A painted Graeco-Persian Sarcophagus

The existence of a Graeco-Persian sarcophagus seems quite unique. In any case, it is the first time I come across such an example. The find is not new and dates from 1998 when the grave was discovered inside a circular vaulted tomb in Çan, halfway between Troy and Dascylium in northwest Turkey. 

[Picture of hunting scene by Dan Diffendale from Wikipedia]

The sarcophagus fits tightly inside the chamber that has a diameter of 3.70 meters. It could be dated between 400 and 375 BC and attributed to an Anatolian dynast from Hellespontine Phrygia that belonged to Persia. 

Let us not forget that Asia Minor had been very much involved in the Graeco-Persian Wars that raged between the Achaemenid Empire and several Greek city-states from 499 to 449 BC. From then onwards, the Persians put trusted satraps at the head of these western provinces in order to rule in their name. This structure was still in place when Alexander the Great arrived in 334 BC and conquered Dascylium, the capital of Hellespontine Phrygia (see: Heading for Dascylium and Sardes). 

The alternating occupation of Hellespontine Phrygia by Persians and Greeks has obviously influenced local customs as well as the arts, as illustrated in the present tomb. 

The marble sarcophagus was damaged by illegal diggers who used a bulldozer to gain access to the tomb. Amazingly, most of the paint on the reliefs on the sarcophagus has survived. A wide range of colors have been identified: red, purple, ochre, blue, and green; also some black that was often mixed with red for shading. 

The reliefs have a lot to tell. The longest side is decorated with two hunting scenes separated by a leafless tree. To the left, we see a stag hunt on a blue background, and to the right a boar hunting scene on a green background suggesting a forest. The hunter wears pants, a long-sleeved red tunic, and a light ochre sleeved cloak. His chest is covered with a leather ochre-colored breastplate. The saddle blanket is also ochre with a thick red border. 

[Picture of combat scene by Dan Diffendale from Wikipedia]

The short side of the sarcophagus represents a battle scene with a warrior on horseback defined as an Anatolian dynast spearing a Greek soldier. As suggested by his armory the victim belongs to the light infantry. The cavalryman is accompanied by his henchman, probably a Greek mercenary in his service. Here, the rider wears pants, a long-sleeved pink tunic under his red cuirass with large shoulder pieces. His red helmet is probably made of leather. His cuirass has two rows of pteryges (a defensive skirt of leather strips attached to the waists to protect the hips and thighs). The upper row is white, and the lower row shows alternating red and white strips. The other two sides of the sarcophagus were not decorated. 

No Lycian tomb displays this type of armor and no other example of this kind of relief is known in Asia Minor. 

Further research has revealed that this iconography was customary in the Near East and Asia Minor in particular at that time. The owner of the tomb could very well be Pharnabazus, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, who fought against the Greeks on several occasions. Best-known is his battle against Agesilaos who attacked Hellespontine Phrygia in 395 BC. 

Based on the bones found inside the sarcophagus, archaeologists could determine that the body belonged to a strongly built man about 170-175 cm tall, who died when he was 25-28 years old. He probably fell from his horse during combat and broke many limbs. He survived the accident for several years although he was seriously crippled and in much pain, as the bones did not align properly. 

This rare sarcophagus is exhibited in the new Museum of Troy.

The Carian language

What a surprise, there was a Carian language! 

So far, I have encountered inscriptions in the Lycian language and in Pamphylian, and even a rare bit in the language of Side but until now, Carian has eluded me. 

A chance revelation came from the Turkish site of Zero Books advertising for this new book “Kaunos Kbid 1966-2021” by Baki Öğün, Cengiz Işık (ISBN-ISSN: 9786256212046).

The front cover displays a very sharp image of a bilingual text from the 4^th century BC, written in Carian and Ancient Greek. A parallel can be made with Lycian which used the Greek alphabet but added extra letters for the sounds that do not exist in Greek. Carian applied the same rule. Useless to say that this bilingual document contributed widely to deciphering the Carian language. 

It is noteworthy that the Carian inscription does not use the Greek city’s name Kaunos or Caunos but Kbid as known by the Carian people. 

The Introduction of the book on Zero Books reads as follows: 

While the numerous inscriptions unearthed at archaeological sites throughout the Eastern Mediterranean help to understand many aspects of the ancient world and its peoples, bilingual ones (Bilingue) are very special and valuable to linguists in deciphering ancient languages and understanding their structures.
The Kaunos Bilingue, written in Carian and Ancient Greek in the 4th century BCE, made a great contribution to the understanding of the Carian language. Although the Carian alphabet superficially resembles the Ancient Greek alphabet, it differs in that some similar-looking letters take on different sounds in the language and there are a few letters specific to Carian. Moreover, the most striking part of this Bilingue, long before the use of Greek name Kaunos, is the use of the original name of the city, KBID, given to their city by the Carians, the indigenous people of Anatolia. 

