The ancient city of Phaselis is sinking

It is a well-known phenomenon that the southern coast of Turkey is sinking and this can easily be seen off the coast of Andriake where tourists take tours in boats with a glass bottom to visit the remains of the sunken city of nearby Kekova. This is due to the fact the African platonic plate is pushing against and sliding over the Asian plate.

In antiquity, Phaselis was a privileged anchoring place since sailors could profit from the sheltered Southern Harbor which is generally used by today’s tourists, or the Northern Harbor which was and is accessible under all weather conditions, either by southwesterly and northeasterly winds. The Naval Harbor, in turn, was located deep inside the Northern Harbor and clearly extremely well protected. The harbor slowly silted up (see also: Phaselis and its three harbors).

Thanks to recent studies, geologists now have determined that ancient Phaselis has sunken almost two meters under today's sea level over the past 2,000 years. This is best seen at the entrance of the Northern Harbor where two islets near the entrance are all that remains of the pier that once connected the lighthouse at its far end to the mainland.

Turkey's southern coastline is slowly submerging with averages between three and nine centimeters each year. Once you know what to look for, you can easily find many examples of sunken houses and sarcophagi all along the Mediterranean from Caunos to Patara, to Simena and Side, including Phaselis.

The movement of the tectonic plates generates earthquakes which have hit the areas of Lycia and Pamphylia since antiquity. Especially catastrophic was the earthquake of 141 AD (well-documented because Opramoas of Rhodiapolis donated large sums for the reconstruction of more than thirty Lycian cities between Telmessus in the west and Phaselis in the east) and the one that occurred on the 5^th of August 240 AD when the same cities were destroyed once again.

This means that Phaselis is only one such example, but the phenomenon is worth noticing when walking among the beautiful remains of these once so proud and prosperous cities!

Porus vs. Alexander, the Indian Way

There have been serious discussions on Facebook and other media about the new Porus TV serial presenting history from the Indian point of view. This is a far cry from our Western view of Alexander’s campaign in that part of the world and most probably will come as a shock to us. Besides, a TV series of 260 episodes is far beyond our pace and concept of things.

But then, it may be worth watching at least some of these episodes which are set in grand Bollywood style as after all they may not be too far away from what Alexander found when he arrived in India and met Porus and the other opulent rulers in India. If this kind of pomp and opulence may seem exaggerated to our eyes, just imagine the effect it had on Alexander. It is so much beyond our vision of the world, even today and we easily tend to forget the impact this must have had on Alexander and his Macedonians. It is something to think about when watching this series. The teaser is an excellent introduction to the feel of the setting:

 

It is obvious that the Indian producers are not following Greek historians literally but the main storyline of Alexander winning the Battle of the Hydaspes over Porus is respected. Also, Philip and Olympias are easily recognizable and the Macedonian part – as opposed to India's flamboyant colors and opulent glitter - is tuned down to single-colored clothes and set in classical decors. The actor playing the role of Alexander has been chosen with light eyes and his hair has been discolored to match the picture we generally have of the Macedonian King (although his body language is not).

Little of Porus’ exploits have been recorded in Indian history, meaning that there is little information to go by. As a result, the Indian film producers let their imagination flow freely and did not shy away from creating a pretty extravagant setting in which they feel very comfortable, no doubt. The Alexander part, on the other hand, follows a pretty faithful storyline.

So let’s brush aside our prejudices and look at history from a different angle altogether. This is the first episode:

 

All following episodes can be watched on this link of Sony Liv.

The story of a Thracian Chariot

Speaking of chariots, our thoughts automatically go to Egyptian, Assyrian, Scythian, Greek and Roman examples but hardly any Thracian. The picture of one such Thracian chariot including the skeleton of two horses was a recent top hit on Reddit.

[Picture from Live Science. Credit: UBB/Veselin Ignatov]

Thracia was Macedonia’s northern neighbor and roughly covers today’s Bulgaria, Eastern Greece and western (European) Turkey. The Thracians were fierce fighters and it took King Philip, Alexander’s father, several battles to finally subdue them. When Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Asia, a contingent from Thracia was among his troops.

In today’s Bulgaria, a tomb of a Thracian nobleman was discovered in 2009. His brick tomb also contained a chariot and the man in armor was buried with precious gifts of gold rings and coins, together with a silver cup depicting a Greek inspired Eros. Typically, this kind of burial was popular 2,500 years ago and continued far into Roman times. To the Thracians, chariots meant prestige, power and authority and they evidently wanted to carry these values with them into the afterlife.

