MAMA XI 190 (Synnada) 
Chancel barrier lintel with decorative reliefs
- Type of monument:
- Chancel barrier lintel with decorative reliefs.
- Location:
- Şuhut (Synnada): in a cemetery.
- Description:
- Lintel cut from a column of greyish-white Dokimeian marble, with decorative reliefs on the front and underside; broken right, buried left.
- Dimensions:
- Ht. 0.30; W. 0.70+; Th. 0.28.
- Record:
- MB notebook copy; photograph (1955/10).
- Publication:
- None.
- Date:
- Tenth or eleventh century AD.
Illustrations:
MAMA XI 190 (Synnada 13: 1955-10)
The decorative relief on the front face of the lintel depicts an arcade with semicircular blind arches resting on single columns, with a palmette resembling a tree standing beneath each arch, and teardrop-shapes in the spandrels between the arches. This is a common decorative schema in Byzantine chancel barrier lintels of the tenth and eleventh centuries AD: see Strzygowski 1902 (an example from Manisa dated to AD 967, now TAM V 2, 1393); Sodini 1980: 135-42; Buchwald 1996 (with catalogue). Close comparanda are provided by an inscribed lintel from Synnada (Şuhut), MAMA IV 95 (dated to AD 1064/5), and two uninscribed lintels from the territory of Synnada, Fıratlı 1970: 154, Res. 75-6 (Susuz), and MAMA XI 191 (1955/18: Bedeş [Kayabelen]); all three lintels share the distinctive teardrop-shapes in the spandrels.