Archaeological Site of Dragos
The archaeological site at Dragos in Kartal/Istanbul consists of ruins of a bath, church, and residential building dating to the Early Byzantine era. Its bath is one of the best-preserved bath structures unearthed in Istanbul. Dragos is possibly the site of the Palace of Bryas.
Dragos in Kartal/Istanbul has an archaeological site with ruins of a bath, church, and residential building dating to the Early Byzantine era. This site was located by the Marmara Sea near the main road going from the shore opposite Constantinople east towards Nicomedia, Nicaea, and Ankyra. It is by the coast facing the largest of the Prince’s Islands, Büyükada (historic Prinkipos), just west of the old town center of Kartal (historic Kartalimen).
A small Late Antique bath was found on the site of a factory in 1974. Excavations, which were suspended in 1978, were resumed by the Istanbul Archaeological Museums in 2010, leading to the discovery of a church to the south of the bathhouse and a residential structure with an opus sectile floor to the west.
The bath, which has been dated to the sixth century, measures around 21 x 28 m. It has five main rooms: apodyterium (dressing room), frigidarium (cold room), tepidarium (warm room), caldarium (hot room), and sudatorium (sweating room). In addition, the praefurnium (heating room) is located north of the bath, while service areas are located to the east and west. They are connected by a U-shaped corridor surrounding the main structure of the baths. A water tank is located on the northeastern side at a higher elevation. Among the finds are a well-preserved hypocaust system, marble threshold of a door, fragments of marble flooring, marble window grids, and window glass, as well as amphora fragments, stamped bricks, and roof tiles. The coins found on the site tend to date between the sixth and ninth centuries. The first phase of the bath possibly dates to the sixth century, with a second phase dating to the ninth century.
A triple-apsed three-aisled basilica with narthex measures approximately 40 x 20 m. It has brick and ashlar masonry. Fragments of its marble floor and other marble architectural elements were unearthed at the church. Graves of adults and children were found around the church. The residential structure to the west is more fragmentary. Its opus sectile floor is perhaps the most impressive finding, though marble architectural elements, brick stamps, and Middle Byzantine ceramics were also found at the site. There is evidence of more remains here, perhaps belonging to a settlement. It has also been suggested that the nearby Dragos Hill could also have functioned as an ancient acropolis. The remains of a breakwater by the shore were lost when the coastal road was constructed.
Palace of Bryas
There is no definite identification of the site at Dragos. While it could be an unknown residential complex, the Palace of Bryas, which appears in numerous Byzantine sources, is also a plausible candidate. While once Bryas Palace was identified with the ruins at Küçükyalı to the west, the Küçükyalı site is now more commonly identified with Satyros Monastery. The Dragos site, which has Early Byzantine structures with evidence of Middle Byzantine repairs, possibly fits the descriptions of Bryas. Bryas was the site of a palace, harbor, and also probably settlement located on the Propontis (Marmara) coast of the Mesothynia Peninsula (now Kocaeli Peninsula).
A later source claims the palace was built by Tiberios and Maurikios in the second half of the sixth century. Bryas is also mentioned in the Arab siege of Constantinople, when an Arab fleet bringing supplies in 718 anchored at the harbors of Satyros, Bryas, and Kartalimen for protection from the Byzantine counterattack with Greek fire.
According to several more contemporary sources, the palace of Bryas was built the last iconoclast emperor Theophilos (829-842), who also constructed churches, gardens, and a water supply for the complex. There was a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary next to the bedchambers, while a large church was in the courtyard. This church was dedicated to the Archangel Michael and had chapels in the apses dedicated to female martyrs. One source reports that the palace was built using material taken from the ruins of a nearby ancient temple at Satryos (possibly Küçükyalı), which was also the site of a monastery built around the same period.
