When I wrote my
blog about Termessos
(see: Alexander
avoided the siege of Termessos)
a few years ago, I repeatedly mentioned how little of the city had been cleared
and excavated – be it to my greatest pleasure.
Understandably,
there comes a time when some restorations and/or reconstructions are in order
and the first choice fell on Termessos' 2,300-year-old city walls. It is a rather
clear-cut project since almost 3,000 stone blocks are readily available. They have
all been scanned and numbered in order to reconstruct one-third of the original
one-thousand-meter-long wall. Modern cranes are now handling blocks that weigh as much as two and a half tons. It makes you wonder how the ancient
Greeks managed to move and put these heavy stones into place. The restoration
also includes four towers inside the wall. When this stretch of the wall is
completed, it will stand at a height of six meters.
More excavation
work has been initiated at Termessos
and part of the ancient road leading from the ancient city to Attaleia
(modern Antalya
As mentioned in
my earlier blog, there are many skeleton remains of Hellenistic and Roman
buildings like the temples of Zeus and Artemis, the so-called Corinthian
temple, the Heroon for an unknown hero, the Agora with its underground
cisterns, the Roman Bouleuterion, the initially Greek theater that was later
remodeled to meet Roman needs, the Roman Baths and Gymnasium, several fountains
or Nymphaeums, and most striking of all, the impressive Tomb
of Alcetas.
It is clear that
Termessos
has a lot to tell since it was only abandoned in the 5th century AD after
nearly one thousand years of existence.
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