A Byzantine Settlement in Kalabaklı Valley in the Hellespontus: Kepez

Abstract

The common feature of the Byzantine coastal cities in the Hellespont is that they had a port on the shore of the strait. These ports were generally located at the mouth of the valleys formed by the streams that had reached the Hellespont. The valleys had been densely settled in the Byzantine period. One of them was the Kalabakli Valley on the Anatolian shore of the middle section of the strait. During our surveys, considerable ceramic and roof covering materials of Byzantine period were documented in Kepez at the northwestern mouth of the Kalabakli Valley. The ceramic finds indicate the middle and late Byzantine period. The hill in the southwest of the Kalabakli Tributary, which is the southern border of the Sarisiglar Bay in about 1.5 km to the southwest of Kepez, and the western and southwestern slopes of the hill are known as the locality of Dardanos. The ancient city of Dardanos is also localized in this area. Dardanos, as an episcopacy center affiliated to the metropolitanate of Kyzikos, was mentioned in all notitiae from the midst of the 5th century to the 13th century. The first evaluations of the findings indicate that the settlement of the episcopacy of Dardanos had spread on both sides of the mouth of the Kalabakli Tributary. Moreover, with the dating of the wares, it is understood that the settlement in this area had been uninterruptedly settled from the early Byzantine period to the late Byzantine period.