.lOL.1 PART 1 1974 VOL. I FASC.

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HvzllJltiJf4 ET~DES

STUDIES WZtlHtlHCS

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 Notes on a Visit to Mahras Monastery in Isauria1

About 300 m. above the main road between Karaman and Mut in the Turkish province
of Mersin, the monastery of Alahan is a well-known landmark. With a true elevation of
about 1,200 m. above sea level, on a rocky ledge in the Taurus range, Alahan was
assuredly the most important ecclesiastical foundation in Isauria, even at a time when
that rugged province was specially noted for its architects and masons.2
From Alahan monastery the southern landscape beyond the Ermenek Su, a tributary
of the Goksu, (ancient Calycadnus), is dominated by a prominent mountain known today
as Mahras Dag. By coincidence, Mahras is about the same height as the site of Alahan, and
its long, hog's back summit has always been something of a challenge to members of
successive expeditions whose work it was to excavate Alahan. It is no more than fifteen
Km. away, but a hard climb from the very steep southern and eC\.sternapproaches. It can
be reached comparatively easily only from the north, and thence by means of a diversion
westwards before embarking on the southern slope.
In July, 1957, a small party, lured on by tales of a monastery almost at the summit of
Mahras, c;et out from Mut. Dr. Michael Ballance, his brother David, my wife and I decided
to see for ourselves, and the notes which follow are the only record, to my knowledge, of
a short but successful mission. It is to be hoped that the work, begun sixteen years ago~
may be followed if not by myself, then by some other Byzantinist to whom Isauna
represents an architectural El Dorado. 3

t Professor Gough, Senior Fellow and Professor of Christian Archaeology at the Pontifical Insti-
tute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, died unexpectedly on 25th October 1973. His scholarly contribu-
tions will long be remembered by Byzantinists.
1. This brief article is intended rather as a salute to a new and much-needed journal than as an
important contribution to Byzantine scholarship. Asia Minor is still unfortunately a terra incognita to
far too many, and the traveller to Turkey, (as Evvliya <;elebi, himself a Turk, knew well three centuries
ago), will find himself ricWy rewarded in human terms as well as in the remains of past cultures and
civilizations.
2. For the monastery at Alahan, see A. C. Headlam, "Ecclesiastical Sites in Isauria (Cilicia
Trachea)", Supplementary Papers No.1 of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies (1893),
pp. 9-19; P. Verzone, Alahan Monastir (Turin, 1956); G. Forsyth, "Architectural Notes on a Trip
through Cilieia", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XI (1957),228-233; N. Thierry, "Le monastere de Koca
Kalesi", Cahiers archeologiques, IX (1958), 89-98; M. Gough, "Some Recent Finds at Alahan,"
Anatolian Studies, V (1955), 115-123; idem, "The Church of the Evangelists at Alahan," ibid., XII
(1962), 173-183; idem, "Excavations at Alahan-Second Preliminary Report," ibid., XIII (1963),
106-115; idem, "Excavations at Alahan-Third Preliminary Report," ibid., XIV (1964), 185-190;
idem, "Excavations at Alahan-Fourth Preliminary Report," ibid., XVII (1967), 37-47; idem,
"Excavations at Alahan-Fifth Preliminary Report," ibid., XVIII (1968), 159-167; idem, "Alahan
Monastery," Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (June, 1968), pp. 455-464; and idem, "Alahan
Monastery 1970," Turk Arkeoloji Dergisi, XIX, 1 (1972),95-98.
3. It is perfectly possible that Some other scholar has already described Mahras, and that I have
missed the article. If so, my apologies, and may I ask for any further information which he or she is
able to give me?
 In 1957 the only motor road to the foot of Mahras Dag was the one from Mut to
Ermenek by way of Dorla, a village 30 Km. west of Mut. There, at DorIa, the resident
Forestry Ranger supplied us with a guide to the summit. The ascent proved tough going,
and took 1 3/4 hours before we reached the monastery on a ledge near the western end of
the mountain on its northern slope. Like Alahan, the site was chosen for its easy access to
a spring which is still used by goatherds and Forestry officials on patrol. There is
nowadays a fue-watching post lower down the slope at the eastern end of Mahras, so
water is presumably no great problem.
Below the shelf of rock on which the monastery was built are some caves, probably
used as the burial places of monks, for at least two were inscribed. The lettering of the
inscriptions is much weathered, and regretfully can only be recorded here in transcription
as I copied them on the spot. (Our visit to Mahras took place in the afternoon, and we
had no more than an hour and a half to be sure of regaining Mut by the evening, since the
sun sets at about 7:30 p.m. in those latitudes).4
Such as they were, the inscriptions read as follows:
1) To¢o[~]Xpw[m ... ~15
2) + .AlJIjp[ OOLOV]
Mter a lapse of sixteen years, the short notes and rough plans made by our party are
perhaps disappointingly scanty evidence of what I now recognize, from hindsight, to have
been an important fortified monastery, probably contemporary with Alahan. The abbots
of each community could easily have kept in touch by heliograph or fire signals, as
Messrs. A. Cave and H. Martineau did with our camp at Alahan when they climbed
Mahras one summer night in 1963. The cursory examination that we made of the site did
at least show that both a church and a "baptistery" were included in the monastic
precinct, with the "baptistery" on th~ same axis as the church and some 7 m. east of it.
Without going into m}lch detail, we made measured plans of both buildings, (in so far as
they were visible), the "baptistery" being the responsibility of Dr. Ballance and his
brother, and the church of my wife and myself. With reprehensible lack of forethought, I
had film enough only for a few views of the church, and those only of the south-east and
north-west areas. (PIs. 1, 2, 3,4).
Like the basilica at Alahan, the Mahras church (Fig. I) was built on a southward
sloping rock shelf, and this involved the construction of a solid platform resting on five
massive arches to support the south-east corner of the church. This was probably the
south pastopho~y, for it has an inscribed apse of curious design, with three adjacent
niches centrally sited at the east end, each of the outer ones being flanked by a
rectangular cupboard-like recess. (Two such recesses may be recalled in the south
pastophory of the East Church at Alahan.) The north and east walls of this feature are
built of blocks measuring c. 1.50 m. long by 0.50 m. thick, and stand to a total height of
c. 7.00 m. (PI. 1). Two fairly small ogival windows in the south wall provide light, while a
door in the south wall leads into the main apse, or sanctuary of the church (PI. 2). The

