Hagia Paraskevi
After the late Byzantine settlement of Palatia was conquered by the Menteşe Beylik around the end of the thirteenth century CE, its Christian population appears to have been driven from their settlement on Kaletepe to other quarters. An orthodox quarter was probably clustered around the small chapel of Hagia Paraskevi, located a little to the west of the modern road between the museum and theater and at the level of the ancient stadium. Ottoman tax registers show that Balat still had a Christian neighborhood until at least 1517 CE.
Hagia Paraskevi was built as a southern extension of an existing, nearly perfectly square room aligned with the ancient street grid. Wall foundations in the northeastern corner of the building suggest the existence of another room that has not been preserved. The oldest walls consist of larger ashlars, which are quite different to the added walls of the chapel, made from smaller quarry stones and undressed pieces. From the northern room, an arched door, 3.2 meters wide, leads south to the chapel.
There is a small niche in the eastern part of the chapel’s northern wall. The southern wall did not have any openings. Several larger, repurposed architectural fragments (spolia) have been used to build this wall, but while the chapel was in use, they were concealed underneath the plaster. The oldest walls consist of larger abricksshlars, which are quite different to the added walls of the chapel, made from smaller, irregular quarry stones and undressed pieces. In many places, structural elements were surrounded by bands of broken bricks (so called cloisonné masonry).
The apsis in the eastern wall is relatively flat and has a small, slot-like window at its center, with 2 upright marble blocks forming its sides. The entrance used to be located opposite the apsis, in the western wall. It has been destroyed. Much later, when the chapel was used as a barn, it had already been extended to grant access to the building despite the elevated ground level.
The masonry of the northern room indicates that it was built no earlier than the early Byzantine period. The chapel itself was built in this room when the ground was already at a slightly higher level, probably in the fourteenth century CE. Indeed, a later manuscript alludes to a certain Symeon of Miletus’ consecrating an altar to Saint Paraskevi of Rome on 17 April 1356. Whether the document actually refers to this particular chapel, whose name has only been transmitted orally, is unclear. In the nineteenth century CE, the chapel came to be used as a barn.
Text: Lisa Steinmann
References
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D. Göçmen – Ph. Niewöhner – B. Raubo, Hagia Paraskevi, in: Ph. Niewöhner, Neue spät- und nachantike Monumente von Milet und der mittelbyzantinische Zerfall des anatolischen Städtewesens, AA 2013/2, 2014, 215–224.