Good and bad news from Perge

The Hurriyet Daily News recently came with the news that many mosaics have been uncovered in the necropolis of Perge, glorifying them to be as magnificent as those that made the reputation of Zeugma. Yet the photograph in their article shows the side of a sarcophagus and none whatsoever of the mosaics that are apparently making the headlines.

However, this article raises many questions besides the matter of pictures. They write that “In front of the mausoleums were intact mosaics depicting the goddess of the sea Oceanus, which is said to be the first in Turkey,..”. Well, first of all, Oceanus is a god and not a goddess and secondly, Oceanus has been depicted in many other mosaics in Turkey for instance at the Archaeological Museum of Antakya.

and, more to the point, at the Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep that exhibits the finds from Zeugma!

Sadly, this makes me doubt the eulogized information about this discovery. It is clear that Turkey is struggling to find enough tourists to visit their rich archaeological sites and Perge is no exception. In their article “Ancient Perge surviving, but locals are not” also published in May 2017 they confirm that the number of visitors has dropped drastically from 190,000 in 2014 to just 60,000 in 2016.

Perge certainly is one of those sites worth visiting and I warmly welcome everyone to spend prime time among those lovely ruins but it is not by advertising twisted information that this goal can be reached.

All you need to know about Greek Symposia

“Cigarettes, Whisky and Wild Wild Women” is the title of a song that the not-so-young among us may remember. Yet, there is nothing new under the sun for in antiquity the Greeks would enjoy their own version of fun with “Wine, Women and Wisdom” as these were the main ingredients for their Symposia.

The philosophic part may have been an elegant pretext for their decadent banquets where all was about enjoying themselves with wine, women, and music. In an earlier post, The Symposium by Plato I touched the subject as I was more interested in Plato as tutor of Aristotle, who in turn was the tutor of young Alexander.

But there is far more to say about these symposia that were open for men only – the only women present were hetaera hired to entertain the men – who met in a special room, the andron, where the couches shared by two men were lined up against the outer walls. Many such rooms were found all over the Greek world and many such scenes were depicted on countless vases as the tradition goes back to the 9^th century BC.

A very systematic and detailed article has appeared in National Geographic and it is very much worth reading as it highlights and illustrates the many aspects of the Symposia.

Luxurious Greek villa revealed in Paestum

It is great news to read that a monumental building with priceless Greek ceramics has been revealed during recent excavation works at Poseidonia, the Greek name for Paestum in southern Italy.

Until now, Paestum was mainly known for its splendid and well-preserved Doric temples among which the first Temple of Athena dating from circa 550 BC and the second Temple of Hera (originally attributed to Poseidon/Neptune by mistake) whose construction has been dated to 460-450 BC. The newly exposed remains are, however,  proof of how rich the Greek founders of this colony in Magna Graecia were (see also: Magna Graecia, the forgotten Greek legacy).

It has been established that the city founders came from Sybaris, at the bottom of Italy’s heel who were among the pilgrims that came to worship at these temples. A great number of Attic red-figure pottery and other luxury artifacts left behind by the crowds of worshippers certainly attest of the fabulous wealth of Paestum.

The unearthed villa may well be a very rich house or even a palace and seems to date to the early days of Poseidonia. Archaeologists are quite excited to have a view of daily life in the city at the time when the first temples were built. This sets the villa apart from the overall Roman remains from the mid 3^rd century BC that were found till now all over Paestum.

[Picture from Paestum site]

Gold digging ants, legend or reality?

As always, it is not easy to separate the wheat from the chaff and in history, it is even more difficult to separate legend from truth. One of such cases is the fabulous story told by Herodotus in the 5^th century BC about “outsized furry ants” that dug up enough gold to enrich the Persian Empire. Unless we find hard proof, such stories remain questionable even if Alexander the Great is said to have known about it.

The main problem may simply be that these “giant ants” live in the remote region of the upper Indus River close to the Himalaya Mountains. These creatures are said to be big marmots throwing up soil while building their underground burrows and this soil apparently contains gold. In more recent centuries, explorers were told by the indigenous people that they collected gold dust from these mounds of soil.

Gaining access to the area has been the major setback to expose the truth. The area has been pinpointed to the high plateau of Dansar which overlooks the Indus near the tense cease-fire line between Pakistan and India. Getting there from India is difficult enough but entering the Pakistani side is near-impossible. The high plateau is occupied by the Minaro villagers split up between the two modern countries living at an altitude of some 3,000 meters. Both sides share the same story but the marmots and their burrows can only be found on the Pakistani side of the border. Recently, a landslide had exposed a darker, gold-bearing soil from one meter below the surface and this is exactly the soil which the marmots throw up.

