x. completed project: Vize (türkçe)

Vize

Byzantine Church - Ottoman Mosque - Endangered Architectural Monument: An Architectural and Archaeological Survey of the Hagia Sophia at Vize

Location

Location of the church in the town of Vize

The modern city of Vize forms part of the administrative district of Kırklareli and is located - roughly half way between Istanbul and Edirne - on the southwestern slopes of the Yıldız Dağları, circa 30 km north of the coast of the Marmara Sea.
The former church of Hagia Sophia, constructed probably during the 8th or 9th century, is situated on the sparsely populated western slopes of the akropolis of the ancient and Byzantine city.

History

	The church

Little is known about the origins of the city of Bizye, the name under which the settlement was known in ancient and Byzantine times. Having served as the capital of an independent Thracian kingdom probably from the Hellenistic period on, Bizye became part of the Roman Empire's province of Thrace in 46 BC. Located in the hinterland of Constantinople, the city grew in importance after the re-foundation of the city in 324 due to the fact that the springs in the area around Bizye fed the system of aquaeducts that transported water to the new capital. During the Byzantine period, the city is often referred to as kastron, polisma or polichnion, which indicates that it was well fortified. During the final centuries of the Empire, Bizye shared the fate of Constantinople: Conquered by the Crusaders at the beginning of the 13th century, it was re-conquered by the Byzantines in the later 13th century before it fell into Ottoman hands in 1453.
The history of the former church of Hagia Sophia is as checkered as that of the city of Bizye: the previous church on the city, probably built during the 5th or 6th century, was torn down probably in the 8th or 9th century, when the extant church was constructed. Static problems, possibly the result of an earthquake, led to a reinforcement of the structure and its columnar supports. In the 16th century, the church was converted into a mosque and became known as Süleyman Paşa Camii until the structure's abandonment in the early 1970s.  

Objectives

	Location plan

A hybrid in appearance - the church features a basilican plan on the ground floor and barrel vaults supporting an imposing central dome on the gallery level - the church at Vize forms an important link between the basilicas of the Early Christian period and the cross-domed churches that dominate Middle Byzantine architecture from the 9th century on. A thorough examination of this typologically hybrid monument is long overdue: only such an examination can yield reliable information on the dating of the building and its construction history. Furthermore, the examination of the building's physical fabric is meant to lay the foundations for a restoration of the decaying structure. While limited restoration work has been carried out already between 1978 and 1983, one of the most urgent problems has not yet been resolved, namely the fact that ground water is intruding into the building as a result of the construction of large retaining in the early 1980s to the north, south, and east of the structure. 

History of Research

While the building has repeatedly been mentioned by travelers, archaeologists, and antiquarians since the 19th century, it has eluded serious scholarly attention until the 1960s. In 1969, Semavi Eyice published the results of a his survey of Byzantine monuments in Eastern Thrace. Based on comparisons between the Hagia Sophia and the domed basilicas at Mistras, he considered the building to be of 13th- or 14th-century date. However, In an article published during the same year, Cyril Mango argued for a construction of the church before 903, the year St. Mary the Younger was buried in the episcopal church of Vize. More recently, Yıldız Ötüken and Robert Ousterhout revisited the building. Confirming Mango's dating of the church, they contributed some important observations previously overlooked and noted the existence of a previous building on the site, which had been partly exposed during restoration work in the early 1980s.  

Previous Activities

	Plan and section at gallery level

Two survey campaigns have thus far been conducted during the summers of 2003 and 2004. These have resulted in new ground- and gallery plans as well as lateral and transverse sections of the former church. In addition, a catalogue of architectural spolia - some incorporated in the fabric of the present structure, some scattered in- and outside the building - was compiled, fragments measured, photographed, and drawn for publication. The second season of fieldwork resulted in a photographic documentation and photogrammetric evaluation of the building's exterior facades as well as in a preliminary examination of the remains of an earlier ecclesiastical structure on the site. 

Methods

The architectural survey of the church of Hagia Sophia will be continued during - and brought to conclusion - during the summer of 2005. If permission is granted, it is hoped that limited archaeological soundings will follow in order to explore the building's Early Christian predecessor (partly visible is the building's eastern apse) and to clarify its relation to the extant Byzantine church. 

Results

While firm evidence for the construction date of the Byzantine church remains elusive, a thorough architectural survey has allowed us to distinguish various building phases: an analysis of the wall surfaces allowed for a reconstruction of the original structure's doors and windows. Morover, several Byzantine phases of remodeling could be distinguished (the addition of an arcosolium tomb in the southwest corner of the south aisle, the closure of three large apse windows, the re-inforcement of four corner columns in the nave). In addition, several Ottoman building and reconstruction phases could be distinguished: the reconstruction of a partly collapsed central dome and most of the upper portions of the adjacent walls seem to indicate that a dilapidated Byzantine structure was restored in the Ottoman period to serve as the city's main mosque. 

Cooperation

The Vize project is being conducted in co-operation with The Department of Art History und Archaeology at Columbia University in the City of New York. A future co-operation with the Kırklareli Museum is currently being explored.  

Further Contact Partners

PD Dr. Franz Alto Bauer, Universität Basel Dr. Holger A. Klein, Cleveland Museum of Art

Bibliography

F. Dirimtekin, Church of St.-Sophia (Süleyman Paşa) at Vize, Ayasofya Müzesi Yıllığı 3, 1961, 18-20 u. 47-49; C. Mango, The Byzantine Church at Vize (Bizye) in Thrace and St. Mary the Younger, Zbornik Rad.Viz. Inst. 11, 1968, 9-13; S. Eyice, Trakya, Belleten 33, 1969, 325-358, hier 326-333; ders., Les monuments byzantins de la Thrace turque, CorsiRav 18, 1971, 293-308, hier 293-297; Y. Ötüken - R. Ousterhout, Notes on the Monuments of Turkish Thrace, Anatolian Studies 39, 1989, 121-149, hier 138-142; A. Kahramankaptan - Ö. Ertuğrul, Vize'den tarih fışkırıyor, Mozaik 1, September 1995, 18-33; F. A. Bauer - H. A. Klein, Die Hagia Sophia in Vize. Forschungsgeschichte - Restaurierungen - Neue Ergebnisse, Millennium 1, 2004, 407-437.