut of FIKA, who prepared the design and layout of the book, and to ANAMED Publications for agreeing to publish it.
OPENING SPEECH
ZEYNEP MERCANGOZ
Distinguished participants and guests,
It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the Third International Sevgi Gontl Byzantine Studies Symposium. Taking place at three year intervals since 2007, the Sevgi Gontil symposia have become the major meeting point in Turkey for Byzantine scholars from around the world.
Considering the cultural heritage of the Eastern Roman Empire—or, to use its conventional name, the Byzantine Empire—in Turkey, the number of congresses and symposia held in this country that are dedicated to Byzantine studies is extremely low. The first and only “International Congress of Byzantine Studies” that took place in Turkey was the Xth Congress held in Istanbul on 15-21 September 1955. Apart from that, a limited number of studies focusing on the Christian Middle Ages in Anatolia are presented in Turkey at the Symposium of Excavation and Survey Results, organized annually by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism since 1978, and at some history conferences. In this respect, the international workshop held at Bogazici University in1999, entitled “Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life,” will be remembered as a landmark event among the rare Byzantine meetings in Turkey with its original papers.’ This meeting was notable for bringing together in Istanbul world’s leading Byzantine scholars, including Cyril Mango, the late Nicolas Oikonomides, the late Angeliki Laiou, and many others, with Turkish Byzantinists. Another meeting to remember was the “Byzantine Small Finds in Archaeological Contexts” workshop on 2-4 June 2008, realized by the collaboration of the German Archaeological Institute in Istanbul, Ko¢ University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, and the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.’ At this meeting, for the first time in Turkey, international presentations of new data coming directly from Byzantine excavations were made.
Initiated by the Vehbi Koc Foundation, and presently organized with the collaboration of the foundation and the Koc University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, the International Sevgi Gontl Byzantine Studies Symposium has and will continue to have a special place amongst all these national and international meetings on Byzantine studies.
Held on 25-28 June 2007 and devoted to the theme of “Change in the Byzantine World in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” the First International Sevgi Gonil Byzantine Studies Symposium, with a total of ninety-two papers, nearly half of which were presented by Turkish scholars, was the first major meeting on Byzantine studies in Turkey where many young Byzantinists shared the same scientific platform with the masters of the field. As my teacher and mentor Yildiz Otiiken frequently noted, a great wish of the late Sevgi Gontil was realized at this well-attended Symposium, where so many young historians, art historians, and archaeologists presented the results of their research with enthusiasm, and a multitude of excavations, surveys, and historical enquiries with original findings were discussed.’
The Second International Sevgi Gontil Byzantine Studies Symposium, held on 21-23 June 2010, was devoted to the theme of “The Byzantine Court: Source of Power and Culture.” Among the forty papers delivered at this symposium, all containing original material, of particular significance was one that presented new archaeological data from the excavations conducted at the Great Palace (Palatium Magnum) in Istanbul.5
I should indeed point out that, in determining the theme of the third symposium, the Marmaray and Metro excavations carried out in Istanbul by the Archaeological Museum served as a source of inspiration for our Scientific Advisory Board, just as the Great Palace excavations had been influential in the choice of the second symposium’s topic. Chaired by Omer Kog, the Scientific Advisory Board, consisting of Professors Y. Otiiken, E. Parman, A. Odekan, M. Delilbasi, Z. Mercang6z, N. Necipoglu, E. Akyiirek, S. Dogan, S. Redford, K. Durak, Dr. V. Bulgurlu, and Dr. B. Pitarakis, determined the subject of the present symposium to be “Trade in Byzantium,” with reference particularly to the recent harbor excavations at Yenikapi in Istanbul. Although the subject of trade in the Byzantine world was treated in detail at two former symposia held at Oxford in 2004 and at Dumbarton Oaks in 2008, our board decided to put the subject on the agenda once more, under the light of the new archaeological discoveries in Istanbul as well as in other parts of Turkey.