4. We returned in the company of the Ranger, Bay Beh~et Erdem, an old friend and most
efficient forester. Typically, however, he once remarked, "the squirrels do a lot of damage to our
trees, but we nevt:t kill them; we think of them as an ornament of the forest (ormanin siisii).
5. <IJis of course a mistake for 1r. The name of the tomb's owner was presumably Christophoros or
Christodoul os.
 cast wall of this larger apse, (of which the diameter is c. 5.50 m., as opposed to the 3.00
tn. ul-lc/ling of the one in the northern pastophory), was actually 1.75 m. thick, to take
the thrust of the semi-dome. Two windows, as in the case of the East Church at Alahan,
gave direct light to the sanctuary, but below these, (shown dotted on the plan), is a
f{petition of the peculiar arrangement of niches flanked by rectangular recesses which I
described above (Pi. 3). 'I11C south side of the church is now, (or was in 1957), buried
under a pile of rubble, but it is reasonable to assume that there was a southern
pastophory of the same dimensions and architectural details as the other, and projecting
also 4.GO m. eastwards of the main apse. It is also likely that the interior of the church
was divided into a central Haveand two side aisles. This can, of course. only be proved by
excavation; but the existence of column bases and of some simple "basket" capitals with
a single lower register of leaves, and a small Greek cross (on each face) are probably
of signi Hcance in this context.
That Alahan was a fortified monastery is clear, not only from the massive sustention
wall to the south, but also from its strategic position commanding the Calycadnus,
(Guksu), valley as far as Mut and beyond. Evvliya <;elebi, the famous Turkish traveller,
who vhited Alahan in 1671, described the monastery as a kale, a castle, and so it was still
Ihought to be up to my own time. Isauria was renowned in antiquity for its lawless
iuhaLitants, and a rich monastery in an isolated spnt must have been a tempting prize for
;l hahd of brigands. Mahras, like Alahan, was built to be defensible, and when seen from a

Jistau<;c may easily be mistaken for a fortress.

