International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Evgenia Chalkia
Athens, Greece;
[e-mail]
Transennae from Nikopolis
In the course of the excavation of Basilica D at Nikopolis, conducted by Anastasios Orlandos 
between 1956 and 1961, a significant number of transennae frames were discovered along with 
fragments of their perforated inner decoration. A good many more of them were found between 
1999 and 2002 when I carried out a supplementary excavation.
Apart from these, the majority of which are known from publications, a considerable 
number of fragments from similar transennae, mainly frames, were found in Basilica B during 
the 1920s excavations carried out by Georgios Sotiriou and Anastasios Orlandos,. Though only a 
few small fragments survive today, the rest are documented in the Sotiriou photographic archive 
in the Byzantine Museum in Athens. It seems reasonable to suppose that they must have been 
transferred from the excavation to the museum set up in the old mosque in Preveza by Alexandros 
Philadelpheus, the first excavator of Nikopolis, and that they were destroyed when it was bombed 
in World War II.

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Both the transennae from Basilica D, the majority of which are now displayed in the Nikopolis 
Museum, and those from Basilica B (the survivals and the material now lost) display common 
characteristics in respect of the type of ornament used on their frames. They all have decoration divided 
into two registers by a narrow band. The inner band consists of a Lesbian kyma, with an astragal below, 
while scrollwork with some slight variations fills the outer band. An attempt will be made, based on 
the surviving fragments, to establish the number of transennae they originally composed. And, at least 
as regards the transennae from Basilica D from which a reasonable amount of fragments of their inner 
perforated decoration survive, hypothetical reconstructions will be proposed.
The typological similarity between all the various transennae from Nikopolis mentioned above 
and corresponding examples from Ayia Sofia in Constantinople leads us to think that they were 
produced in workshops in the capital and then transported to Nikopolis, as was the case with other 
architectural members from the basilicas in this Epirote city and with the magnificent sarcophagus 
with symbolic decoration found in Basilica D.
Finally, it should be noted that the fact that similar frames, albeit with simpler decoration, 
have been found in other places in Epirus, e.g. at Opayia in the district of Ioannina and at Ladohori 
in Thesprotia, shows that these Constantinopolitan models were imitated by provincial workshops 
within Nikopolis’s sphere of artistic influence.