Urfa and its surroundings in the Byzantine Period

Within the scope of the master's thesis titled "Urfa and Its Surroundings in the Byzantine Period", the church belonging to the Late Antique Period, known by the same name and located in the Gürkuyu neighborhood of the Halfeti district, approximately 85 km northwest of the city center of Şanlıurfa, was examined. A total of 51 architectural plastic stone works, which are thought to belong to various structures in the Late Antiquity, are included in the catalog. The church, located in the Gürkuyu neighborhood and largely destroyed, has been compared and evaluated over similar examples in terms of plan, space, construction materials and technique, and dated to the 5-6th century AD. A total of 51 stone artifacts consist of 5 column bases, 16 column capitals, 20 pier capitals, an arch, 1 door lintel-jam, 7 arch/architrave pieces, 1 fountain and 1 water bowl. The stone works evaluated together with their parallel samples in terms of workshop style, stonework and motif repertoire are thought to belong to the 5th and 6th centuries AD. However, it is assumed that the Water Bowl, which is thought to have been used in the liturgy, belongs to the period of the Crusader County of Urfa. Apart from this, the central space structure in Viranşehir and the Harran Basilica, which has not been excavated yet, are mentioned, of which only one rank has survived from the Late Antique period.