Tile r~st of the church plan is largely conjectural, and apart from a short stretch of the
southclll end, the west wall is not included in the drawing (Fig. I).It is likely that there
was a lId.rthex, though it trlust have been irregular since, although west of the church
pruper an outcrop of rock on the north side was cut to receive masonry blocks, it would
not have conformed to art otherwise symmetrical building. West of the narthex was a
large room containing a cistern, and a number of walls which may have belonged to the
motlks' quarters, though this is pure conjecture. The south-west corner of the whole
complt·x does survive to a height of 7.00 m., but the masonry is not of the same high
quality as it i~ elsewhere (PI. 4). Photographs of the northern pastophory and the main
apse make it clear that no mortar was used, the masonry being friction bonded exactly as
it was ill the East Church at Alahan. Decoration of the stonework was also extremely
sih1plc, with only a single convex moulding separating the wall from the beginnin.g of the
setniJolne in the central apse. Some pieces of opus Alexandrinum found in the rubble do,
huwever, show that the flooring at least was fairly elaborate.
Without excavation it is hard to determine beyond doubt whether the trefoil building
east of the church was J baptistery ur a martyrium, though everything suggests that it was
tile fonner. In the first pLice, it is at least 7.00 m. east of the northern pastophory of the
church, with which it almost cert<linly shared an outer (northern) wall, for which the
Cvilkucc is a long block, in situ, projecting eastwards from the north-east corner of the
church. Furthermore, there was a gate in the wail, for the lintol block, decorated with a
Greek cross in the centre, was found a short way down the slope. There seems little
doubt, therefore, that dlUrch and trefoil building were independent units. At Alahan, for
example. there is no more tangible connexion between the western basilica and the
bJptistl.'ry than there is betwee/l the buildings of Mahras.
Th(' trefoil "baptistery" (Fig. Il) is set within a rectangular enclosure of masonry walls
of massive construction, one block measuring 2.70 m. x 0.77 m. x 0.64 m., (the last
measurement being the width). The outer face of the enclosure was competently cut
with a narrow drafting at the edges of the blocks, but the inner faces were much rougher.
The main gate into the precinct was in the centre of the west wall, its lintol having above
it a very shallow, almost flat relieving arch of the type so characteristic of the doors into
the East Church at Alahan. It is likely that a lesser door flanked the main opening to both
north, (where the evidence exists), and south, (to preserve symmetry), where the evidence
is unfortunately destroyed. At the north-east corner there is a small door, 1.00 m. wide,
of which the monolithic jambs have gone, leaving the lintol resting on the adjoining walls.
Since there was a sort of ambulatory both west and east of the trefoil, (of which both the
north and south apses were in contact with the outer walls of the rectangle), it is not
unlikely that there was a south-east door also. As for the r~st of the lighting of the trefoil
itself, the western side was open, and a window in the southern apse, which is now
completely ruined, may be considered as likely. Predictably, (since the rectangular space
in which it was enclosed was no more than a shell), the trefoil was constructed of smooth,
finely worked blocks and without drafting; the only moulding is a simple string course at
the spring of the vaults. Of the blocks used for this vaulting very few remain in situ, and
from them we can only learn the fact that, as at Alahan, the horse-shoe form was used,
with a maximum diameter about 0.40 m. above the spring itself. By great good fortune,
one large fragmentary block may be identified with certainty as the base of a pendentive
(Fig. III), which surely proves that the central space of the building was either roofed
with a dome or with a domical vault.
Inevitably the arrangement of the eastern building on Mahras recalls the triconchos
sanctuaries of the Lycian churches visited and surveyed during 1959 and 1960 by R. M.
Harrison.6 Indeed, the east end of 'the monastery church near Karabel is startlingly
similar. That this church was roofed by a dome is considered certain by Harrison, and he
is certainly right.7 However, whether or not that dome was of masonry or timber is
perhaps problematical. As he himself puts it, "The roofing of the central bay, surely the
first to fall, is buried beneath the debris of three semi-domes; the sanctuary is
encumbered with large blocks to a depth of about 3 m.".s So, of course, was the interior
of the East Church at Alahan, and this, when excavated in 1965, showed no sign of a
masonry dome above the squinch arches. On the other hand, it seems to me that the
rock-cut triconchos church of Alacahisar provides proof of a masonry dome, in view of
the fact that the rock-cut portion rises 0.75 m. at one point above the circular basis for a
"central dome" which was "probably finished in light masonry."g
Whether or not Lycian monasticism was given a special "boost" by the distaste felt by
their brethren in the patriarchates of Antioch and Alexandria for the decisions of
Chalcedon is an open question. If it was, then the general pattern of Mahras monastery,
closer to the centres of dissent, might be more explicable, and its apparently later date
than Alahan more readily acceptable.

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

6. "Churches and Chapels of Central Lycia," Anatolian Studies, XIII (1963),117-151.

7. Ibid., p. 132.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., p. 136. See also his Plate XLIII (a).
 Plate 1; Mahras Monastery Church. The Plate 2: Mahras Monastery Church. The
north pastoph~ry from the south-west. north pastophory and the central aEse from
the west.

Plate 3: t\1ahras Monastery Church. De- Plate 4: Mahras Monastery. Westeru wall
tail of the central apse with windows and of church and south-west corner of mon-
lower recesses from the west. astic building?
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