More information about the unique city of Caunos can be found in my earlier blog post, The surprise of Caunos.

Recent excavations in Myra and Andriake

Any excavation is a long process, and none is ever entirely completed. Future generations deserve their part of the research, and modern technology will allow different approaches and views. This is also the case in Myra (see: Ancient Myra from Finike) and its harbor Andriake (see: Andriake, port of Myra ). 

Last year (2021), work at Myra was concentrated on the orchestra of the theater. It is quite exciting to hear that the excavators have reached the Hellenistic level. We will remember that initially, the theater was Greek and that the Romans adapted it to their taste. Archaeologists dug to a depth of 4 meters, where they unearthed Lycian structures. These obviously antedate Hellenistic times. 

Further excavations in Myra are hampered by the fact that modern Demre is built right on top of the ancient city, and expropriations are a sore subject – here as well as elsewhere. 

In Andriake, on the other side of the main road, archaeologists will pursue their digs in front of the Granary of Hadrian, which has been turned into a museum (see: Andriake’s granary to be turned into a museum and Andriake’s Museum has opened). It has been named The Lycian Civilizations Museum. Besides finds from Myra  and Andriake, it also contains finds from the entire region of Lycia.

The excavations of the main buildings in Andriake are said to be completed. Work will now be concentrated on the north and west of the city.

Highlighting Freya Stark, her life and her oeuvre

Many Alexander-fans and interested travellers are familiar with Freya Stark's extensive literature about the world she discovered and disclosed to her readers all through the 20th century.

I greatly enjoyed and used her book Alexander’s Path, where she explores every single road, pass, river and trail of Lycia to find the best-fitted passage for Alexander to take his army across that mountain backbone. I commented on her book in detail in an earlier blog Alexander’s Path by Freya Stark.

Another chapter of her extensive travel is mentioned on my blog under The Minaret of Djam by Freya Stark.

These two books are only a small sample of her extensive writing. Yet the person of Freya Stark is worth being known more closely.

That is precisely the article's content written by Joshua J.  Mark on World History as he illustrates and underscores Freya Stark's remarkable life. I simply copied his post hereafter, but the original can also be read directly on World History.

 

 Freya Stark

Definition

by Joshua J. Mark
published on 30 June 2021

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Shibam

Will De Freitas (CC BY-NC-ND)

Freya Stark (l. 1893-1993) was an English explorer, writer, and political influencer who chronicled world events, especially in the Near East, throughout the 20th century. Stark both reported on and made the news as her travels, described in her books, made her a celebrity author.

One of Stark's biographers, Jane Fletcher Geniesse, writes, "Freya never lost a rapturous sense that the earth and everything on it were marvelous" (xvii). She was injured as a child and reading became an escape and comfort to her. Stories of faraway places and adventures thrilled her, and she vowed to one day visit the places she read about.

Throughout her life she pursued what she referred to as the "ecstasy of discovery", always looking forward to the next adventure in some new place with new people to meet. She was frequently the first westerner to visit a locale in the Near East and the first to accurately report on the people and their customs. She began traveling in 1912 and was still taking off on journeys in her 80s. Her influence on other travelers and writers, especially women, was profound and continues to be in the present.

Early Life

Freya Stark was born 31 January 1893 in Paris where her English bohemian parents, Robert and Flora, were living while they studied painting. She had a younger sister, Vera, and the two children spent their early years moving about according to their parents' whims. She lived in Devon, England, in a house her father (who may not have been her biological parent) built where she would go to sleep in a bed her mother had painted with images of tall sailing ships but spent much of her childhood between England and Italy.

FREYA TOOK TO READING EARLY, & WHEN SHE WAS NINE, SHE WAS GIVEN A TRANSLATION OF ONE THOUSAND & ONE NIGHTS, WHICH INSTANTLY ENTRANCED HER.

Her parents had an unhappy marriage, which ended when Flora ran off in 1903 with the young Italian Count Mario di Roascio and took the girls with her. She grew up in Dronero, Italy, where her mother and her live-in boyfriend ran a carpet factory. There was little to do in the town, and the girls were given only the most rudimentary education by the nuns who lived nearby. Freya took to reading early, and when she was nine, she was given a translation of One Thousand and One Nights, which instantly entranced her and turned her thoughts to Arabia and all the magical places it seemed to offer.

