Das frühbyzantinische Landhaus von Kirse Yanı in Karien

mit einem Beitrag von Raymond Descat

Abstract

Kirse Yanı is a ruined country house in the Carian mountain region of southwest Turkey. The ruin occupies an isolated location next to a brook in the centre of a small valley and is surrounded by cultivated land. The house has a closed rectangular block form and is divided into a western and an eastern half. The main entrance is in the east and gives onto an L-shaped corridor that connects to a large and bright main room and – probably via a wooden staircase – to an upper storey with the same floor plan. The western part of the building is arranged around a central hall and consists of smaller rooms and three heated bathing rooms on the south side. This tract would have been more private, whilst the eastern half with the large main rooms close to the main entrance appears suitable for the reception of guests. Other block-shaped houses with similar ground plans and equally large, tall, and bright rooms elsewhere in Anatolia date from the early Byzantine period. At Kirse Yanı a building inscription confirms a sixth-century date. The new block-shaped houses seem to have replaced the traditional peristyle houses that stopped to be built after the Theodosian period.