The Tychaion of Sagalassos: The Cultural Biography of an Emblematic Monument

Abstract

The study of ancient monuments and buildings as means of understanding the past often remains limited to the period of construction and initial use of monuments. This is a reductionist perspective in which only certain periods and functions are seen to matter and which is blind to the long and interesting lives of monuments. There is therefore a need for an alternative perspective that allows for the continued recognition of key episodes in a monument’s life and that also recognizes that its significance is cumulative and changing, with a wider range of activities, events, and memories augmenting and enriching traditional period-limit views. Such a biographical approach is adopted in this paper for the Tychaion or sanctuary of the goddess Tyche at the ancient city of Sagalassos (Southeast Turkey). This paper intends to go beyond the description and classification of the architectural form and function of the monument, and any modifications these experienced, to engage with social themes such as identity, memory and other aspects of social organization, which made the Tychaion part of the society that built it. In order to approach this dialectical relationship of monument and community, the paper, on the one hand, will investigate how the life history of the Tychaion reflected that of the community which was responsible for its construction, and for which it served as an emblematic monument. On the other hand, it will also examine how the monument affected that society, more specifically how it came to play a role in the construction of its cultural memory, based on its resonance through the material culture of the community.