Turkish Studies - International Periodical For The Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or Turkic Volume 9/10 Fall 2014, p. 287-299, ANKARA-TURKEY BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTURE FROM RHODIUS VALLEY IN THE HELLESPONTUS * Ayşe ÇAYLAK TÜRKER ** ABSTRACT One of the common features of the Byzantine coastal cities and settlements in the Hellespont is that they had a natural port on the coast of the strait. These ports were generally located at the mouth of the valleys formed by the streams that reached the Hellespont. One of the important valleys is the Rhodius Valley on the Anatolian coast of the middle section of the Strait. Rhodius is nourished by the brooks coming from Kirazlıdağ, Aladağ and Kayalıdağ. Its length is approximately 40 km and it is the largest valley in the middle section of the strait. It reaches the plain via the front parts of Atik Hisar. There is a Byzantine castle in the southwest of the place where it reaches the plain. This castle shows the importance of the valley in the Byzantine period. It has the characteristics of a valley with a narrow floor. By the alluvia it had carried, it formed the coastal plain over which today’s Çanakkale developed. In the section where Rhodius-Sarıçay poured into the sea was the ancient city of Abydos which we know - from the resources of the period – had been a large Byzantine polis. The architectural ruins of the city of Abydos failed to reach the present day. However, during our surveys, we documented numerous stone works of the Byzantine period in the lower section of the valley. These works have the quality of contributing to the understanding of the qualities of the city of Abydos and of the other Byzantine settlements in the lower section of the valley and to the settlement of localization problems. In this study, the stone works with architectural and liturgical uses that we detected in the lower section of the Rhodius Valley will be evaluated together with their finding locations. Key Words: Helespontus, Rhodius, Abydos, Saraycık, Çanakkale. * This article has been presented held in 16th SOMA - Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology in Florence. But due to an the editorial mistake not been published. Bu makale Crosscheck sistemi tarafından taranmış ve bu sistem sonuçlarına göre orijinal bir makale olduğu tespit edilmiştir. ** Prof. Dr. Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sanat Tarihi Bölümü, El -mek: ayseturker@comu.edu.tr