Byzantine Anatolia: beyond the capital

The frame

The site follows the Met's timeline. The chart of its page for Anatolia, 1-500 A.D., lists the "Roman empire, 27 B.C.-330 A.D." and the "Byzantine empire, 330-1453 A.D.", and the page for 500-1000 A.D. repeats "Byzantine empire, 330-1453". The site's period begins in 330 with the chart and ends in 1071, where the next period of Anatolia begins. Its geography is Anatolia without Constantinople. According to the page for 1-500, Christianity becomes the official religion of the Roman empire in the fourth century, and churches and other ecclesiastical buildings are rapidly built; the page for 500-1000 calls Anatolia "one of the most important territories of the Byzantine empire during this period" and notes that eastern Anatolia becomes increasingly militarized in the 600s due to Persian and Arab invasions. Sources 1, 2.

Boundaries and overlaps

In the source, too, the start is not a single date. The page for 1-500 A.D. dates to 324 A.D. the key event in which "the emperor Constantine moves the capital of the Roman empire to the site of Byzantium, which is now referred to as Constantinople or New Rome", and to 395 A.D. the split after the death of Theodosius, when "the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, becomes the Byzantine empire". 330 is the chart's date, between the two. At the other end, the chart continues the Byzantine empire to 1453; the end of this period at 1071 is the site's division for Anatolia, not the end of the empire. Within the period, the Met dates the Iconoclastic controversy 726-843, and the article on Göreme sets UNESCO's dates beside it. Sources 1, 2.

On this site

Two items are placed in this period. "Göreme and Cappadocia: monasticism cut into the rock" follows the sequence UNESCO gives, from the first signs of monasticism in the 4th century to the painted churches after 842, and sets two chronologies of Iconoclasm side by side. "The Basilica of Saint John at Ephesus: Justinian's six domes" reads the Met's sentence on the rebuilding of 548-565 beside UNESCO's evidence of pilgrimage to the basilica in the 5th century. The article on Aphrodisias, placed in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, also mentions the later conversion of its temple into a cathedral.