ABSTRACT
In the summer of 1969 I was one of five people, including Bryer, who met up in Trebizond to look at aspects of the Byzantine and more recent Greek presence – up until 1922 – in the region behind Trebizond. Our attention was to be focused in particular on standing monuments, which had hitherto received little or no attention from archaeologists, architectural and art historians or other scholars concerned with the history of the region’s Byzantine fortresses, as well as to follow up work done by Bryer and David Winfield in earlier years. The work was fairly grueling, involved a lot of walking up and down hills and mountains and across pretty rough terrain at times, occasionally being threatened or challenged by fierce guard dogs who could only be called off when the shepherd to whom they answered chose to appear – at one point we waited unable to move for fear of being attacked for nearly an hour! – or walking through dense mountain woodland with the clack-clack of the bear-scarers in the background … we never saw a bear, but they probably saw us! Some time was spent in Trebizond itself, of course, where – apart from a couple of near-arrests for doing survey work on the citadel walls without permits, or being forced to remove ourselves somewhat hastily from the former church of the Holy
Wisdom after Bryer had begun to incant part of the Greek liturgy – we marvelled at the old city and its walls and monuments, the last outpost of the Byzantine empire.
