The early Byzantine city walls of Hierapolis in Phrygia: demolishing and recycling the Imperial era monuments

The study concerns the city walls of Hierapolis in Phrygia (Denizli, Turkey), which were built in the second half of the fourth century AD or at the beginning of the fifth century AD, by systematically recycling architectural blocks from Imperial-era public monuments and funerary edifices. The preserved remains of the fortifications enclose the city along its northern, eastern, and southern sides, leaving out large sectors of the urban area. Within the research activities of the Italian Archaeological Mission, topographical DGPS surveys of the remains were performed and a geodatabase of the re-employed blocks was implemented with three main aims: i) the reconstruction of the building site of the city walls; ii) the identification of the demolished monuments of the Imperial era used as “quarries” and the study of the procurement strategies of stone materials in the early Byzantine Hierapolis; iii) the analysis of the relationship between the large building site of the fortifications and the other coeval construction sites and their impact on the socio-economic life of the city. The research allowed us to trace the development of the building site of the city walls, which, starting from the north, mainly re-employed blocks from the necropoleis, North Theatre, North Agora, and the shops along the plateia that were not included in early Byzantine Hierapolis. Moreover, numerous materials from the Gymnasium and other monuments located in the central part of the city but not yet identified on the ground were especially re-used in the eastern and southern sectors of the walls. Lastly, the location of the recycled blocks made it possible to reconstruct the various transportation routes linking the demolished monuments to the different sectors of the city walls.