No big secret, but where does the description of “furry gold digging ants” come from? The answer is amazingly simple: Herodotus never visited India but in his days the country was under Persian rule and the Persian word for marmot is “mountain ant” – hence the confusion.

It is clear that this logical explanation needs to be supported by archaeological and geological surveys but the region is still a conflict zone and not safe for travel. Unfortunately, it seems that the population of marmots is dwindling rapidly because soldiers are constantly taking potshots at them.

Excavations at Alexandria-on-the Tigris also known as Charax Spasinou

Alexandria-on-the-Tigris, also known as Antiochia-in-Susiana and Charax Spasinou-on-the-Tigris, is one of the lesser known cities founded by Alexander the Great in 324 BC. Pliny in the 1^st century AD was still aware of this important harbor, although by then it was called Charax on the coast of the Persian Gulf at the point where the Tigris and the Karun rivers met. Today, it is much harder to pinpoint this once grand port that served as an entrepȏt to Alexander because since that time so much silt and alluvium has been carried down by both rivers that it is nearly impossible to find traces of this last of Alexander’s Alexandria’s.

[The wastelands of Charax Spasinou today, coated in salt and the remains of military hardware. Photograph: Mary Shepperson]

It seems that Alexander settled a number of his veterans in special quarters of Alexandria-on-the-Tigris, which he named Pella after this own hometown.

Geophysical surveys revealed that entire districts were present and waiting to be explored and soon enough archaeological excavations revealed the presence of monumental buildings. It soon became clear that the heydays of Alexandria-on-the-Tigris occurred in the 1^st and 2^nd century AD and not during Alexander’s lifetime. Since the city was founded just one year before the death of the King of Asia, it may not have had the necessary support, more so since his successors had other things on their mind like their own rise to power. It was only when the Seleucids had secured their empire halfway the 2^nd century BC that their attention went to rebuilding the city that had been severely damaged by repeated flooding. This is how it gained its new name of Antiochia-in-Susiana.

The major incentive came from King Hyspaosines who ruled from 127 until 124 BC after having functioned as a satrap earlier on under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, king of the waning Seleucid empire. Hyspaosines founded an empire of his own, Characene that flourished thanks to his naval superiority in the Gulf. At this time, the island of Failaka was attached as well (see: Alexander's outpost in the Gulf). Charax survived, changing hands to the Romans who in turn were expelled by the Persian Sassanids in the third century AD. The last traces of occupation have been dated to 715 AD when it was part of Umayyad Empire, after which Charax was finally abandoned.

For centuries, Charax was a turntable on the trade routes to Syria and the Mediterranean after passing through famous stops like Petra and Palmyra. Here the goods were transhipped from those ships sailing in from Arabia and even India in exchange for those products traveling in opposite direction. In its heydays, Charax spread over 5 km2 and was home to a large cosmopolitan population. Alexander certainly had a good eye when it came to building new cities!

Over the centuries, the coastline has changed dramatically due to the heavy silt deposits of the major rivers Tigris and Karun emptying into the Persian Gulf. Mud has covered most of Charax’s remains leaving only vague hints of its once so massive ramparts. Moreover, this area is now littered with debris from the recent conflict opposing Iran and Iraq. This is certainly not making the task any easier for any archaeologist daring enough to start digging in this utterly desolate flat.

[Magnetometry results from Charax SpasinouPhotograph: Mary Shepperson]

Modern technology was brought in to the rescue; at least, that was the plan. A small team of geophysicists spent nine days trudging up and down the site with their magnetometers, hoping to find some remnants of this once so glorious city while at the same time they could test the possible presence of landmines. The results of their arduous efforts were beyond expectations as they were able to discover the Hellenistic gridded layout of the city and pinpoint many of the monumental buildings. Unfortunately, you don’t always get what you expect. In this case, the monumental buildings turned out to be mere layers of ephemeral phases and excavations were hampered by “inconsiderably-placed” dead bodies while what seemed to be a large city walls turned out to be nothing but a large ditch lined with pots. Test trenches have so far yielded only some pottery and a few badly weathered coins.

Alexandria-on-the-Tigris, Failaka and other towns in the Gulf area are clearly not going to disclose their treasures anytime soon for it will take many seasons of thorough excavations to get some indication about Alexander’s legacy in modern Iraq, yet again hampered by recent war situations.

