Turkey has always served as a bridgehead between the continents of Europe and Asia and there are four main ways of crossing it (Fig. 1). The southerly route ran up one or other of the west coast valleys onto the Anatolian plateau, and crossed by the great lakes of Eǧridir and Be…
The Byzantine antiquities of the Pontus have received little more than a passing glance from either travellers or archaeologists. With the exception of the town of Trebizond, the monuments of which have now been subject to study in some detail, and the monastery of Sumela which …
The churches of Ispir and Bayburt, standing in dominant positions in the castles which command these towns, inevitably prompt the question “Who built them?” A final answer cannot be given until the two sites are excavated or documentary sources are discovered, but the circumstan…