“What Crowds Might Have Passed through Here?” Encounters with Antiquity in Nineteenth-Century Rural Ionia
You can read this post in Turkish here.
According to Evgenia K. and Komnia D., the discovery of Saint Demetrius’s sixth- century basilica in a field outside their village in the 1890s was not a matter of luck, an incidental clash of plough and marble. The two Greek women, originally from Gülbahçe, were living in the refugee settlement of Nea Ionia, Athens in 1955, when they were interviewed by an employee of the Centre of Asia Minor Studies (CAMS). As the discussion touched upon the church, they both explained that the discovery of its ancient ruins had been a holy request by the Saint himself, who visited a virtuous village woman named Sophia in her dream in 1896, and ordered her to ask her father, who owned the field, to dig up and “release” him. Evgenia’s account, which is part of a large oral history collection kept at the Centre for Asia Minor Studies in Athens, has the typical structure of an apparition story: the Saint appeared three times in the woman’s sleep, twice to no avail. Sophia’s husband, with whom she spoke initially, did not take her seriously the first time. “Are there not enough unmarried girls in the village for the Saint to reveal himself to—why would he reveal himself to you? Be quiet because I have no intention of getting ridiculed in the village.” The second time she didn’t dare tell anybody. But the third time, shaken, she pleaded with her husband to believe her, and he reluctantly went to his father-in-law’s field to dig and see if there was anything there. That’s how they found the basilica’s remains. “When he found ancient traces, columns and the rest, then he let everybody know and they came to the excavation site. […] They found a very large church—it seems that this church was no other than Saint Demetrius’s church.”[1]
Figure 1. The village of Gülbahçe, Turkey. Photograph by Süleyman Pişken, 2020. This photograph is one of several made by students for a course taught by Professor Ela Çil at IYTE University, Gülbahçe, Turkey.
The story of the connection of the basilica’s discovery with a dream is also verified by a teacher at the Smyrna Evangelical School, George Weber, who visited this village in 1900 in order to examine the findings (Figure 1). He wrote that four years earlier, the church had been discovered by a local farmer whose daughter apparently received directions from Saint Demetrius in her dream. Weber measured and studied the findings, concluding that this was a large-scale (42 m long) typical early Byzantine basilica, with an attached baptistery to its north, accommodation spaces for catechumens (people who were going to be converted to Christianity), a large atrium and a narthex (Figure 2).[2] Weber’s publication and that of Karl Michel, who followed in studying the site provide an accurate scientific assessment of the ruins as was typical in the golden age of modern archaeology (as Bahrani, Eldem and Çelik have shown, among others).[3] Yet the two refugee women’s descriptions open up an extraordinary window into how local populations perceived these antiquities, engaged with them and experienced them with their senses.
Figure 2. Plan of the Gülbahçe basilica as published by George Weber in “Basilika und Baptisterium in Gül-bagtsché (bei Vurla),” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 10, no. 2 (1901): 568-73.
In his exploration of what has been called indigenous archaeology Yannis Hamilakis has shown that the relationship of local populations with antiquities is a complex one, with various responses to the presence of ancient ruins ranging from admiration and respect to association with a religious Other (idolatry), reuse of material for present needs (fortifications), sanctification of the ruins’ magical power through conversion to churches, and incorporation of the ruins in local stories and traditions. But by the time of the basilica’s discovery, two parallel processes had been taking place simultaneously. On the one hand, Greek antiquity was becoming fully integrated into the Greek national narrative as an intrinsic element of the nation’s history and as evidence of its presence and past territorial realm. On the other hand, the fusion of ethno-religious and national identity by the rising nationalisms in the region meant that Anatolia’s Christian Orthodox populations were increasingly treated as eligible subjects for the Greek side, internal enemies for the Ottomans. Bringing these oral accounts into the above discussion, one may ask: how did local, Greek-speaking Christian Orthodox populations perceive antiquity and ancient findings at a time of transition from an imperial, religion-based context to a national one? What kind of connections did they nourish with history and locality just a couple of decades before their violent displacement to Greece, a displacement that was enforced upon them exactly on the basis of their deemed national affiliation?[4]
They excavated many antiquities, columns, one beautiful icon of Saint Demetrius, worn out; a baptismal font, in which the baptism waters flowed down to the sea; a little well—this one the Saint had mentioned in Mrs. Sophia’s dream. This well looked like a regular well, with a narrow opening made of plain stones. The ayasma [holy water] was taken with a little tin vessel, which was held and dipped in the well with a little string.
