The Tabula Imperii Byzantini (TIB) Pontos: Problems and First Results

In the frame of the project TIB – Historical Geography of the Byzantine Empire – Pontos is understood as the area that stretches along the coast of the Black Sea from Sinop/Sinōpē until the estuary of the Akampsis/Çoruh Nehri (ca. 550 km) and up to 250 km inland. It comprises the Early Byzantine provinces of Helenopontos, Pontos Polemōniakos and the northern part of Armenia I. The huge extension of this area forbids a complete consideration of each trace of settlement found in the countless surveys undertaken mainly by Turkish colleagues in a reasonable time. Autopsy during travels must be focused on the landscapes and selected objects, according to the status of exploration, endangerment, and importance. Sources naturally favour the coastal areas with their harbours and trading connections. In the inland regions with their scarcity of cities, the exploration of the historical routes and the position of their road stations is of particular importance. Except for the coastal areas, Pontos was nearly lost to the Byzantine Empire as a consequence of the Seljuk invasions after 1071. Sources regarding the so-called Empire of Trebizont, founded in 1204 by the dynasty of the Great Comnenes in north-eastern Asia Minor, allow for several new questions. Especially two groups of documentary sources enable us to locate a number of villages due to the continuity of their names: the collection of documents of the Bazelōn monastery (especially in the hinterland of Trebizond) and an Early Ottoman tax register of 1487 AD. Here, the possessions of certain monasteries in a lot of villages (mainly in the coastal areas) are enumerated, which, soon after the conquest by the Ottomans in 1461, were transformed into timars. A number these villages could already be located.