Byzantine churches at Sardis

Extant ornamental and architectural fragments include double-engaged support columns, ornately carved revetment door-frames, and modeled plaster decor styled with lozenge and scale patterned borders and crosses, some of which may be attributed to renovations conducted in later centuries.

An expansive and vividly colored mosaic floor was uncovered in the buildings north aisle, featuring interwoven geometric shapes composed of irregularly cut tesserae, and evidence for painted walls of rich blues and black exists in over 400 fragments of brick and plaster.

Although little is known about the original functioning of Church EA, evidence of its careful craftsmanship both suggest that it was a substantial place of worship in Asia Minor and that the Christian community had already reached a point of prominence in Sardis by the mid-fourth-century.

Remains of brick and cut-stone piers are thought to have once supported colossal vaulted domes, and the compartmentalized base structure suggests a central hall, or nave, and lateral corridors of a church similar to those of the Urban Basilica of Hierapolis at Frigia.

While Building D can be counted among the rare examples of Christian architecture at Sardis, it is unique in that it is located in what was a densely populated area within the city walls, and its craftsmanship was of a lesser quality than that of Churches EA and M. Moreover, its construction illustrates the shift in style that occurred in Asia Minor from the simple basilica of the fourth-century to the massive vaulted domes preferred merely two centuries later.