At that time, Gulbahçe had no doctor. This holy water was the medicine. My mother, when she had a headache, sent me with a little bottle to bring her holy water. No matter what [ailment] they [the villagers] had, this was their medicine.
The church’s [main] step had been dented, and people wondered, “what crowds might have passed through here?”[5]
As soon as the church was unearthed, it became a common good, integrated in village life in various ways. With the Saint’s implicit permission, the villagers took ayasma from the little well, and used it as therapeutic potion. The Saint was blessing the village not just with a church, but with sacred infrastructure, an ayasma, a holy source of water, enabling the villagers to connect with the ancient past through a bodily practice. This endowment had to be expressed and secured explicitly through the Saint’s own words—the church and the well were inseparable from the village, and this community was, by divine will, bound to this site. Here, the connection between community and territory takes a new form. Like almost all apparition stories, the dream, coupled with a material discovery, allows a community to strengthen a claim over a specific territory. The dream and the ruins come together to deepen the villagers’ bond with this soil. And, if this bond is shared with the “crowds that passed” through the church’s gate in the centuries of time, might we also sense in this oral testimony a perception of continuity?
“...the two refugee women’s descriptions open up an extraordinary window into how local populations perceived these antiquities, engaged with them, and experienced them with their senses.”
Was this desire for a special bond with this land influenced by the rising nationalisms and insecurity in the region? Or by the new educational curriculum taught in local Greek schools? Was it influenced by the long history of displacement, forced settlement, and migration to and from the Erythrae region—many of the Gülbahçe residents traced their ancestors to the Aegean islands—a displacement that unfortunately would be repeated in the following decades? As I continue to process the findings of this research and combine them with studies of other villages in the region, I will further refine and address such questions. But this is what can be understood, from the refugees’ accounts: this relation between people and land that found a sacred materiality in the ruins of the basilica was very nuanced and cannot easily fit into a single interpretation. This becomes clearer through their descriptions of other antiquities, and through the ways they controlled rights over the basilica ruins.
The villagers of Gülbahçe—as with other localities in the region—often came across ancient artefacts while working in their fields. They usually sold them to an “archaeologist” of sorts who visited the village from time to time. In the cases of such artefacts, the villagers’ interest was merely financial. Meanwhile, infrastructures dating from antiquity were part of their daily lives—such as Litzia, the Roman bath just near the village, described by Evgenia K. as “very old, that is how we found it and our parents before us” (Figure 3). Other ancient sites were also reference points in the landscape, such as Kazankaya, a prehistoric site with a rock carved on its top like a cauldron [kazan], where “water gathered from the rain and the children bathed in the summer.”[6] In such cases there is no mention of a special significance that these ruins or buildings had for the community. Not all antiquities had the same importance for the village community, but there was a special bond with the basilica.
Figure 3. Map of Gülbahçe area, prepared by the author.
At the same time, as will become evident below, rights over Saint Demetrius were restricted, monitored, and regulated, sometimes with the Saint’s intervention. The oral accounts relating to the mosaic floor of the church, which depicted peacocks drinking from a fountain among other things, are a case in point:
The church floor of Saint Demetrius was paved with colored little stones. Many were dislodged. People took them, mostly women, put them in water, and from there made their yeast, to make bread.
