Sardes: View from the church looking E. showing the plain
| Department | Archive |
|---|---|
| Collection | BSA SPHS Image Collection |
| Reference No. | BSA SPHS 01/1246.3162 |
| Level | Item |
| Description | Glass negative, full plate size, a copy negative. |
| Dimensions | 21.5 x 16 cm |
| Place |
Sardis |
| Dates | 1873 |
| Donor/Creator |
Trotman, Corporal J. Trotman, Mrs |
| Scope and Content | Part of a collection of images photographed by Corporal Trotman around the area of Ephesus and the Seven Cities of Asia Minor, taken between 1871-1873. The original description in the SPHS register reads: "Sardis: from the Church Looking E. showing plain". |
| Notes | Date based on Corporal Trotman's time at Ephesus based on entries in the 1877 book, Discoveries at Ephesus by J.T. Wood. Trotman was with Wood for three seasons from 1872 until early 1874. Wood indicates that Trotman used the summer of 1873 to travel to the 'seven cities' of Asia Minor to photograph. The images were made available to the Hellenic Society (by Mrs Trotman according to the negative register) in 1892 (JHS 13: xxxvii). The record BRF/02/02/03/013 from the Byzantine Research Fund, preceeding the related record for this image (BRF/02/02/03/014), is a Trotman image of the same Sardis church, and is marked as SPHS 3161, a Trotman negative missing from this collection. |
| Further information | The ancient kingdom of Lydia is located in western Anatolia. According to Herodotus King Gyges founded a dynasty in the late 8th to the 7th c. B.C. which introduced the use of gold and silver coinage. Sardis was the capital city and the main source of Lydian cultural remains to the present. In 546 it became a satrapy, and later, after the death of Alexander the Great, it was ruled by the Seleucids. In 133 it became a Roman province and under the Byzantine emperor Herakleios (610-641) was part of the Anatolikon thema (province), later of the Thrakision and, finally, of the Byzantine empire of Nicaea. The so called 'Church D' was probably the cathedral of Sardis. This large domed basilica located on the northern side of the highway of the city not far from the Agora appears to be dated to the Justinian period. |
| Related records |
[BRF/02/02/03/014], Sardis Church D (the Cathedral), 1873
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