booklet of abstracts - Oxford University Byzantine Society

Session four4:15 | Friday 4 March 2011ChairAnnika AspExeter College‘The Land of the Beautiful Horses’:The archaeology of medievalstables in CappadociaFiliz Tütüncü-ÇağlarUniversity of Victoria, CanadaRenowned since antiquity as the legendary‘Land of the Beautiful Horses,’ Cappadociahas been an important horse-breeding centrethroughout its history. The present work isa study on horses and horse breeding in thisregion in the tenth and eleventh centuries, withspecial attention being paid to the architecturalevidence, namely, the rock‐cut stables. The timeperiod under question is marked by changeand revival in Byzantine history, in whichCappadocia played a vital role for the defenseand expansion of Byzantium in the east.The point of departure for the presentwork is a hypothesis suggested by V.G. Kalasthat the landowner families living in monumentalrock-cut mansions of Cappadociaduring the middle Byzantine period bredhorses in their large stables to supply their owntroops, as well as those of the imperial army.In order to evaluate this theory further andshed light on the history of horse breeding inByzantine Cappadocia, this paper investigatesthe stables of the elite residences within theirbroader archaeological, ethno-archaeologicaland historical context.Although there is no question about thepresence of other types of domestic livestock,as also represented in architectural evidence,the present study proposes that the stables ofthe elite mainly functioned to house horsesand, perhaps, mules, probably bred for militarypurposes. Analysing the architecture ofthe stables in the light of literary evidence,this paper aims to draw attention to the valueof horse breeding for the study of social andeconomic history of Byzantine Cappadocia.Filiz Tütüncü-Çağlar is a third-yearPhD candidate at the University of Victoria inCanada specialising in Islamic ceramics. Herresearch interests include cross-cultural interactionson the Byzantine and Islamic frontier, artand archaeology of Medieval Anatolia andNorth Syria, and underwater archaeology.Mantzikert reversed? The lastcampaign of Alexios I Komnenosin the Alexiad of Anna KomneneRoman ShlyakhtinCentral European University, BudapestThe battle of Mantzikert (1071) is a referencepoint for all historiographers of the Komnenianera. Anna Komnene is not an exception.She starts her work with a short mentioningof the military disaster. Anna places anothermentioning of Mantzikert at the very end ofthe Alexiad. According to her, in 1116 AlexiosI Komnenos (1081-1118) won a battle againstthe sultan of Ikonion, Shahanshah (1107-1116), near the city of Philomelion. After thedescription of the peace ceremony Anna narratesa story about this sultan. He became anally of Alexios Komnenos after the battle, butlater was betrayed and blinded during internecinewar the by one of his amirs.Shahanshah’s fate reminds me ofByzantine emperor Romanos IV Diogenes,who was also defeated, captured andblinded. In the battle of Mantzikert, theByzantines were defeated by the Seljuks; in14 | Between Constantines