The splendid chariot and its horses seen on the photograph were discovered in 2008. The wooden chariot was covered in bronze but unfortunately the decoration scenes from Thracian mythology are difficult to make out. It is estimated to be 1,800 years old.

The dead horses were not part of the animal sacrifices that accompanied such a burial but pigs, sheep and deer were. It is assumed that the horses pulled the chariot into place and were killed on the spot before being buried together will their owner and all the rich burial goods.

Such tombs are very much sought after by looters who get good prices for the precious sacrificial gifts on the black market. In our present case, luckily, the tomb was excavated before the looters got there and the finds will go to the museum for all to enjoy.

An Alexandria in Kurdistan - Iraq?

Two and a half thousand years after his death, the name of Alexander is still making good PR. As soon as some ruins or artifacts are being found somewhere near the presumed route the conqueror took during his campaign through Asia, there is a rush to connect them to Alexander. Maybe wrongly, maybe rightfully so – time will tell.

The lakeside site was discovered by a team of Iraqi and 

British archaeologists led by experts from the British Museum - From Phys.org.

The spot this time is situated in northern Iraq, actually in the Kurdish region near the city of Qalatga Darband which according to some daring researchers could be a city founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. Qalatga Darband is located a good one hundred kilometers east of the battlefield of Gaugamela, meaning that the assumption is not entirely improbable. Other theories link the site to the late Hellenistic era or even to the transition period from Hellenism to Parthian rule. The very name translates into Kurdish as “Castle of the Mountain Pass”, a strategic location where the Little  Zab River cuts through the mountain range to empty eventually into the Tigris River.

Qalatga Darband was discovered in 1973, but excavations in this troubled region started  first by the French in 2013 followed by the British in 2016 who used the terrain to train Iraqi archaeologists. Unfortunately the latest unrest after the Kurdish referendum for independence has forced the last foreign experts to leave.

The once so proud archaeological tradition in Iraq is in a very poor state after the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War and more recently the invasion of IS. Many sites have been looted or simply bulldozed, meaning that history has been obliterated altogether. Others remain inaccessible and based on aerial and satellite surveys there are still many more to be explored. But the days of excavations by foreign nations are no longer acceptable and the Iraqis will have to do it themselves – hence the training mission of the British Museum that is set to run until 2020.

In the meantime, the discovery of two statues at Qalatga Darband seem to indicate that the site was once a thriving hub on the route from Greece to Mesopotamia and Persia – possibly linking it to Alexander because one of the unearthed statues could be his portrait (a second statue looks like Aphrodite). Of course, it will take far more research and excavations in order to confirm the link with Alexander as there are many gaps in the facts and figures that came to us.

The grass-grown walls of Qalatga Darband, running down to Lake Dokan. 

The fortifications defended the western border of the young Parthian Empire. In the foreground is one of the square towers under excavation. 

Photograph: Mary Shepperson/by permission of The British Museum - From The Guardian

The Kurdish region seems to be rich in archaeological sites as satellite images have found some 354 sites! One of the images taken near Qalatga Darband  and shared in the article from The Guardian shows an overgrown fortification wall interrupted every twenty meters or so by a square projecting tower – a very tempting project!

In the end, I’m afraid that Qalatga Darband is not high on the list of researchers and archaeologists as bigger names from history will claim priority once the staff is properly trained. After all, Iraq is home to rich historical sites like Nimrud, Ctesiphon, Nineveh, Ur, Uruk, Babylon, Borsippa, Hatra, and Seleucia-on-the-Tigris to name just a handful.

What about sundials in antiquity?

Until recently, I associated sundials with castles and palaces for the rich in the 16^th and 17^th centuries and it never occurred to me that they already existed in antiquity. Meanwhile, I learned that they were known in Egypt around 1500 BC and after that in Babylon!

My first encounter with an antique sundial happened when I visited the site of Cnidos in southwestern Turkey. Here, I found such a sundial from Hellenistic times still in place. This was a most thrilling experience. Imagine standing in front of a time-telling mechanism that is more than 2,500 years old! It was missing the gnomon, the metal needle that is supposed to project its shadow onto the concave dial surface but some creative visitor had inserted a thin twig instead to reproduce the very principle. This type of dial is known as spherical or hemicyclium.