Within the rich program of the Third International Sevgi Goniil Byzantine Studies Symposium, which includes thirty-four papers, the first day will be devoted mainly to Constantinople, the starting point, final destination, and transit route to the other trade centers along the commercial networks of the Byzantine era. In this framework, the multi-ethnic structure of Constantinople, its marketplaces, marketed goods, and harbors will be discussed at length in the light primarily of available archaeological data, but also taking into consideration written sources. During the second day, the focus will shift to other regions of the Byzantine Empire, with papers discussing the land and sea transport routes and harbors of medieval Anatolia, evidence from maritime maps, and especially the latest finds from the excavations in Lycian port cities and research on shipwrecks along the Aegean and Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor.
The program of the second day also includes several papers that will make use of textual evidence to shed light on different aspects of trade in Byzantium as well as in the successor states of Nicaea and Trebizond. During the third and final day, most of the sessions will be devoted to trade in particular goods, including salt, timber, medicinal items, wine, and slaves. The presence of four papers on ceramics among these sessions is indicative of the importance of this subject. Indeed, as A. P. Kazhdan and A. Wharton-Epstein pointed out, being “a less grand but perhaps more reliable economic indicator than monumental art,’® ceramic ware was a subject of scrutiny at the Oxford and Dumbarton Oaks symposia, where the commercial journey of ceramics was presented through the use of archaeometric data. In the present symposium, Byzantine ceramics as commercial commodities will be investigated in one paper in a comparative framework, in another based on finds from a recently discovered shipwreck, and in a third one dealing with the distribution of ceramic goods and their interpretation.
A nice tradition established by the Sevgi Gontil symposia is the organization of exhibitions simultaneously with each symposium, in order to provide visual enrichment to the chosen theme, and the publication of accompanying exhibition catalogues alongside the proceedings of the previous symposium. Thus, in conjunction with the First Sevgi G6niil Symposium in 2007, two exhibitions were organized, in the first of which more than two hundred twelfth- and thirteenth-century Byzantine works of art from the museums in Turkey were displayed at the Yildiz Hall of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, restored by the Vehbi Koc Foundation on the occasion of this symposium. Ranging from large stone artifacts to small but priceless finds, these objects—most of them previously unpublished—were moved with great care by the Vehbi Kog Foundation from the warehouses of Anatolian museums, to meet the audiences in Istanbul. The exhibition was turned into a lasting document in the catalogue edited by A. Odekan and entitled “The Remnants”. The other exhibition of the first symposium was prepared with the finds from the Marmaray, Metro, and Sultanahmet excavations carried out by the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.’ In this exhibition curated by Z. Kiziltan, interesting artifacts brought to light in four different regions of Istanbul (Uskiidar, Sirkeci, Yenikap1, and Sultanahmet) were presented to the visitors. The Second Sevgi Gontil Symposium, on the other hand, was accompanied by an exhibition entitled “Byzantine Palaces in Istanbul,” which presented material from most recent excavations, as well as finds from past excavations kept in the collections of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.’°
The Third International Sevgi Goniil Byzantine Studies Symposium that is being launched today has three separate exhibitions, two of which run parallel to the topic of trade in Byzantium, while the third one is made up of old photographs of Byzantine buildings in Istanbul. Located on the grounds of the Kog University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, where we are presently gathered, the first exhibition bears witness to the trade in ceramics through photographs of the finds unearthed during excavations at Kadikalesi/Anaia, near Kusadasi, which was one of the commercial ceramic production centers of the Byzantine era.!° The second exhibition is a unique presentation, at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, of the spectacular finds from the excavations at Yenikapi, featuring four shipwrecks that were found together with their cargo." And the final exhibition, in the gallery of the Ko¢ University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, presents nearly one hundred black-and-white photographs of “Byzantine Istanbul” taken by the amateur photographer Nicholas V. Artamonoff during 1930-1947. Curated by Dr. G. Varinlioglu, the photographs in this exhibition were provided by the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Robert College Archives in Istanbul.”
As such, the publications that have resulted so far from the Sevgi Gontil symposia, altogether eight volumes counting the symposium proceedings and exhibition catalogues, have taken their rightful place on the shelves of libraries as significant contributions to Byzantine studies.
In ending, I would like to thank, first and foremost, Omer M. Koc and the Koc family for providing this scientific environment where knowledge and visual material related to Byzantium are shared, Erdal Yildirim and Melih Fereli from the Vehbi Koc Foundation, Buket Coskuner from the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, and all those who worked hard to make this symposium possible.
I wish a successful symposium to the speakers and to all the participants.
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