The Citadel and Palace of Trebizond

The Citadel and the Palace of Trebizond which was the administration center of one of the Byzantine states founded after 1204, constitutes the main theme of our thesis. Although studied by Anthony Bryer and David Winfield as part of the Black Sea Region surveys there is not a monographic study on Trebizond city defense system and the palace of Grand Comnenus and has not been studied in detail. The aim of our thesis is to document the architectural remains which in the today's city center and to evaluate them with the methods of art history discipline. In the light of the data obtained from field studies and literature surveys, the restitution proposals were presented. Space and buildings organizations and functions of Trabzon 'Komnenos Kingdom' palace evaluated together with the architectural style and technical features and associated them with the descriptions from the sources. The construction periods of the palace structures were determined and their dates were tried to be clarified. On the ideology and identity of the dominance formed by the Komnenos Kingdom, the effects of the Byzantine culture and the surrounding cultures to which the roots belong, were examined with their architectural reflections. The documentation and examination of today's physical condition of the Trabzon palace provided important data for understanding of the establishment and organization of the late period palace of the Byzantine Empire. The similarities and differences of the two headquarters were discussed within the scope of our thesis.