It is frequently mentioned that Theophilos built the palace after defeating the Arabs in 837. However, it is also claimed that its construction was influenced by future iconoclasm Patriarch of Constantinople John VII Grammatikos, who went on an embassy to Abbasid Baghdad in 829. Reportedly, he came back so impressed that he persuaded the emperor Theophilos to build a palace at Bryas in imitation of Abbasid-style palaces. While this could have been an attempt for Theophilos to impress foreign visitors and rival the court at Baghdad, this claim could also be part of a strategy to paint the last iconoclast emperor and his patriarch as Islamic sympathizers.
According to Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, his father Leo VI built the first imperial galley to visit certain sites, but continued to use a scarlet barge when he went to visit palaces at Hebdomon, Hiereia, and Bryas. Liudprand of Cremona, ambassador for Emperor Otto I to the Byzantine court, records his visit to the palace of Umbrias (Bryas) in 968. During a feast, the Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas sought to impress Liudprand by inviting him to come and see the onagers kept in one of his hunting parks. Liudprand drily remarked that the onagers looked just like the donkeys back home.
It is not know what happened to the palace or its churches later. Following a devastating earthquake in the early 16th century, it seems the settlement at Dragos moved north to the location of Maltepe today.
Site before excavation
Kartal Maltepe Sigara Fabrikası (1968)
The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor
When it was spring, Sufyan arrived with an expedition organized in Egypt; he had four hundred food-carrying merchantmen and warships. When he learned of the power of Greek fire, he bypassed Bithynia; after crossing over to the other shore, he anchored at the harbor of Kalos Agros. Yezid soon arrived with another expedition, which had been formed in Africa. He had two hundred sixty merchantmen, with both arms and supplies. Like Sufyan, he had learned about the liquid fire. He anchored at Satyros, Bryas, and as far away as Kartalimen.
Coronation of Emperor Theophilos in 829
From Theophanes Continuatus
First it was indeed called ‘Satyros,’ because at a short distance from the monastery was the ancient so-called Satyros, in which there was a temple built by pagans to this Satyros; and, by homonymy, because the monastery was nearby, it was called by the same name. From this Satyros did the emperor Theophilus, the constructor of the palace of Bryas, take material when he built the latter.
Now, as soon as John returned to Theophilus, he recounted everything about Syria and convinced him to construct the palace of Bryas in resemblance to Saracen abodes, in no wise differing from them in form or variety; and this was overseen by him and the work carried out according to John’s description by a man whose name was Patrikes and who was distinguished by the dignity of patrikios. The only additional thing he wrought was to erect in the private chambers a church in the name of our supremely holy Lady the Mother of God, and, in the forecourt of the palace, a church with three apses most beauteous in beauty and surpassing many others in size, the middle in the name of the Commander-in-chief Michael and each of the two sides in the names of women martyrs.
Embassy of John the Grammarian in 829
From The Chronicle of the Logothete
Elated by this, the emperor [Theophilos], together with Manuel and the Senate and all the army, went out against the Hagarenes, and with ease he captured Zapetra and Samosata (Samosata was famous at that time for its riches and its power, since the emir stemmed from there), and he returned boasting with his victory and the spoils. And having come as far as Bryas, he ordered that a palace should be built there and that gardens should be planted and water be brought—which indeed happened.
From The Patria
Tiberios (578-582) and Maurikios (582-602) built the palaces of Bryas. They were called Bryas because the final emperor, when he is about to leave and dwell in Jerusalem, will hear at this Bryas the roaring (brygmos), crying, and wailing of the city.
From De Administrando Imperio by Constantinus Porphyrogenitus
Until the reign of Leo, the glorious and most wise emperor, there was no imperial galley for the emperor to embark in, but he used to embark in a scarlet barge; except that, in the time of the Christ-loving sovereign Basil, when this same emperor visited the hot baths of Prousa, and again when he went to inspect the bridge of Rhegion that was, of course, being built by his mandate and providence, he embarked in a galley, and another galley followed behind. And the rowers who embarked in it were taken from the imperial barge and from the sailors of the Stenon. For of old the Stenon too had up to ten ships of war of the imperial navy. But since the emperor, of blessed memory, on most of his progresses always went to Pegai because of the palace he had built there, and in like manner to Hebdomon and to Hiereia and to Bryas, he used to embark in a barge, according to the old rule. But when he was going on a longer progress, to the hot baths of Prousa, for example, and to inspect the bridge of Rhegion, he would embark, as was said above, in a galley, and another galley would follow, so that more nobles could embark with the emperor, and the rest in the second galley.
