Category: Turkey

Roman Sarcophagus from the Sea

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Here’s one that’s been in my box for a while, and there haven’t been any followups, alas … from Hurriyet:

A sarcophagus covered with figures depicting Eros and Medusa and believed to date from the Roman period has been found in the sea near the location of the ancient city of Justinianopolis, in the southern province of Antalya’s Alanya district.

The sarcophagus was retrieved from the water after a six-hour effort and has been delivered to the Alanya Museum Directorate.

Diving school trainer Hakan Güleç spotted an object covered with sand and rocks while diving 20 days ago. When trying to move the object, he saw the figures on it and photographed them. He showed the photos to Alanya Museum officials, and after examining them, they decided to exhibit it. The sarcophagus is estimated to date from the second or third century A.D.

Bodrum Underwater Archaeology Museum Director Yaşar Yıldız and archaeologists cleared sand and debris from the sarcophagus for six hours, and it was lifted out of the water with the help of a crane. Tourists took photos of the sarcophagus while the work was going on.

“The Alanya Museum has gained a new piece of art. The figures on it show that it dates from the Roman period,” Yıldız said.

The original article has a photo-from-a-distance which really isn’t useful for establishing what scene is depicted on it, although you can see one (or two?) Medusas. In the coverage for the Art Newspaper, Yildiz is quoted as speculating it was made up the coast at Aphrodisias.

What I’d like to have seen is some further speculation as to how it got where it did. Even with six hours of cleaning, it seems awfully clean for something made of marble that has supposedly been in the sea for a couple of thousand years, no? Is there a shipwreck around it? Were other things found in association with it? Or (as I note that someone commenting on the Art Newspaper’s coverage has also suggested) is this probably something that was being smuggled somewhere and dumped overboard for whatever reasons?

Nice of them to mention Justinianopolis, though …

Inscriptions from Pompeiopolis

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

From World Bulletin … there seems to be a persistent misspelling of Pompeiopolis:

New inscriptions were unearthed during excavations in Pompeipolis ancient city in Taskopru in the northern province of Kastamonu.

Prof. Dr. Christian Marek, who has been examining inscriptions uncovered in Pompeipolis, told the AA correspondent that inscriptions were about festivals of Roman era.

Marek said that according to inscriptions, Roman emperors also participated in these festivals, most of which were religious. Marek said several competitions, shows and plays had been held within the scope of these festivals which had been started by Roman Emperor Alexander Severus.

Prof. Latife Summerer, a lecturer from Munich University, said that information on inscriptions were important and more would be uncovered in excavations in the ancient city.

The antique city of Pompeipolis is situated in the county of Taskopru of the province of Kastamonu. According to the historical records, the Romans after winning the battle against Mitridates. Pontus Pilate and his army in the northern valley of Gökirmak in 64 B.C. settled in this region. The Roman commander Pompeius built a city out of scratch on Zimbilli Hill and called the city Pompeipolis.

The antique city of Pompeipolis was discovered by Pascal T. Fourcade, who was the French consul during 1802 to 1812 at Sinop. It is claimed by the American and European archaeologists that the antique city of Pompeipolis is wealthier and bigger than the antique city of Ephesus in Izmir. The giant columns and the mosaic decorations found in the excavations conducted for the first time in 1910 in the antique city of Pompeipolis, remaining from the Byzantine era, were destroyed in the reconstruction of the town of Taskopru after four-thirds of the town was damaged by fire in the year 1927. The historical artifacts found in the excavations conducted by the governorate of Kastamonu in 1974 were placed in the Kastamonu Archaeological Museum for safekeeping. The excavation of Pompeipolis started again in the year 2006 under the leadership of Dr. Latife Summerer of the German Munich University.

As the archaeological excavation of Pompeipolis continues, a town museum or an archaeological museum must be built in Taskopru to protect and exhibit the artifacts discovered. With the historical artifacts to be discovered, the antique city of Pompeipolis will be the door opening the Black Sea to the world. If the antique city is well promoted and if the necessary investments for tourist visits are made, Pompeipolis, just like Ephesus and Zeugma, will become the symbol of the Black Sea within a short period of time and its name will take place among the sites to be visited in international tourism.

via: Inscriptions found in ancient Pompeipolis city in Turkey | World Bulletin

This seems to be a rather nice dig site … a few years ago they excavated a Temple of Augustus … the next season found mosaics and a marketplace … the spelling mistake seems to run in those reports too.

Nysa Dig Resumes

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

From Hurriyet:

Archaeologists have begun excavations at the ancient Greek city of Nysa, in western Turkey, where they hope to find new artifacts around the theater, agora and gymnasium.

Professor Vedat İdil, head of the excavation team from Ankara University, said the team, comprised of Turkish, Canadian and American architects, archaeologists and historians, plans to work until October this year.

Nysa is located in the Sultanhisar district of Aydın province, 50 kilometers east of the Ionian city of Ephesus. There are important ruins on the site from the Hellenistic period, the Roman period and the Byzantine era. Much of the open-air Greek theater and its walled entrances are still intact. The library currently has three walls.

