Özet:

There are six ampullae at the Marmaris Museum. Two of them are finds of the Knidos excavations (Cat. No. 3.6), and the others are acquisitions of the museum (Cat. No. 1-2.4). One of the latter, though acquired to the museum, is defined as a Knidos find via the aid of its photograph published in an article (Cat. No. 5). The ampullae have flat-oval bodies, short-cylindrical necks and two string-holes on the shoulder on each side of the body. There are figured depictions on two of the ampullae (Cat. No. 5-6). Saints standing under a vault have been depicted only on one side. The rest of the ampullae bear the same depiction on both sides; two of them have a cross within a medallion (Cat. No. 2-3), on one there is a cross on an altar/base within a vault (Cat. No. 4), and the last one bears a stylized mussel form (Cat. No. 1). Ampullae produced from different materials during the Late Antique-Byzantine Period were bought by pilgrims who went to visit the Holy Land and other pilgrimage centers. Pilgrims bought these vessels for the healing and protecting power of the holy water in them and took those back to their homes. Similar examples of the ampullae at the Marmaris Museum have been unearthed extensively in the excavations carried out on the west coast of Anatolia. Therefore it is generally accepted that in the workshops of some major cities of the Late Antique-Byzantine Period, similar or exactly the same type of ampullae were serially produced. We may presume that the demand which provided means to the production came from the believers who could not visit the Holy Land or the pilgrimage centers. They could share the holiness by buying these ampullae. Under the light of similar examples, the ampullae with Cat. No. 1-2 at the Marmaris Museum can be dated to the 6th and the beginning of 7th centuries and the rest to the end of 4th-5th centuries AD.

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