A new season of excavations at Patara

It’s always exciting to imagine what new discoveries may be made during a new excavation season, especially on a site like Patara.

Last year a most exquisite bronze statue of Hermes dating from the Roman era was unearthed, actually dating from the period of Emperor Constantine. It is considered a quite unique find as never anything similar has been discovered. The statue, which looks quite modern and stylish, is now on display at the Antalya Archaeological Museum.

[picture from The Hurriyet Daily News]

Before that, in 2007, the entire theater had been cleared of sand dunes that covered most of the building, and in 1993, a precious Roman milestone had been unearthed. This monumental pillar, the Stadismus Provinciae Lyciae or Stadiasmus Patarensis, carried a dedication to Emperor Claudius in Greek and a list of roads built by the local governor, Quintus Veranius, in fact, the entire network that connected Caunos-Dalyan in Lycia to Attaleia (Antalya) in Pamphylia. The list includes the distances from one station to the next, 67 routes in all – enough to entice today’s travelers to explore the beautiful backcountry of Lycia.

This year, the team of archaeologists, scientists, and workers will be scrutinizing and digging at the Basilica, the Lima Hamam, the Palaestra, the city’s Acropolis, and the Ancient Lycian waterway.

As mentioned earlier (see: Wonderful Patara!), Patara surrendered to Alexander the Great in 333 BC. After his death, the city was occupied, in turn, by Antigonus Monophthalmus and Demetrios-Poliorcetes, finally falling into the hands of the Ptolemies. It was Ptolemy Philadelphus who, according to Strabo, embellished and enlarged Patara and renamed it Arsinoe after his wife and sister. But this change of name was not a success and Patara is the name that stuck.