Kayseri and its hidden Hippodrome

Kayseri was called Caesarea. To be named after Caesar, in this case Emperor Tiberius, who reigned from 14 AD to 37 AD, underscores its importance. 

The city was founded around 2000 BC as a trading post for the Hittites and the Assyrians. In Hellenistic times, it was known as Mazaka, and changed name again into Eusebia under Cappadocian rule. 

[Picture from Arkeonews]

The Hippodrome, however, is attributed to the Romans and was probably built in the 1^st century BC or early 1^st century AD. It has not been excavated yet, as it lies underneath the local market, which in turn sits on an ancient landfill that was heavily used from 1950 until 1980. Ten thousand tons of debris were deposited, creating a layer nearly 20 meters thick. It remained hidden until its contours appeared in a 19^th-century drawing, where it was labeled a Circus. 

The Roman Hippodrome is one of the three known examples found in Anatolia, i.e., in Ephesos and Pergamon. This structure is about 450 meters long, and its outlines with the curved ends remain intact. 

In late antiquity, Caesarea was an important city that may have counted 50,000 inhabitants. It sat on the main trade routes connecting to the Persian Royal Road and linking Sinope to the Euphrates.

There are no plans yet to start the excavation of the Hippodrome, partly because of the local open-air market that is still held there, partly because of the tons of debris that need to be removed. In the meantime, the site is registered as a protected area and will be monitored with geophysical equipment to gather as much information as possible. 

The tomb of Alexander the Great

The tales about the tomb of Alexander are countless, varying from pure myth and wishful thinking to serious studies and well-documented analysis. 

In August 2021, I posted a summary of what was known so far: Endless fuss over the tomb of Alexander the Great. Here, I included the name of Greek archaeologist Liana Souvaltzi, who assumed that the king’s mummy was transferred to Siwah as Ptolemy fulfilled Alexander’s wish. In her theory, she ignored the recorded visits of the Roman emperors to Alexander's tomb in Alexandria. 

Liana Souvaltzi started excavating the Temple of Amon-Ra in Siwah in 1989, but in 1995, the Greek and Egyptian governments suddenly blocked her permit without explanation. 

[Reconstruction of what the monument in the Siwa Oasis would have once looked like. Credit: Liana Souvaltzi]

In my mind, her story was one of many, like the one I posted in October 2024:  Another pertinent theory about Alexander’s Tomb that was another dead-end road.

It now transpires that I missed Liana Souvaltzi's plea published in December 2014, also in Ancient Origins, upon their invitation. The full story can be read in this article. I'm quoting a few of the key arguments hereafter, in italics.

The archaeological site is 15 kilometers west of the Ammon Temple, which is in the town of Siwa. The area where the tomb is located is named El Maraki. The tomb complex covers an enormous area of 12,000 square meters, of which 5,000 square meters were excavated.

From the size of the tomb itself, which is 51m long and has an outer width of 10.25m, it is obvious that it could only have been destined for use as a burial monument for the worship of a very important person, such as a king. The tomb sits on a rock, underneath which lies an enormous gold mine, the first found in the western desert. It consists of an entrance, corridor, and three chambers.

It is a good argumentation and certainly raises questions about the presence of Greek architectural elements in Siwah and the size/purpose of the monument. A link with Alexander is not impossible. However, although the monument she defined as a tomb was colossal, it contained no actual tomb or sarcophagus to prove Alexander's presence. 

[Cleaning up the corridor leading to the tomb. Credit: Liana Souvaltzi]

There were, however, three inscriptions referring to Alexander:

Finally, we found three different honorary inscriptions written in Greek uppercase letters. The first inscription could be dated from its text to between 290 and 284 BC. The first line of the inscription bore the name ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΑΜΜΩΝΟΣ ΡΑ (ALEXANDER AMMON RA).

The second inscription can be dated between 108 and 115 BC and is an honorary inscription and was placed by the Emperor Traianus in honour of Alexander, whom he admired and respected as a god.

The third inscription is a fragment which indicates the number of the inhabitants of the oasis and the army, which was a part of the military forces assigned to guard the royal tomb of Alexander the Great.

The discovery of these inscriptions and their meanings was announced in the course of the Italian – Egyptian Congress in Rome on 15 November 1995.

In line with the earlier and later theories that circulate on the tomb of Alexander and its whereabouts, there is the thorough destruction of this Siwah Tomb. The floors, walls, corridors, and decorative elements have been destroyed and turned into a flooded garbage dump. 

Whatever promising tracks scholars and archaeologists investigate to find the last resting place of this great conqueror, they are stopped in their efforts at one point or another. Poor Alexander! He deserves so much more attention, care, and respect.

Roman glassware, as good as new

I have always been fascinated by Roman glassware in all its shapes, forms, and colors (see: The beauty of ancient glassware). 

Yet, I never came across glassware that survived in such pristine condition as that retrieved from the Cape Corse shipwreck in 2023. It lies on a Roman commercial route connecting Luna (modern Luni, Italy) to Massalia (modern Marseille), between Cape Corse in Corsica and the island of Capraia in Italy. It is the second known find with a cargo of almost exclusively glass, either in its raw state as blocks of various sizes or in the finished product of blown glass tableware. 

[Picture from Soprintendenza Nazionale per il Patrimonio Culturale Subacqueo]

The ship sank around 100 AD, and although it was discovered in 2013, we had to wait ten years for an international team of researchers to explore the wreck with two underwater drones. This modern equipment allowed them to retrieve the major part of its precious cargo using a very delicate claw system. 

A few thousand glass artifacts have been recovered, including drinking glasses, bottles, plates, cups, small bowls, and an ointment jar; also two bronze basins and several amphorae of different type such as oriental, the Beirut type, and four Gallic vessels. Combined with the raw glass, this find led the archaeologists to believe that the ship must have originated from a port in the Middle East, possibly Lebanon or Syria, and was headed towards the coast of Provence in Southern France. 

The Syrians were probably the first to have mastered the art of glass blowing as early as the 1^st century BC. Craftsmen from Sidon, Aleppo, Hama, and Palmyra developed the technique of using a blowpipe to shape molten glass, which allowed them to create objects faster than from cast glass. As a result, Syria became one of the most important glass production centers in the world, before, during, and after the Roman Empire. 

The main trade route started in Antioch (modern Antakya in Turkey) to supply the markets of Alexandria, Byzantium, and Rome, which, in turn, had steady connections with Massalia.

The question remains, how these thousands of glass objects were still undamaged and survived in such good conditions after resting at the bottom of the Mediterranean for two thousand years.