Late Antique/Early Byzantine fountains in South and Southwest Anatolia

Water is the sine qua non of life, culture, and civilisation. It has shaped and framed nature for ages, and nature in return has formed human beings alongside all other living things. Humans have made an attempt to secure a living place near water or in a geography where it is accessible and attached exceptional sanctity to the water they need in every aspect of their lives. People hence built fountains in order to cater to the fundamental human need and shaped it in accordance with their culture, construction technology, architectural tradition, ideology, purpose of use, and even religious faith. These buildings were occasionally given as charitable gifts to public by city nobles and/or the emperor; sometimes displayed in private residences with dignity, and commonly used in religious structures. This thesis deals with the public, private and religious fountain examples in the ancient cities of Phrygia, Lydia, Ionia, Caria, Lycia, Pamphylia and Pisidia, which date back to the Late Antiquity/Early Byzantine Periods (4th-6th century); and it contributes to the understanding of those fountain structures' place, which has remained obscure or little known to date, in the field of Late Antique and Byzantine architecture and art. In addition to looking into Anatolia's Late Antique Age/Early Byzantine fountain architecture, this study aims to promote the view that historical fountain architecture should be studied alongside the circumstances of the period as well as social and cultural values, with particular consideration of economic, political, and religious contexts. To this end, it closely examines the repercussions of the changes that took place due to the authority, belief and other dynamics on the fountains. Much as we examine the fountains as examples within the general framework of this thesis, the core target is to present a study that can explain the basic theoretical ideas such as in which thoughts, needs and conditions and how the people of Late Antiquity built and used these structures; and how much the fountain architecture has changed and transformed. From this perspective, what this thesis presents is beyond the research carried out on architecture - it reveals the social, political and religious fabrics of the period within the framework of fountain architecture.