User:Artem.G/Byzantine Palace of Ephesus

The Byzantine Palace of Ephesus, also known by the Turkish name Sarhoç Hamam, in reference to its seaside part, is a large public building in the late Roman city of Ephesus. Located about 70 m southeast of the episkopeion, this vast complex has long been identified with a Byzantine bathhouse. It has a large spa area to the North (plan opposite, E), a large octagonal reception room to the South, preceded by a long room with two apses to the West.

Plan
The orientation of the baths differs from that of the rest of the construction: they are Roman baths from the 1st century, oriented in the direction of the nearby Processional Way. The interior arrangements make it possible to identify the the frigidarium, the tepidarium and the caldarium. They were preserved in Late Antiquity during the construction on the site of a much more important building, dominated by an imposing tetraconch reception hall to the south (A): it is presented as a square of 19 m side, whose the angles are occupied by semi-circular niches, which give it this interior tetraconch shape, and the sides by doors of variable dimensions. The largest is a large bay opening to the east towards a smaller room with a semi-circular apse (B). The south door leads to another small room with an apse onto which a long narrow room opens to the east, ending in the east with another, smaller apse (C): it could be a chapel, more late. The North door gives access to a long corridor which separates this part of the building from the baths. Finally, the West door is the main entrance to the room: it leads, through a small square vestibule flanked by two secondary rooms, to a large oblong room (45 m long) oriented from North to South and terminated by two apses (D), one of which to the north, is provided with niches. This would be the antechamber to the reception hall, in front of the monument.

The construction of the whole is very neat, in opus mixtum. The large central room is decorated with painted stucco on the walls and a mosaic floor, like the neighboring room with apse.

Identification and dating
The dating and identification of the complex are very uncertain: C. Foss suggests that it is the palace of the proconsul of Asia, whose construction would be placed under Diocletian, by analogy with the other tetrarchic palaces. The great tetraconch hall preceded by the antechamber with double apse recalls, in its plan and construction technique, the Octagon of the Palace of Galerius in Thessaloniki, dated between 308 and 311, thus to a lesser extent than the Roman villa of Casale in Piazza Armerina. The apse hall would then be the audience hall where the proconsul would sit.

This identification of the complex as a late antique official and administrative residence has been generally accepted, although recently the hypothesis of the thermal complex has resurfaced. The dating is also disputed: the care of the construction led to date it back to Roman times, or on the contrary to push it back to the 7th century, making the high official responsible for its construction the strategist of the Thrakesion theme rather than the proconsul from Asia.

Voir aussi

 * (de) (en) Fouilles autrichiennes d'Éphèse

Bibliographie

 * (en) S. Ladstätter et A. Pülz, Ephesus in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Period : Changes in its Urban Character from the Third to the Seventh Century AD, in A. G. Poulter (éd.), The Transition to the Late Antiquity on the Danube and beyond, Proceedings of the British Academy 141, Londres, 2007, p. 391-433.
 * (en) Peter Scherrer (éd.), Ephesus. The New Guide, Selçuk, 2000 (tr. L. Bier et G. M. Luxon) ISBN 975-807-036-3 ;