Once, one rich woman, from Smyrna, came with a carriage to Gülbahçe. Gülbahçe was six hours away from Smyrna. She arranged a liturgy to be performed at the church, took three-four little stones from the church floor […], and left for Smyrna. She returned to her home. She put the little stones in water, she too made yeast, as she heard the women of Gülbahçe did. She put the little stones next to the icons in her house.
After a couple of days, [at the village] they saw her carriage return from Smyrna to Saint Demetrius. As she said, Saint Demetrius appeared in her dream and told her, “take the little stones you took, back [to the church].” What could she do, she came back, arranged another liturgy, left the little stones in their place, and left.[7]
This account has fascinating implications. First, we see another instance of ritual connection to the ruins, a literal consumption of antiquity. The mosaic stones are enshrined with a sacred power that they transfer to the water, which is then used to make bread—bread that will feed the whole community, the community of Gülbahçe. Should the rich, upper-class Smyrniot Greeks have the same privilege? Should they participate in what seems to be a God-given, special connection between the villagers and the land? Also, should they have the right to own pieces of the church? Because one may wonder whether the stones were a means to sanctify the bread, or whether, most importantly, the bread was a means to bring pieces of the church into the private realm—a way to own antiquity. The Saint judged in favor of the village women: the privileged outsiders, irrespective of their national or religious affinity, could not enjoy this special ritual. They were welcome to visit and pray— the villagers built huts near the ruins for the pilgrims—but without claiming a special connection to the Saint. At the same time, by not appearing in the village women’s dreams for the same reason, the Saint implicitly gave his permission for this ritual to continue by its rightful community members.
“Like almost all apparition stories, the dream, coupled with a material discovery, allows a community to strengthen a claim over a specific territory.”
The Gülbahçe Greeks evacuated the village in 1915, and then again, one last time, in 1922. Other displaced peoples, this time Muslim refugees from the Balkans and Greece, took their place, turned the microcosm of Gülbahçe into their new home, and established new connections with the land. As the mosaic, the columns, the wooden huts are now again hidden under the soil, and those village women are long gone, the basilica has acquired again its mystical, dreamy character, perhaps waiting to be rediscovered on the shore of Gülbahçe.
A note from the author: I would like to thank Associate Professor Elif Koparal (Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts), Associate Professor, Ela Çil (Izmir Institute of Technology), and Dr. Emine Çiğdem Asrav for their valuable help in the preparation of this publication. This work is part of a post-doctoral research carried out at the Centre of Asia Minor Studies between January 2020 and January 2021 that was co-funded by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund) through the Operational Programme, “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning,” within the framework of the Action “Post-doctoral Researchers’ Support – Round II” (MIS 5033021) implemented by the State Scholarships Foundation.
Notes
[1] Evgenia K., January 1955, Oral History Archive, Centre for Asia Minor Studies, Athens, Greece (CAMS). For more on apparition, see Charles Stewart, Dreaming and Historical Consciousness in Island Greece (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
[2] For more on the archaeological findings see Kalkınoğlu and Pashaeva.
[3] Karl Michel, “Die Altchritliche Kirchenanlage von Gülbaghdsche bei Smyrna,” in Forschungen zur Kirchengeschichte und zur christlichen Kunst, ed. Walter Elliger, 180-200 (Leipzig: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1931).
[4] The period 1912-1923 was marked by continuous conflict in the Balkans and Anatolia as the Ottoman Empire was dissolving, and witnessed the displacement of millions of Christians and Muslims from all sides. The Christian Orthodox populations in the region studied here were displaced in the mid-1910s (during World War I) and then, in a final wave, in 1922 after the end of the Greco-Turkish war.
[5] Evgenia K., January 1955, CAMS Oral History Archive.
[6] Ioannis Mp., January 1959, CAMS Oral History Archive.
[7] Evgenia K., January 1955, CAMS Oral History Archive.