Church of the Archangel Michael in the forecourt of the Palace of Bryas
From A Synopsis of Byzantine History by John Skylitzes
When John left Syria and returned to Theophilos, he described how things were there and also persuaded the emperor to build the Bryas palace based on the Saracens’ way of building palaces, deviating from their model in no detail of plan nor in the diversity of its decoration. He proposed to oversee the project himself and to be the architect of the building. He convinced the emperor and the task was accomplished along the lines John described, except for the addition of one item: a church erected in the name of the Mother of God within the imperial residence itself. In the forecourt of this palace a church with three apses was built. It far exceeded all other churches both in size and in beauty. The central apse was dedicated in the name of Michael the arch-commander: the apses to either side in the names of holy women martyrs.
From Liudprand of Cremona
After the next day, that is, Saturday, Nicephoros ordered me to hasten to Umbrias, a place eighteen miles from Constantinople…But at that same dinner the same Nicephoros asked me whether you had preserves, that is, hunting grounds, or if, instead of preserves, you had wild donkeys or other animals. When I affirmed to him that you had preserves, and animals in the hunting grounds, with the exception of wild donkeys, he said: “I will lead you to our preserve, whose enormity, as well as the wild, that is woodland, donkeys, you will marvel to see.”
When I was doing just this, there rushed toward me some of those creatures they call wild donkeys, mingled with some wild goats. But, I ask, what kind of wild donkeys? The very same kind as are tame at Cremona. The same color, the same shape, the same ears, equally vocal when they begin to bray, not uneven in size, the same speed, equally tasty for wolves.
Plan by Yasemin Türkmen Bekar
References
Belke, K. Bithynien und Hellespont (TIB 13)
Sevgili S. & Süslü, A. Dragos Kazısı, Tekel Arazisinde Bir Bizans Hamamı
Seviç, F. İstanbul, Kartal'da Bizans Dönemi Hamam Yapısı (Master’s Thesis)
Janin, R. Les Eglises Et Les Monasteres Des Grands Centres Byzantins
Brubaker, L. & Haldon, J. Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: A History
Featherstone, M., Spieser, J-M. Tanman, G., & Wulf-Rheidt, U. (ed.) The Emperor’s House: Palaces from Augustus to the Age of Absolutism
Berger, A. Untersuchungen zu den Patria Konstantinupoleos
Treadgold, W. The Byzantine Revival, 780-842
Frentrop, L. The Art of Dining in Medieval Byzantium
Altuğ, K. Arkeolojik Gezi Rehberi Yeraltındaki İstanbul
Karakaya. E. İstanbul'un Bizans Dönemi Banliyöleri
Pasinli. A. & Soyhan, C. “Cevizli (Dragos) Kazısı” (TTOKB 62/341)
Seviç, F. “Dragos Hamamı: Mimari ve Teknolojik Bir Değerlendirme” (MASROP 18.2, 2024)
Karakaya. E. “Bizans Döneminde Bağdat Yolu (Üsküdar-İzmit Arası)” (Sanat Tarihi Yıllığı 20)
Primary Sources
Turtledove, H. (trans.) The Chronicle of Theophanes: Anni mundi 6095-6305 (A.D. 602-813)
Featherstone, J. & Signes-Codoñer, J. (ed.) Chronographiae quae Theophanis Continuati nomine fertur Libri I-IV
Berger, A. (trans.) Accounts of Medieval Constantinople: The Patria
Wahlgren. S. (trans.) The Chronicle of the Logothete
Jenkin, R. (trans.) Constantinus Porphyrogenitus. De Administrando Imperio
Wortley, J. (trans.) John Skylitzes: A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811-1057: Translation and Notes
Squatriti, P. (trans.) The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona
Resources
Archaeological Site of Dragos Album (Byzantine Legacy Flickr)
