NICAEA – NIKAIA 325

The first goal of this extraordinary project is to discover and explore the place where the First Council of Nicaea was held. According to written sources, it took place in the imperial palace. It was most likely a complex of buildings with various functions, and its most important element was the large audience hall, which over time, “sanctified by the council’s tradition”, was transformed into a church. Analyzing written sources, in the context of material data about the architecture of that time, we can conclude that it was a building of the so-called central type, i.e. probably built on a circular plan – rotunda or octagonal – octagon, vaulted with a dome. The building hasn’t  survived to this day, and its exact location is unknown. However, there are six hypotheses for its location, which we intend to verify as a result of archaeological excavations and underwater research.

f the above program is successfully implemented, it will be possible to undertake the second objective of the project. The current knowledge about the foundations of Christianity, established at the First Council of Nicaea, was acquired as a result of historical, philological and theological studies based on written sources, and the literature on this subject is enormous. Discovering the place where the council took place, its surroundings, the decorations of the buildings and the monuments inside will create completely new cognitive perspectives. They can allow us to “penetrate” the culture and spirituality of the people whose work is the Creed, and will also enable learning about the extremely controversial circumstances of this event and the tradition of perceiving the place of the council by subsequent generations of Christians. We hope that this time the signs and symbols used by these people, written in the spatial arrangements of building relics, interior decorations, on objects used in everyday life (jewelry, ceramic vessels, oil lamps, devotional items) or placed in graves of several participants of the council died during the council and were buried there., will “speak” .

The most modern tools and technologies of modern civilization will help us discover these unique sources and “read” the content from the past. The third goal of our project is for our project to become a “experimenting ground” where not only traditional tools and methods of modern archeology and science will be used for research purposes, but also new ideas and technological solutions will be tested. For this reason, our project is based not only on cooperation with scientific research institutions in the field of humanities, but also with technical institutes and companies and startups offering new revolutionary technological solutions.

Here’s the research project:

We divided the implementation of the “Nicaea 325” project into the following eight stages:

1. Searches of literature, sources and archives. The research for scientific literature, resources (written, cartographic, material and iconographic ones) and archival materials was divided into six tasks/stages, depending on their cognitive goals.

These are:
1.1. Queries of written sources to establish and verify the substantive basis of the project;
1.2. Researches of scientific literature to examine the current state of research on the issues of the First Council of Nicaea and the concept of locating the palace in which the council was organized;
1.3. Researches of scientific literature and architectural sources for information regarding palaces built and functioning in the period of late antiquity, their location in the spatial structures of contemporary urban centers and the conversion of elements of palace structures into objects with a sacred function;
1.4. Researches of scientific literature, archives and monuments in order to examine the current state of historical, archaeological and environmental research in Nicea and the surrounding area in the periods of late antiquity and the Middle Ages;
1.5. Queries of cartographic sources of Nicaea, the city surroundings and Lake Nicaea, in order to examine changes in the spatial layout of the city and changes in the shorelines of the lake;1.6. Iconography research regarding the First Council of Nicaea, in order to examine the perception of this event in art over the centuries;

2. Digital imaging of the terrain and historic structures of Nicaea and the city’s surroundings, using modern technologically advanced mapping and measurement functions to illustrate the area, the course of the lake shoreline, the occurrence and course of currently non-existent watercourses and reservoirs, the urban layout of the city, the location and shape of architectural historic structures, identification of places where previously unknown historic objects exist; creating the basis for a digital map of the cultural heritage of NNicaea, which will be periodically supplemented with further source data recorded at individual stages of the project implementation. For this purpose, the following methods, tools and technologies will be used:
2.1. Photogrammetry aimed at reproducing the shape, size and color of the terrain, urban structure and architectural objects, based on the analysis of photographs and raster images;
2.1. LiDAR aimed, thanks to the use of laser rays, at mapping a three-dimensional terrain model, urban structure and architectural objects;
2.2. Thermal imaging aimed at recording previously unrecognized architectural and archaeological objects as a result of recording, processing and imaging the infrared radiation they produce, invisible to the eye;

2.3. Multispectral imaging aimed at recording images not only in the visible light range, but also in microwaves, infrared and ultraviolet, invisible to the human eye;
2.4. Multi-beam sonar aimed at imaging the bottom of the lake and architectural objects lying on it, as a result of measuring the length of sound waves sent by the sonar, which are reflected from the bottom or objects lying on it;
3. Environmental studies aimed at recording changes in the lake shoreline, the influence of tectonic processes, environmental changes (including vegetation), and the interdependence between settlement and geomorphological sequences, using the following studies:
3.1. Geological and geomorphological research aimed at preparing a settlement and geological profile of the area located behind the western strip of urban fortifications towards the lake and partially within it, based on data obtained as a result of drillings made with a geological drill and their laboratory analyses;
3.2. Palynological research aimed at reconstructing ancient vegetation based on pollen collected from individual settlement and geomorphological sequences;

3.3. Seismic research aimed at identifying and illustrating the geological structures of the earth’s structure, based on measurements of the length of reflections of artificially induced acoustic (seismic) waves;
4. Light archeology of architectural objects in Nicaea using photogrammetry (orthoimages) and 3D documentation, with the aim of: first of all, documenting, relative and absolute dating (using the 14C mortar method) and chronological stratification of architectural objects; and then – on their basis – to examine the urban development of the city and its transformations in terms of changes in the organization of the spatial system. In this way, we intend to select areas within the urban structure that were used during the construction and operation of the palace and sacral building we are interested in;
5. Surface surveys of undeveloped areas of the city in order to register sources that may indicate the presence of historic architectural structures in given places;

6. Geophysical research aimed at broader identification of objects registered as a result of aerial prospecting, LiDAR and surface research;
7. Survey research of selected areas located within the city and in the zone between the walls and the lake, in order to verify historic structures registered using aerial prospecting, geophysical methods and surface research;
8. Excavations of selected areas, selected as a result of all the above research, in order to verify the hypotheses that they may hide historic structures of the palace where the First Council of Nicaea was held in 325;
8.1. First of all, these are underwater research of the basilica and the coastal zone of the lake;
8.2. The remaining research sites will be selected as a result of our further research.