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.