Épitaphes paléochrétiennes et médiévales d’Eğri Taş kilisesi à Ihlara en Cappadoce

Abstract

The Eğri Taş kilisesi complex is located on the right bank of Melendiz Suyu, in the Ihlara Valley in Cappadocia. Excavated in the rock at the foot of the cliff which looms over the river, it is centered around a church dedicated to Theotokos and decorated between 921 and 927, in the reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, Romanus 1st Lecapenus and his son Christophorus. Apart from the painted church, Eğri Taş also includes several burial spaces where twenty-four funerary inscriptions are preserved to this day. These inscriptions, poorly known for the most part and only incompletely published, can provide with material of considerable importance for the study of Christian funerary epigraphy. In this article I present a new edition of these epitaphs, based on a long research project involving in situ deciphering and reexamination, carried out over three fieldwork trips to the region in 2006, 2012 and 2019. This epigraphic fieldwork led me to correct and/or complete readings of eleven inscriptions known from previous editions and to identify thirteen unpublished ones. It also enabled me to date the inscriptions into two periods which correspond to the main phases of occupation of the site: one group is late antique, probably from the 6th century, the other being medieval, dating from the 9th-10th and 11th centuries.