Binbirklisse : Archæologische Skizzen aus Anatolien. Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte des Christlichen Kirchenbaues, von Karl Holzmann, Ingenieur. Verlag von Boysen und Maasch in Hamburg. In-4°.

          Mr Holzmann has given us some interesting sheets of drawings of a series of churches in Anatolia which well deserve careful study. We know them from Laborde’s drawings and descriptions (Voyage de l’Asie Mineure) and from photographs and plans furnished to Strzygowski (who published them in his Kleinasien) by Crowfoot and Smirnov ; but we have as yet no architectural details, save those that Mr Holzmann has now put before us in a cheap and useful form, and we owe him therefore a debt of gratitude. Binbirklisse lies in the Kara Dagh some 75 kilometres south of Konia. Ramsay has surmised that it represents the ancient Barata, but the suggestion bas not met with unanimous approval. As we know nothing of Barata except the name, even if the identification be correct there will remain much to learn of the remarkable ecclesiastical settlements of the Kara Dagh. Of these there are two, Binbirklisse at the foot of the hill and Daouleh (Mr Holzmann writes it Deileh), some 4 kilometres to the west on a shoulder of the mountain [sic]. The ruins include a small number of secular buildings and many churches, mausoleums and sarcophagi, and at Daouleh, two large monasteries. Of Daouleh only one church has hitherto been published (by Strzygowski) ; Mr Holzmann gives some excellent drawings of it (No. 2) and a small plan and reconstruction of the square building (No. 22) between it and the largest of the monasteries (No. 23). His map of the upper town is very incorrect, many of the buildings in it are omitted, and the monastery (No. 23) is oriented wrongly. Its length lies from east to west, not from north to south. He is mistaken in thinking No. 28 to have been a dwelling house ; the east end is much ruined, but the line of the apse is distinctly visible. Of Binbirklisse he says that Nos. 12 to 21 are « sämmtlich stark zerstört ». Of 15 and 16 there are however very considerable remains and the plan of them would easily be recoverable. As regards date he gives as his opinion that the buildings must fall beween [sic] the 3rd and the 8th centuries and that the builders were for the most part Armenians. We are not yet in possession of facts sufficient to warrant an authoritative statement, but we may be certain that the churches are not all of one period and that several of them, both in the upper and in the lower towns, have suffered restoration. It is extremely improbable that any of them should be as early as the 3rd century and practically certain that the Armenians had no hand in them. None of the buildings bear the slightest resemblance to those in northern Asia Miner or in Cilicia which are known to be of Armenian workmanship.

                                       G[ertrude] L[owthian] B[ell]

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