Abstract:

Christian saints played an important role in the Early Byzantine period. Their cults absorbed and thereby neutralized pre-Christian magical practices. Saints’ burials, the places where they had lived, and their relics, which were usually incorporated into church buildings, served, like icons, as a focus for the appeals of citizens and peasants for help in dealing with the trials of everyday life. Communities expected protection, prestige, and economic advantages from them. To explore the topography of saints in Cilicia therefore contributes to understanding a major aspect of Early Byzantine society. Although literary and epigraphical sources document a number of saints venerated in Cilicia, very few can actually be associated by name with existing church architecture. From the late fourth/fifth century onwards, almost every church altar contained saints’ relics, but for most of the more than 200 recorded Cilician churches, the saints remain nameless. A distribution map of all those who can be located reliably provides a far from complete picture. Nonetheless some tentative conclusions can be drawn about their range, distribution and importance. Literary sources offer little information about cult and cultic practices in Cilicia that were associated with saints, except for St. Thecla. But in some cases, the graves of saints or the location of major relics, apart from relics in altars, can be identified solely on the basis of archaeological observations. Although the saints remain anonymous, analysis of these monuments furnishes information about how saints’ graves and relics were isolated, embellished, and integrated into churches and how they were incorporated into cultic practices. Case studies of saints’ graves in Diokaisareia, Sebaste, and Korykos show how the archaeological evidence thus compliments written sources.

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