The Oxford University/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Survey of Medieval Castles of Anatolia (1992) Mastaura Kalesi: a Preliminary Report

Abstract

1992 was the first season of the Oxford University/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Survey of Medieval Castles of Anatolia. Over the next five years it is planned to survey and record in as much detail as practicable five Byzantine castles in the area of the Büyük and Küçük Menderes river systems in western Turkey. The five castles will eventually be published in a single monograph where they can be discussed as a group and placed in their historical and geographical context. An annual preliminary report will appear inAnatolian Studies, which we hope will serve as a forum to test ideas, raise problems, and encourage other historians and archaeologists to suggest further ways of obtaining the most from these sites.The five sites—indicated on Fig. 1—areMastaura kalesi(near Bozyurt, in Aydın ili, Nazilli ilçesi, merkez bucağı);Yılanlı kalesi(on the side of the Boz dağ near Kemer in İzmir ili, Ödemiş. ilçesi, Birgi bucağı);Çardak kalesi(near Çardak in Denizli ili, Çardak ilçesi, merkez bucağı);Yöre kalesi(near Yöre köy in Aydın ili, Kuyucak ilçesi, Pamukören bucağı); andUlubey kalesi(on the Kazancı deresi near Ulubey in Uşak ili, Ulubey ilçesi). None has received more than brief notice before; none has been planned or studied in any detail. They have been chosen to cover the whole period of Byzantine rule in the area from the seventh century to the early fourteenth, and a variety of the different types and functions of Byzantine castles. Yılanlı is possibly a late seventh-century fortress, built in the context of the Arab attempts to take Constantinople and the consequent struggle to control the western coastlands of Asia Minor. Çardak appears to have been built between the seventh and the ninth century principally to act as a look-out point in the Byzantine defensive system against Arab raids.