There are remnants of a gymnasium, a Roman bath and a bouleuterion. The 100-meter Nysa Bridge, a tunnel-like substructure, was the second largest of its kind in antiquity.

via: Excavations begin in Nysa in western Turkey | Hurriyet

n.b. … in case you were wondering,  this Nysa (in Caria) is not to be confused with Nysa-Scythopolis (in Israel)

Sagalassos Dig Resumes

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Seal of the Catholic University of Leuven
Image via Wikipedia

This season’s excavations of the ancient city of Sagalassos, located in south-western Turkey, have begun, the head of archeological research project Dr. Inge Uytterhoeven announced recently.

This year’s excavations will involve 51 workers and 75 Turkish and foreign technical personnel, Dr. Uytterhoeven, who is also a lecturer at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, told media. In addition to local professionals, the site will also benefit from the expertise of people from Belgium, Italy, Slovenia, the United States, Bulgarian and Germany.

This year, the arcaheological team’s focus will be the restoration of the Fountain of Antoninus.

Dr. Inge Uytterhoeven started working on the excavations at Sagalassos in 1997, the World Bulletin reported. She began supervising the excavations of the late antique urban mansion in the eastern domestic area of Sagalassos in 1998, after she worked on the Upper Agora North and Bouleuterion sites. Since 2002, Dr. Uytterhoeven she has been fully involved with the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project as a post-doctoral researcher.

The ancient city of Sagalassos was first discovered by the French traveller Paul Lucas in 1706, but it would be another hundred years before its name was understood to be Sagalassos. The realization that it was one of the leading settlements of the Western Taurus came only with the discovery of the city’s name from inscriptions in 1824.

Research in the region commenced with the arrival here of an English-Belgian team for the first time in 1985, among them Marc Waelkens from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. Exactly four years after this surface investigation, the same team was given the go-ahead to undertake excavations.

Since then work at the ancient city of Sagalassos has been under way by experts from a wide range of disciplines. Thanks to the efforts of a large team consisting not only of archaeologists, but of architects, engineers, restorers, landscape architects, geologists, geomorphologists, and soil engineers, a major part of the city has been brought to the light of day in the last twenty years.

The settlement’s history goes back more than 12,000 years. Sagalassos became Pisidia’s second most important city in the Hellenistic period (333-325 BC) and the city’s power was further enhanced when hegemony passed to the Roman Empire in 25 BC.

via Archaeologists Restart Excavations of Ancient City of Sagalassos | Balkan Travellers.

If you’d like to follow the dig, the CUL has a nice website … not sure if the interactive dig at Archaeology Magazine will resume soon as well …

Site of Sigeum/Sigeion Found

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 3 Comments

Not sure why this hasn’t appeared in an English source yet … apparently the site of Sigeum (mentioned in the Iliad) has been located some six km. from Troy.

Sono tornati alla luce i resti di Sigeo o Sigeion (Sigeum in latino), cantata da Omero nell’Iliade, una delle mitiche citta’ dell’antica Turchia, a circa 6 chilometri da Troia. Gli archeologi tedeschi dell’Universita’ di Tubinga hanno scoperto, durante gli scavi, le fondamenta di alcune case costruite dai Greci nel corso del I millennio avanti Cristo. Insieme alle fondamenta sono emersi, in vari punti, anche i muri portanti delle abitazioni di personaggi altolocati. Il professor Thomas Schaefer, direttore della missione archeologica, secondo quanto riferito alla stampa tedesca, ha spiegato che dallo studio dei reperti risulta che Sigeion fu un importante centro commerciale almeno tra l’VIII e il IV secolo a.C. Sorgendo sul lato sud dell’Ellesponto, Sigeion, ha ricordato sempre Schaefer, fu percio’ per diversi secoli un fondamentale punto di incontro e di scambio del Mar Nero.

L’operazione archeologica per la ricerca di Sigeion e’ iniziata nel 2005 sotto la direzione di Schaefer e prima della scoperta dei resti delle case greche erano state ritrovate soprattutto ceramiche. Fino ad allora la localizzazione di Sigeion era nota, ma non poteva essere scavata perche’ il sito era una base militare turca. Nel 2007 l’impiego del georadar ha permesso di iniziare la preparazione della mappa topografica dell’antica citta’. Nel 2008 sono iniziati gli scavi in sei punti diversi ma solo nell’autunno scorso e’ stata localizzata con tutta probabilita’ la necropoli e quindi il quartiere residenziale. A partire dall’estate del 2010 gli archeologi dell’Universita’ di Tubinga inizieranno la ricerca del tempio dedicato alla dea Atena. L’esistenza del santuario e’ accertata grazie alla scoperta di un’iscrizione funeraria del III secolo a.C. che parla del tempio dedicato ad Atena.

Actually I’m kind of confused by this because they’ve been digging at Sigeion for a couple years now; perhaps the German coverage is more clear.