By the Spear. Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Rise and Fall of the Macedonian Empire by Ian Worthington

In this book, By the Spear, Ian Worthington (ISBN 978-0-19-992986-3) gives an excellent concise narration of the career and power of Philip II of Macedonia and his famous son, Alexander the Great. It may be a good way to get acquainted with the conquests and accomplishments of both rulers, but then it tells the story in a nutshell. This, in fact, may discourage anyone from reading it to the end because it is cramped with so many facts and figures.

Sadly, Ian Worthington in this book merely confirms what he previously wrote in much more detail about these two great Macedonian kings in Philip II, King of Macedonia, and in Alexander the Great, Man and God. I was hoping to find more information about these rulers’ effect on Macedonia during their lifetime as well as their legacy after Alexander’s untimely death. Maybe my expectations ran too high, but I fail to see the value of rewriting (even in a summarized form) what has already been said in his two previous books, especially since the last part of the promising title “Rise and Fall of the Macedonian Empire” has not really been developed.

Clearly, the author relied on an immense bibliography, which is listed at the back of his book. This, by itself, is an excellent source of information. The added Timeline is somewhat condensed, and so is the Cast of Principal Characters. The maps at the beginning of the book are, however, excellent.

Laodicea, great works in progress!

Only recently, Laodicea was in the news because a tablet explaining the laws for the city’s water management dating from Roman times was discovered (see: Water laws, still unchanged after nearly two thousand years).

[Picture from Hurriyet Daily News]

It appears that excavations have intensified and that a sacred agora, the only such example in the world, has been exposed and is undergoing serious restoration. This agora, the largest sacred area in Anatolia because of the adjacent temple, collapsed after the severe earthquake of 494 AD and was covered under a layer of up to seven meters of rubble. It is leaning against a 100-meter-long and eleven-meter-high back wall that is covered with paintings. Over its entire length ran a Stoa and the columns – some 34 of them - that once held the roof are now being reassembled.

At the same time, work has progressed in reviving the Hellenistic theater planning to make it accessible again in two years time. The lower tiers of seats have been preserved but the upper tiers survived only partially. Most of the restoration apparently seems to be needed around the skene, which in the 5^th century became part of the city wall.

Archaeologists are still sorting through the reliefs, sculptures, vessels, and jewels found on the site, generally transferred to the local museum.

Laodicea, which is located only ten kilometers from Hierapolis (next to Pamukkale) was founded by Antiochus II Theos of Syria and named after his first wife, Laodike. This Seleucid king is the one who is mentioned on one of the Ashoka pillars as Amtiyoko, king of Greater Syria and Bactria (see: When pillars with unknown writing were discovered in India).

In 188 BC, the city was ruled by the kings of Pergamon until it fell to the Romans in 133 BC. At this point and because of its strategic position, Laodicea flourished thanks to the intensive trade in black wool.

[Picture from Wikipedia]

As mentioned before, there is far more to discover at Laodicea besides the Agora and the Theatre. The list contains buildings like baths, several temples, another theater, and a Bouleuterion.  The Stadion is in good condition and still contains the original seating on both sides, taking advantage of the narrow valley in which it has been built. At its western end are the remains of an underground passage used by chariots and horses to access the arena. Many streets were lined with columns and pedestals and there are even traces of a city gate, the Ephesos Gate. North of the city, closer to the adjacent Lycos River, the necropolis has been discovered with many sarcophagi whose lids have been removed in antiquity by tomb raiders.

Quite exceptional, however, is the aqueduct of Laodicea since it is very similar to the one found at Aspendos (see: Aspendos, the unfaithful). In both cases, an inverted siphon carried the water from the summit of a low hill down the valley all the way up to the header tank at the edge of the city. This certainly is great news, as until now Aspendos claimed the monopoly for this kind of Roman architecture. 

The Legacy of Ancient Palmyra

The Getty Research Institute in Malibu, California, has put together an online exhibition about Palmyra with drawings made by the 18th-century architect Louis-Francois Cassas and the 19th-century photographer Louis Vignes.

Colonnade Street with Temple of Bel in background, Georges Malbeste and Robert Daudet after Louis-François Cassas. Etching. Plate mark: 16.9 x 36.6 in. (43 x 93 cm). FromVoyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phoénicie, de la Palestine, et de la Basse Egypte (Paris, ca. 1799), vol. 1, pl. 58. The Getty Research Institute, 840011 

The Legacy of Palmyra gives a highly interesting look of what Palmyra looked like before it was so carefully and lovingly restored by archaeologists in the 20th and 21st centuries but was ultimately so savagely destroyed in the past decade.

It is a true ode to this once so grand and important city.