Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

eligious architecture 955
continued to be structures with a centralized plan. In fifth-century
Ravenna, the chapel formerly attached to Sta Croce, which is considered
the mausoleum of Galla Placidia of c. 450, is cruciform. The second of
the two imperial mausoleums adjoining Holy Apostles in Constantinople,
added to the north side by Justinian, was likewise cruciform. Theoderic’s
mausoleum at Ravenna is a two-storeyed rotunda, constructed of Istrian
limestone with a monolithic roof, 11 metres in diameter and weighing 300
tons. The decagonal building at Toulouse, known as La Daurade, may
have been built as a Visigothic royal mausoleum. Now destroyed, the
three-storey blind arcading which covered its walls had colonnettes
carved with vine scrolls and niches filled with figural mosaics on a gold
ground. 61
Tombs of a more modest type have been excavated at Istanbul. A tomb
standing to its full height just outside the Theodosian land walls in 413–15
has a vestibule and a main chamber which contained five tombs fronted by
closure slabs decorated in relief with biblical scenes and portraits of the
deceased. Earlier tombs with similar closure slabs, rather than sarcophagi,
have been excavated elsewhere in the city. Imposing ashlar stone tombs of
the fifth to the sixth century still stand in Syria: a classical tomb with raking
stone roof fronted by a pediment, with prominent dentil courses, stands at
Ruweyha, while indigenous tower-like tombs with stone pyramidal roof
and ornately carved string courses are at Kaper Pera (al-Bara). Elsewhere,
such as at Jerusalem and Scythopolis, built tombs with tessellated pavements
have been excavated. That at Jerusalem, with an Armenian inscription,
has been identified as the burial place of the mother of the
mid-sixth-century general Artabanes who served in North Africa. 62
Monastic tombs have been noted above.
iii. religious architecture
1. Churches
In function, churches were either congregational, or pilgrimage shrines, or
monastic. They were built in cities and villages, in forts and monasteries.
Chapels were added to churches, dwellings and barracks. In addition to
churches built with imperial or other official support, many were financed
privately, a form of public benefaction which came to supplant the more
traditional forms of civic responsibility borne by the curial class. At the
village of Kaper Barada, in northern Syria, various parts of a church are
inscribed with separate dedications, indicating piecemeal subscription
61 Ravenna: Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture 137–8; Constantinople: Mango,
Studies on Constantinople v.53; Toulouse: Mackie (1994).
62 Constantinople: Deckers and Sergadogˇlu (1995); Mango (1977) 307–15; Syria: Tate (1992) 67–9;
Jerusalem and Scythopolis: Mango, M. M. (1984) vii.a.10 6th; viii.a.1 567.
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