Böhlendorf-Arslan, Beate

University of Marburg

Research Title: From Veneration to Commemoration: The Late Antique Pilgrim Church in Assos and its Transformation into a Middle Byzantine Cemetery Church 

Beate Böhlendorf-Arslan is a professor of Byzantine art and archaeology at Philipps-Universität Marburg in Germany. Her researches focused on daily life of the Late Roman and Byantine empire based on archaeological field work in Turkey including pottery, small finds and settlement archaeology. She is been involved in the excavations at Assos, where she conducts a project on Late Antique and Byzantine urban development. With the ANAMED fellowship she focuses on the pilgrimage church of Assos, one of the early pilgrimage sites of the Troad region with its saint’s tomb. This tomb was used for the production of secondary relics by passing liquids through a channel into the grave. With the end of the early Byzantine city within the ancient fortification walls around the beginning of the 8th century, the church was also abandoned. Sometime from the 9th century onwards, deceased children were buried in the area of the former baptistery. In the 11th and 12th century the church was extensively rebuilt. The expected publication will therefore give an important contribution to the creation of an early Christian pilgrimage site, and the transformation to a middle Byzantine cemetery church. In addition, the research provides insight into the burial traditions and commemoration. 

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