My next encounter with a sundial happened at the exhibition about Carthage that was organized in Leiden (Netherlands) in 2015. This sundial was made especially for the city of Carthage after 8 AD when the month of sextilis was renamed August in honor of Emperor Augustus. This example is, however, of an entirely different kind called scaphe or bowl sundial. The bowl is resting on its side and the sun is shining through a hole in the bowl’s top side highlighting one of the eleven timelines drawn on the inner side of the opposite part of the bowl. The fan of eleven lines marks the twelve hours of the Roman day, which were longer in summer than in winter.

After all, it seems that sundials are not entirely uncommon to the Greeks who saw them as an object of prestige mainly for public use. They were remarkably precise and very accurate, particularly those found on the island of Delos. The Romans seem to have merely copied the Greek models and used them in private life. They cared more for the philosophical attributes rather than for reading the time and they used the dial’s inscriptions and iconography as symbols.

These days, an intact and inscribed sundial has been discovered at the edge of the theater in Interamna Lirenas, near Monte Cassino, in Italy. This was not its original place as researchers believe that it was left behind by people who looted the area in search of building materials.

[Picture from Archaeology News Network, Credit: Alessandro Launaro]

The lettering and the style of the inscription indicate that the sundial dates from the mid-first century BC or later, in any case at a time when the city of Interamna had acquired Roman citizenship.

The Latin text tells us that the piece was commissioned by a certain M(arcus) NOVIUS M(arci) F(ilius) TUBULA [Marcus Novius Tubula, son of Marcus], who held the office of TR(ibunus) PL(ebis) [Plebeian Tribune] and paid for the sundial D(e) S(ua) PEC(unia) (with his own money). The otherwise unknown Marcus Novius Tubula may have used the sundial to celebrate his election as a Plebeian Tribune of Rome.

The Interamna sundial very closely resembles the Hellenistic one from Cnidos, which confirms that the Romans did not add much if anything to the existing Greek examples.

To protect and preserve archaeological sites in Turkey

Recent articles published in the Hurriyet Daily News clearly underscore the problems Turkey’s archaeological sites are facing. The reasons for this concern are many, generally political ones, but the result is that in the end these antique sites do not receive the care and attention they deserve.

The most recent target is the beautiful city of Ephesus in western Turkey where serious plans exist to build a more than six kilometres long canal that will connect the ancient harbour which has silted up over the centuries with the sea. A 600-meter-long channel will allow yachts to access their anchor space near the entrance and a bridge will connect both banks enabling pedestrians and cars to cross. The price to pay (moneywise) for the first phase of the 30-meter wide access channel is 30 million Turkish Liras, money that does not add anything to the beauty or the archaeological value of Ephesus. The canal will have a concrete foundation and the mud from the present swampy area will be dredged up to a depth of four meters. Construction is planned to start early 2018 and should be completed one year later – a very daring statement!

The Hurriyet Daily News luckily warns for the ensuing damage both to the environment and to the precious remains of ancient Ephesus. Each spring, water levels are already rising in front of the Vedius Gymnasium which makes one wonder about the consequences of opening the waterfront even more. Besides, the alluvium accumulated over the past 2,500 years holds the remains of many “sunken” ships as well as Ephesus’ necropolis. Will they be rescued in the process? If so, this means more work and higher costs that may not fit within the one year time-frame for this invasive construction.

Let’s not forget that Ephesus is on the UNESCO World Heritage List and over the past 120 years excavations were carried out by the Austrians who also made preliminary research in the area that is now under threat. However, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry has stopped the Austrian team on 31 August 2016 (that is last year), i.e. before the end of the normal excavation season. Their decision is based on Austria’s attitude towards the AKP government in Turkey. This means that people with in-depth knowledge of the place are pushed aside.

The ancient city of Ephesus covers a huge surface that has not yet been explored or excavated, while those parts that have been unearthed and carefully restored definitely require maintenance. Who is going to do the job with the Austrians gone? And should this not have priority over the construction of a harbour and even an airfield!

Yes, to make things worse, the plans to build an airport for “small” planes has been revived as well! The vibrations of the planes taking off and landing nearby have destabilized buildings in the ancient city and the project was stopped in 2013. After an internal squabble, work was, however, restarted and at present the taxiway, the runway and the connecting roads have been completed.

The Turkish government wants to attract more foreign tourists to Ephesus (and to other places as well). Today, the number of the visitors that come to Ephesus is only one quarter of that reached in 2011 but those numbers cannot be compensated by those expecting to arrive by boat or small planes as their budget is of a different order. Besides, access of foreign visitors by air and water will require larger infrastructures for customs, cars (parking) and buses (to transfer them to Ephesus), which in turn will lead to air and water pollution that will damage the fragile stones of this ancient city.

