DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45259#0017
I. Binbirkilisse.
5
And it is a site with no natural intrinsic virtues, with not even a sufficient supply
of water. The question is not so much, why the buildings have remained, but
why they were ever erected. The cisterns which are still so numerous show that
the Avant of water was feit as acutely in ancient times: they also show that it
was supplied. And if the people solved this problem satisfactorily, they certainly
would not have let the marshes round Kara Dagh lie stagnant and useless. These
swamps must have been drained and irrigated, and the whole countryside turned
at least into rieh pasture land. Neighbouring districts were famous even in Solo-
mon’s days for horses, and they are still bred within an hour of the mountain,
so it is reasonable to suppose that there was a brisk trade in horseflesh during
the early centuries of our era, when the whole country reached its highest pro-
speritv. And if the plains supported a large rural population, the use of a city
in the mountains is clear enough. In Greek and Roman times the country was
secure and people chose open sites for their cities, but in the early Byzantine
period the perpetual menace of a Persian or Muslim invasion drove men to the
hills. Byzantine fortresses towered on high rocks, miles away often from the
ancient site, which the people hurried from in time of danger. The position of
Bin-bir-kilisse, off the main roads, and surrounded by hills commanding every point
from which attacks might come, fitted it to serve as a city of refuge for dwellers
on the defenceless plains. The buildings referred to in the upper town may have
been garrisoned by military monks, like the fortress-monasteries built by Justinian
on Mount Sinai to guard Egypt from the Persians.
So far as the history of this particular site is concerned, these somewhat
general remarks contain almost all that can be said with any certainty. The
ancient name of the place has been forgotten, no inscription has been found to
restore it to the world, and the indirect evidence, which Professor Ramsay mani-
pulates with such rare skill, seems to me quite inconclusive.1 Without a name
we cannot write even a title page for a local history of the site. And, indeed,
if we accepted as certain Ramsay’s conjecture, we should not be much the wiser:
we should have a respectable name for our foundling, but nothing in the shape
of a dowry. For Barata, with which he identifies these ruins, is known only as a
place which issued coins in the Roman period, and sent bishops to several Coun-
cils between 325 and 692 A. D., and which is mentioned in sundry Byzantine
bishopric lists and also by Ptolemy, Hierokles, and the Peutinger Table. Beyond
this Professor Ramsay (Hist. Geog. p. 337) writes: «The following is the only
reference known to me in literature. A saint, named «Joannes in the Well» lived
in Kybistra. He chose the life of a hermit, and with his mother’s consent went
out at the age of thirteen to live in the wilderness. An angel met him and guided
him, and he went a journey of one day till he found a well, in which he lived
ten years. Then a certain Chrysias, ων Iv τη νλη των Βαρατέων was brought
forth by an angel into the wilderness and buried Joannes.»
We could guess as much as this from merely looking at the site. It was
1) See Appendix.
5
And it is a site with no natural intrinsic virtues, with not even a sufficient supply
of water. The question is not so much, why the buildings have remained, but
why they were ever erected. The cisterns which are still so numerous show that
the Avant of water was feit as acutely in ancient times: they also show that it
was supplied. And if the people solved this problem satisfactorily, they certainly
would not have let the marshes round Kara Dagh lie stagnant and useless. These
swamps must have been drained and irrigated, and the whole countryside turned
at least into rieh pasture land. Neighbouring districts were famous even in Solo-
mon’s days for horses, and they are still bred within an hour of the mountain,
so it is reasonable to suppose that there was a brisk trade in horseflesh during
the early centuries of our era, when the whole country reached its highest pro-
speritv. And if the plains supported a large rural population, the use of a city
in the mountains is clear enough. In Greek and Roman times the country was
secure and people chose open sites for their cities, but in the early Byzantine
period the perpetual menace of a Persian or Muslim invasion drove men to the
hills. Byzantine fortresses towered on high rocks, miles away often from the
ancient site, which the people hurried from in time of danger. The position of
Bin-bir-kilisse, off the main roads, and surrounded by hills commanding every point
from which attacks might come, fitted it to serve as a city of refuge for dwellers
on the defenceless plains. The buildings referred to in the upper town may have
been garrisoned by military monks, like the fortress-monasteries built by Justinian
on Mount Sinai to guard Egypt from the Persians.
So far as the history of this particular site is concerned, these somewhat
general remarks contain almost all that can be said with any certainty. The
ancient name of the place has been forgotten, no inscription has been found to
restore it to the world, and the indirect evidence, which Professor Ramsay mani-
pulates with such rare skill, seems to me quite inconclusive.1 Without a name
we cannot write even a title page for a local history of the site. And, indeed,
if we accepted as certain Ramsay’s conjecture, we should not be much the wiser:
we should have a respectable name for our foundling, but nothing in the shape
of a dowry. For Barata, with which he identifies these ruins, is known only as a
place which issued coins in the Roman period, and sent bishops to several Coun-
cils between 325 and 692 A. D., and which is mentioned in sundry Byzantine
bishopric lists and also by Ptolemy, Hierokles, and the Peutinger Table. Beyond
this Professor Ramsay (Hist. Geog. p. 337) writes: «The following is the only
reference known to me in literature. A saint, named «Joannes in the Well» lived
in Kybistra. He chose the life of a hermit, and with his mother’s consent went
out at the age of thirteen to live in the wilderness. An angel met him and guided
him, and he went a journey of one day till he found a well, in which he lived
ten years. Then a certain Chrysias, ων Iv τη νλη των Βαρατέων was brought
forth by an angel into the wilderness and buried Joannes.»
We could guess as much as this from merely looking at the site. It was
1) See Appendix.