Kastabala, Hellenistic Hierapolis

It happens quite frequently that two or more cities go by the same name. That can be very tricky if we don’t pay attention. 

I actually stopped in my tracks when I saw a picture of the ancient city of Hierapolis built at the foot of a 35-meter-high hill crowned with a medieval tower. Hierapolis, as I know it, stands next to the famous Pamukkale hot springs, roughly 140 kilometers east of Aydin. Clearly, these are two different sites. 

[Picture from Turkisch Archaeological News]

In my earlier blog, Hierapolis, stepchild of Pamukkale, I developed the fascinating remains of Hierapolis/Pamukkale. The other city was known originally as Kastabala and changed its name to Hierapolis or Hieropolis in Hellenistic times. It lies much further to the East in Cilicia, on the Ceyhan River, halfway between Adana and Gaziantep. Alexander crossed the Ceyhan River after his illness in Tarsus on his way to Issus. 

As a matter of convenience, I’ll call this eastern city Hieropolis to avoid confusion. It was famous for its sanctuary of Artemis Perasia, where priestesses allegedly walked barefoot over hot coals during their rituals. The origins of Kastabala, however, go back some 2,700 years, and thus must have existed in Alexander’s time. 

Archaeological excavations in Hieropolis started in 2009 and so far have exposed mainly Roman remains of city walls, a 200-meter-long and 11-meter-wide colonnaded street, an Agora, public baths, temples, and a theater. This theater has been dated to the 1^st century AD and could seat 5,000 people. As so often, it would be the place for citizens’ debate and intellectual exchange. The Acropolis of Greek Kastabala is probably hidden underneath the medieval castle. 

[Picture from ZME Science]

This year, 2025, five fine theatrical masks were unearthed, among which one represents an elderly philosopher. In all, 36 masks have been retrieved. They typically blend Eastern and Western elements and will eventually contribute to restoring the theater stage to its former glory. 

Given the cultural heritage of the site, it makes sense that the reliefs — some depicting tragic heroes, others comic performers — embody a place where Greek drama, Roman architecture, and Anatolian myth intertwined. 

The Seikilos Epitaph, continued

The text and music of the Seikilos Epitaph were found on a column-shaped stone in Aydin, western Turkey, and date from 200 BC/100 AD. This column can now be admired at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.

It so happens that a copy of this artifact was created for the temporary exhibition Horses and their Riders, which was organized in 2012 at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. That’s where it caught my attention.

In my blog about this unique relic, Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph, I discussed these rare inscriptions and inserted a YouTube “re-edited” version of this song. This piece truly deserves our full attention, for it is the only complete music piece ever discovered.

The Seikilos Epitaph remains popular, and just recently, I was redirected to another YouTube version from 2014, where the music is played on a harp.

Other modern renditions of this music have been discussed at large in my blog, Reconstructing Ancient Greek music, an impossible task?

Excavation results from Magnesia-on-the-Meander

Magnesia-on-the Meander is one of the lesser-known archaeological sites in western Turkey. The Germans were the first to resurrect the site from its ashes, so to speak, at the end of the 19^th century. During those years, they managed to expose Magnesia’s theater and agora, the Temple of Artemis and the Temple of Zeus, and several other buildings. Excavations were resumed only in 1984 and again this year.

[Picture from Archaeology News Network. Credit: AA]

This time, six statues were recovered from the ruins of the Temple of Artemis, four female and one male, as the sixth one’s gender cannot be established. They were all found face-down in good condition. They will join ranks with fifty or so previously found statues that are now scattered over museums in Izmir and Aydin. The Archaeological Museum of Istanbul will get the best examples, as always, joining the existing collection of statues from the Temple of Artemis. The museum’s collection already possesses magnificent friezes from said temple and boasts an excellent scale reconstruction. Also exhibited there is a marble letter written by Darius I to the satrap of Asia Minor between 492 and 485 BC.

It is expected that future excavations will reveal more statues from this particular area.

Let’s not forget that Magnesia was one of the two dozen mints that were allowed to strike coins for Alexander the Great during his lifetime!

Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph

During my recent visit to the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam for their exhibition about Horses and their Riders, I was quite surprised to see a piece of a column engraved with Greek letters and, in between the lines, some strange characters that were labeled as musical notes. I thought nothing was known about ancient Greek music, let alone their inscription in stone!

                             

From the explanatory label, I learned that this column, actually a copy of the original now in Copenhagen, was discovered in 1883 near Aydin in Turkey. It was called the Seikilos Epitaph, dating variously from 200 BC to 100 AD, making it the oldest surviving example of musical composition in the world. Well, how do you like that!

The stone had a life of its own after its discovery. It had been entrusted to the museum of Smyrna, as Izmir was called then, until the city was destroyed during the Graeco-Turkish War (1919-1922) and was lost. At some later time, it was found in a Turkish garden where it served as support for a flower pot. To make it fit his needs, the Turkish owner had ground down the bottom part, erasing the last line of the epitaph. Eventually, it made its way to the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.

The ancient Greek text on this tombstone reads "Εἰκὼν ἡ λίθος εἰμί.Τίθησί με Σείκιλος ἔνθα μνήμης ἀθανάτου σῆμα πολυχρόνιον" meaning “I am a tombstone, an image. Seikilos placed me here as an everlasting sign of deathless remembrance”.

I find it extremely exciting to read such a personal message enhanced with its own music. It seems that as early as the 4th or 3rd century BC, Greek professional composers and choir leaders had developed a musical system. Texts of theater plays, however, were often copied without music as the singers would learn the tunes by listening to them rather than reading the very notes. In any case, this means that this epitaph showing the lyrics together with the music is a very unique piece.

Ὅσον ζῇς, φαίνου,

While you live, shine,

μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ•

have no grief at all;

πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν,

life exists only for a short while,

τὸ τέλος ὁ xρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.

and time demands its toll.

The last two words on the column read Σείκιλος Εὐτέρ[πῃ], Seikilos Euter[pei], which means “(from) Seikilos to Euterpe”, whereby Seikilos dedicated this song to Euterpe who was probably his wife. Amazingl,y the song has been “re-edited” and can now be heard on this YouTube video.

Digging a little further into this fascinating subject, I learn that older Greek music notations do exist (for instance, the Delphic Hymns), but all that remains are fragments. The Seikilos Epitaph is the only full song we have. However, some bits and pieces reached us on cuneiform tablets going back as far as 2,000 BC, and also extracts of Chinese court music from the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD), which is supposed to be the exact copy of the melodies performed during the preceding 16 centuries – yet none can be proved.

During the last exhibition on Alexander the Great in Paris, the Louvre organized an evening of ancient Greek music. Annie Bélis, a member of the French School in Athens, spent many years reconstructing ancient musical instruments and researching papyri and inscriptions for musical notation. I must admit I was rather sceptical at first, as the French like to show off, but there seems to be true value to her study.

This leaves me with an entirely new field to be investigated.