Dorylaeum
Dorylaeum is located in Turkey
Dorylaeum
Shown within Turkey
Dorylaeum is located in Near East
Dorylaeum
Dorylaeum (Near East)
LocationDorylaeum, Eskişehir Province, Turkey
Coordinates39°47′0″N 30°31′0″E / 39.78333°N 30.51667°E / 39.78333; 30.51667
Stele dedicated to Zeus Chryseos, 3rd century AD, Dorylaeum

Dorylaeum or Dorylaion (Greek: Δορύλαιον; Turkish: Şarhöyük) was an ancient city in Anatolia. It is now an archaeological site located near the city of Eskişehir, Turkey.[1]

Its original location was about 10 km southwest of Eskişehir, at a place now known as Karaca Hisar; about the end of the fourth century B.C. it was moved to a location north of modern Eskişehir.[2]

History

Early Bronze Age

Şarhöyük (aka Dorylaion) has been excavated since 1989. It has revealed a series of archaeological cultural deposits, the earliest dated to the 3rd millennium BC.

The city flourished during the early Bronze Age. Around 2500 BC, a particularly distinctive culture group is discernible in north-western Anatolia, the 'Demircihüyük Culture'. Dorylaeum-Sharhöyük was at the center of these cultural developments.[3]

Late Bronze Age (ŞH V) layer of the city is one of the best represented cultural phases on the mound. A new Luwian hieroglyphic seal has been discovered there in 2018. This material represents the Hittite Imperial Period.[4]

Later, the city was also important under the Phrygians.

Classical and Medieval periods

Much later, Dorylaeum was a Roman trading post. It also was probably a key city of the route the Apostle Paul took on his Second Missionary Voyage in 50 AD. It became a bishopric when part of the Late Roman province of Phrygia Salutaris.

In the third century AD, it was threatened by Gothic raids. The Roman army that was based in Asia minor was spread thin, and the navy had moved west from the Northern city of Sinope, therefore the provincials were left exposed. These Goths came from the trans-danubian region on the black sea. When the city was under threat, the people used dedicatory statues to build their wall quicker, indicating their rush to protect themselves against the invaders. After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 it was taken by the Seljuk Turks.

Dorylaeum was the site of two battles during the crusades. In 1097, during the First Crusade, the crusaders defeated the Seljuks there, in their first major victory.[5] During the Second Crusade it was the site of a major crusader defeat, which effectively ended the German contribution to the crusade.

Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus fortified Dorylaeum in 1175.The contemporary Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates relates that Manuel did not destroy the fortifications of Dorylaeum, as he had agreed to do as part of the treaty he negotiated with the Seljuk Turkish sultan Kilij Arslan II immediately after the Battle of Myriokephalon. The sultan's response to this development was not a direct attack on Dorylaeum but the dispatch of a large army to ravage the rich Meander valley to the south.[6]

Dorylaeum was described by the Muslim author al-Harawi (died 1215) as a place of medicinal hot springs on the frontier at the end of Christian territory.[7]

Ecclesiastical history

Dorylaeum became a bishopric under the Byzantine Empire and was a suffragan the Metropolitan of Synnada in Phrygia.

Seven bishops are known from the fourth to the ninth century, the most famous being Eusebius. The see is mentioned as late as the twelfth century among the suffragans of Synnada, but must have been suppressed soon after.

Titular see

Dorylaeum is included in the Catholic Church's list of titular sees.[8] The diocese was nominally restored as a Latin Catholic titular bishopric in 1715 as Dorylaeum, which is spelled Dorylaëum since 1925.

It is vacant since decades, having had had the following incumbents, all of the lowest (episcopal) rank :

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Eskişehir Kültür Envanteri". Archived from the original on 2020-07-30. Retrieved 2018-05-04.
  2. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia
  3. ^ Manfred Korfmann 2001, TROIA and the Beginnings of Relations between East and West. (PDF) Phasis. Greek and Roman Studies 4:82‐101. Tbilisi, Georgia.
  4. ^ Mahmut Bilge Baştürk, Meltem Doğan-Alparslan 2018, A New Hieroglyphic Seal from Şarhöyük.
  5. ^ "Dorylaeum". Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2007-02-17.
  6. ^ Treadgold, p. 649.
  7. ^ Lindner, p. 62
  8. ^ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013, ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 883

References

Sources and external links

Ancient settlements in Turkey
Authority control databases: National
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