History and Identification of the Settlement

19th century western travelers and early 20th century archaeologists and philologists at first introduced the ruins of Viranşehir to the academic world through their travel accounts and research reports. Initially, the settlement at Viranşehir was associated with the Hellenistic fortress of Nora or Neroassos. Historical sources of antiquity refer to this castle as the place of refuge for Eumenes, king of Cappadocia, upon his defeat by Antigonos I Monophthalmos (Antigonos the One-eyed) at the battle of Orkynia in 320 BC. While the toponym of Nora from the remote past is still nowadays linked to the site of Viranşehir in the regional popular imagination, this speculative localization has not been accepted in the scientific world. The most plausible identification of the ruins of Viranşehir, as the Byzantine city of Mokisos, has prevailed from the late 1930’s to nowadays among specialists, and is based on the account of the 6th century Byzantine chronicler Prokopios who writes:

There was a certain fortress in Cappadocia, Mokisos by name, situated on level ground, but it had sunk into such a state of disrepair that part of it had fallen down and the rest was on the point of doing so. All this the Emperor Justinian pulled down, and he built a very strong wall to the west of the old fortress, on a site which lay above a very steep slope and was quite inaccessible if anyone should try to attack it. There too he built many churches and hospices and public baths and all the other structures that are the mark of a prosperous city. Consequently it rose even to the rank of a metropolis, for thus the Romans call the leading city of a province. (Prokopios, 5.4.15–18)

Mokisos is first mentioned by the Byzantine chronicler Procopius, most likely in the 550s. He relates that emperor Justinian I transformed the ruined phourion (fortification) of Mokisos in Cappadocia into a city and a metropolis (referring not necessarily to its great size, but to its status as a regional capital). Another contemporary historical source for Mokisos is found in the acts of the Church Council of 553. According to those ecclesiastical documents, Mokisos was not only endowed with metropolitan rights but also renamed as Justinianopolis (the city of Justinian). In 536, the archival record of earlier patriarchal council reports the city served not only as a metropolis but also as an episcopal seat. It is specified that that the seat named Justinianopolis belongs to the province of Cappadocia II. Therefore, the creation of a new archbishopric and the introduction of a new ecclesiastical metropolis in Cappadocia II took effect in 535. The northern and western region of the province was attached to the metropolis of Mokisos, while the southernmost part remained under the authority of the Bishop of Tyana. Mokisos thus became a new ecclesiastical metropolis for an eparchia (ecclesiastical province), formed under the name of Cappadocia III that stretched south of the Halys River. However, Mokisos continued to be held under the civil jurisdiction of the province Cappadocia II.

The name of Justinianopolis is last attested in the church council of 692 and then disappears from the primary sources. Mokisos conserved its rank of metropolis of the Ecclesiastical Province of Cappadocia III through the entire Byzantine period, but had no political significance, as Tyana remained the civil capital for the province of Cappadocia II.

The city seems to had a relatively short lifespan starting probably from the early 6th century to the beginning of the 7th century. The construction of houses continued for several decades and even led to an expansion of the city into the Christian necropolis. However, it is difficult to identify, at least for now, several construction phases that can extend over several centuries. This may be an indication of the fact that the place was only populated for a reasonably short time, however it is difficult to determine when the settlement was ended precisely. On the other hand, the evidence from surface investigation points toward the abandonment of that site at a relatively early date (early or middle of 7th century), without compelling evidence for resettlement. For Cappadocia in general, the question of “rupture or continuity of the economic and cultural life” is frequently raised, in particular for the difficult period of the Islamic incursions (from mid 7th century to late 9th century), which corresponds generally with the internal disruptions in the Byzantine Empire brought about by the Iconoclast controversy. Were settlements abandoned, or did daily life (and artistic production) continue during this time? Only an in-depth archaeological investigation and large-scale excavation may allow to answer this question.