Day: September 2, 2013

Roman Amphitheatre from Hatay

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 3 Comments

From Hurriyet:

Researchers and local officials are hailing the discovery of a Roman-era amphitheater in the southern province of Hatay’s Erzin district, noting that the finding could help transform the area into a center of tourism.

“There is an Ephesus-style ancient city here. It will be revealed and this place will become a center of tourism,” said Erzin District Gov. İskender Yönden. “We plan to turn this area into an open-air museum.”
The Roman amphitheater was found during works carried out on a hill. So far, researchers have revealed the facility’s seats, while work is ongoing to unearth the theater stage.

“When the works are done, the district will become a museum area,” Yönden said, adding that the ancient city located along the Erzin-Dörtyol highway was being gradually unearthed. “We already knew about the existence of an amphitheater here and now we are beginning to see it.” Yönden said the excavation area was located at the site of a great battle between Alexander the Great and Persian King Darius.

A somewhat puzzling photo accompanies the original article … Archaeology in Hatay is somewhat confusing to me as I can never be sure where, specifically, they find things. A couple years ago, e.g., they found a huge mosaic in the province (Huge Mosaic Found in Turkey) at a to-be hotel construction site and now we read of this amphitheatre. Is it in the same area?

Dieci Anni Fa … rogueclassicism is born!

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 2 Comments

Wow … a decade of posting all about the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome sure passed quickly. If you’d like to see our ‘official’ launch posts from a year ago, ecce! While the Classical blogosphere has changed much over the past ten years, we’ve stuck to the original plan, more or less, although my AWOTV listings have gone the way of the dodo because assorted television stations seem to think ‘history’ has something to do with pawnshops and or the television equivalent of circus sideshows (I’m experimenting with a twitter hashtag #AWOTV which points to things on Youtube of interest). The idea of an ‘inscription of the day’ and ‘epistula’ of the day never really took hold but still appeal to me — they take much more time than anticipated however. Outside of that, however, we (along with the other blogs in the Classical blogosphere) seem to be filling a much needed niche with our ramblings and frequent run-on sentences; between the two versions of the site, we’ve served up well over two million page views of Classical (and other) goodness and as always, I’d like to thank all my readers for their continued support and attention! Gratias vobis ago!!

And, of course, if we’re marking our own blogiversary, we’re also congratulating Mark Goodacre, whose NT Blog also had its incipience a decade ago today!

 

Classical Words of the Day

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

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