Unfortunately, Ephesus is not the only city under threat. There is, for instance, the case of Hattusha, the capital of the Hittite Empire in Central Anatolia which is also on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Members of the German Institute of Archaeology have been excavating the area since 1906 but due to the diplomatic tensions between their government and Turkey, their permit was withdrawn last year and the site is no longer maintained. The Germans contributed to the local economy in the region as they spent up to 900,000 TRY during their yearly stay and provided a job to a workforce of at least 60-70 people.

This has very serious consequences for the Hittite restoration project, a 65 meters long stretch of the 6.5 kilometre-long city walls. The Hittite style was reproduced carefully by building adobe bricks on top of the stone foundation. The archaeologists took pride in implementing the same procedure as the Hittites to make the 64,000 adobe bricks as they mixed 2,400 tons of adobe soil, using 100 tons of straw and 1,500 tons of water. The reconstruction of this seven-meter-high wall was started in 2013 but had to be stopped three years later. Without proper yearly maintenance, the wall is now crumbling down due to the erosion of rain, sun and snow.

The number of visitors cannot be compared to the figures of Ephesus for the obvious reason that Central Anatolia is far away from the tourists’ centres along the Aegean and Mediterranean Sea, but even so, only 2,000 tourists walked over this great site last year as opposed to the usual 25,000.

Another dramatic situation is unfolding in Perge, one of the most frequently visited sites by the tourists that used to flock into the Antalya area. The figures quoted by The Hurriyet Daily News say it all: 190,000 visitors in 2014, 112,390 in 2015 and only 60,000 in 2016. Here too, it is the local people who have invested in their souvenir shops and snacks/cafeterias who are suffering the most.

There certainly are many, many more such examples, unfortunately. For the past decennium foreign archaeologists and researchers have been kept away in favour of Turkish scholars. This looks like a nice way to put the native scholars at work but it is a loss of long-term foreign expertise and certainly not a good money deal. In 2016, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism spent 28 million Turkish Liras on a total of 560 excavation sites, meaning that the average budget for each site was 50,000 TRY. Remember that the Austrians spent 700,000 TRY in Ephesus and the Germans 900,000 TRY in Hattusha each year.

To make things worse and probably in the wake of the arrest of an employee from the American Consulate in Istanbul with alleged links to the Gülen movement, Washington announced it was suspending the processing of all visas in Turkey. The response from Ankara followed almost immediately and it stopped issuing visas in its embassy and consulate in the US. Well, the number of American visitors had already fallen drastically to 37,000 in 2016, whereas the year before there still were over the 88,000 visitors (read this article in Fortune for more details). *

The Guardian meanwhile has figured out that the Turkish tourism sector has encountered devastating losses. The Association of Turkish Travel Agencies has estimated that this year’s loss might be between GBP 2bn and GBP 2.5bn. They give the example of Antalya, a city whose economy relies mainly on the revenue from tourism and where visitors have dropped by over 50% in the first eight months of 2017. Even Russian visitors have decreased by 95% and although Turkey’s ties with Moscow have been mended its citizens have not yet returned en-masse.

Not much light at the end of the tunnel, it seems. The Hurriyet Daily News is drawing some cynic conclusions of this tasteless situation, reminding us that 27 million TRY were spent on the restoration of one mosque, the Abdulhamid II’s Hamidiye Mosque in Istanbul to be compared with 28 million TRY spread over 560 excavation sites!

* Update: As of 28 December 2017, the United States and Turkey have lifted the mutual restrictions on issuing visas for each other's citizens. Normal service has resumed and American citizens can once again go to Turkey.

Temple of Artemis lost and found in Euboea

Well, a temple never is totally lost, of course, we just have to find its exact location after some two thousand years. This was the case for the Temple of Artemis Amarynthia in Eritrea on the island of Euboea.

In antiquity, this open-air sanctuary was the end point of the yearly procession that was held in honour of Artemis, the goddess of hunting in Greek mythology. Her additive name of Amarynthia comes from a local man who was totally besotted by the charms of this goddess.

It turns out that the site of the Temple of Artemis is about ten kilometres away from the place where archaeologists had been looking for it. They have now found parts of an imposing wall from the classical era, which is believed to belong to a Stoa next to the temple.  More artifacts like vases have been recovered and among them was a shard with the inscription connecting the location directly to this temple.