Excavating the Vaulted Substructure at Anaia: Hydrographic, Iconographic and Epigraphic Lessons

About the lecture

This lecture focuses on the results of the excavations in the vaulted substructure at Anaia (Tr. Kadıkalesi), located in Kuşadası, Turkey. The building was initially constructed in the mid-fifth century to provide a solid foundation for the basilical church above. Our archaeological work helped us not to attribute a sole structural role. Hence, in this lecture, looking at the architectural, artistic, and epigraphic evidence, I aim to offer a more nuanced interpretation of this building.

The substructure features a tabula ansata inscription citing a prohibition against litigation on Sundays and stating “capital punishment” for noncompliance, as mentioned in the Theodosian Codex (2.8.18). Its vaults are adorned with frescoes that likely depict Moses crossing the Red Sea, revealing a hydrographic theme that harmoniously connects with the excavated remains of a hagiasma, set into niches on the east wall, as well as water infrastructure and drainage systems.

Examining the physical and literal references to water identified in the archaeological work while exploring this unique inscription by discussing its placement, function, and display, along with its related context, I would like to argue about the nature of “crime” and the dissemination of an imperial code in the form of a “capital punishment.” Elaborating on this inscription and its architectural and iconographical context, I would like to argue if it can be regarded as a “public text” by the Anaians and neighboring Late Antique cities. Additionally, I intend to delve into the archaeological evidence to discuss the evolving functions and significance of this intriguing vaulted substructure within the Byzantine chronology at Anaia, spanning from the early to the late Byzantine periods, and how all this can be contextualized within the microregional evidence in western Anatolia.

About the speaker
Suna Çağaptay is an Associate Professor of Archaeology and Architectural History at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University. She holds a PhD in architectural history and theory from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an MA, and a BA from Bilkent University in Ankara. Suna focuses on the architectural production on the frontiers and borderlands in the medieval Mediterranean, the urban memory of later Byzantium, the afterlives of ancient cities under Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and immersive technologies in archaeology and cultural heritage management.

Besides numerous book chapters and conference proceedings, her articles have appeared in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Muqarnas, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Speculum, The Art Bulletin, EI-Three, and the Turkish Studies Review. Suna received fieldwork and grants from Dumbarton Oaks and the University of Oxford and held postdoctoral research positions at the University of Cambridge, MIT, and the University of Tel Aviv. Suna is the author of The First Ottoman Capital: Bursa (IB Tauris, 2020) and the co-editor of Cities as Palimpsests?: Responses to Antiquity in Eastern Mediterranean Urbanism (Oxbow Books: Oxford, 2022) with Elizabeth Key Fowden, Edward Z. Coghill and Louise Blanke (Oxbow, 2022) and with Zeido Zeido, Mapping Cities in the MENA Region: Visualizing the Untold Narratives of Heritage (De Gruyter, 2025). Since 2022, Suna has been leading the excavation and cultural heritage management project at Anaia (Tr. Kadıkalesi) in Aydın.