Shortly before her 13th birthday, while visiting her mother's factory, her hair was caught in a machine, which tore open her scalp and ripped off her right ear. She had to endure painful skin grafts to repair her face and scalp and always thought of herself as disfigured afterwards. She took solace in books and the worlds they opened for her and dreamed of leaving Dronero behind, but she had no resources for travel.

Travels & Languages

Travel was in her blood, however, and she later wrote how "There is a certain madness comes over one at the mere sight of a good map”, but she did not have the means for even a short trip, much less the grand adventures she dreamed of. In 1912 she was allowed by her parents to leave Italy to attend college in London where she concentrated her studies on languages (she would eventually be fluent in English, Italian, French, Arabic, and Persian). When World War I broke out in 1914, she returned home and served with the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) as a nurse on the Italian front caring for the wounded.

After the war, she began making plans to travel to the east. She knew she had to learn Arabic, however, to experience the culture completely. The only man who could teach her the language lived many miles away, but this was no obstacle; twice a week Stark walked an hour to the train, which took her to San Remo, and then walked another two miles to her teacher's home. Before long, she was reading the Quran in Arabic.

The Arabian Nights

K.C. Tang (Public Domain)

She had been given a sum of money by her father which she had turned to a profit through careful investments which generated about 300 pounds a year. Against the advice of her banker, she invested almost all of what she had in an enterprise both her father and the banker considered too risky: the Canadian Grand Trunk Railway. Freya's instincts paid off, however, as the returns from her investment were significant enough to finally allow her to travel. The banker was so impressed by her confidence, he later told her, the whole staff invested following her example and made handsome returns.

In a strange turn of events, which friends and acquaintances found scandalous, her sister Vera wound up marrying Count di Roascio who had been their mother's lover. When Vera and the count were married, Flora refused to quit the residence and retained her position as head of the household, relegating Vera to the status of a kind of servant in her own home. Vera died of a miscarriage in 1926, and Freya, afraid her mother would somehow trap her in the same kind of prison her sister had died in, booked ship to Lebanon and left Italy behind a year later in 1927. She would return to Italy to look after her mother and her niece, but she was finally free to travel as she wished.

The Near East

ALL SHE WAS INTERESTED IN WAS CONTINUING HER STUDY OF ARABIC & TRAVEL FOR THE SAKE OF TRAVEL.

She found the people of Beirut warm and welcoming, claiming this was most likely because she had come "neither to improve nor rob" them. All she was interested in was continuing her study of Arabic and travel for the sake of travel. Throughout her life, she was prone to illness and arrived in the city in poor health. She quickly improved in the warm climate, however, and began to explore the area as soon as she was able, traveling through Lebanon to Syria. Syria at this time was under the control of the French who brutally suppressed the native Druse and severely restricted travel. Stark refused to be controlled by what she saw as arbitrary laws enacted by an illegal occupying force and hired a Druse guide to lead her and her friend, Venetia Buddicom, from Damascus to explore the area.

They were quickly arrested by the French and detained for three days but, with her typical wit and charisma, Stark charmed the French soldiers so completely, in her fluent French, that the two women - and, to a lesser degree, their guide - were treated more as guests of the compound than prisoners. Having been detained by the French made her all the more welcome to the Druse she later met, and she was able to gain insights into the people and their culture, which would have been difficult or impossible otherwise. In this instance, as in many others, Stark was able to turn an unpleasant event to her advantage and make friends of potential adversaries.

Early Books

Her first article was published in 1928 (under the name Tharaya, Arabic for "She Who Illuminates the World"), and her first book, Baghdad Sketches, in 1933 which was an account of her explorations in Iraq. Her second, The Valleys of the Assassins and Other Persian Tales (1934), related her experiences in Iran in 1929 and, especially, in the remote Elburz Mountains where she visited the castle of the cult of the Assassins.

To reach the mountains she had only some sketchy maps supplied by her friend Captain Vyvyan Holt (the man who had replaced Gertrude Bell as Britain's Oriental Secretary) whom she had met earlier through mutual acquaintances. Along with these rough maps, she also had the help of two guides who had no idea where the Rock of Alamut, the assassins' castle, was located as no one ever had any cause to visit it.

The Assassins Alamut Castle, Iran

Alireza Javaheri (CC BY)

Stark was unconcerned; for her, reaching the castle was not as important as the adventure of getting there. She waded through rushing streams, passed through fields thick with wildflowers, slept in a thin tent under mosquito netting with her guides on either side, and climbed up to 10,250 feet (3,124 m) to see the whole sweep of the mountain range.

She instantly recognized that the official maps were wrong, to the extent that the mountain range on the map was on the wrong side of the valley, and promptly corrected them. When she returned from her travels with the revised maps, Captain Holt and his colleagues commended her on her "brave work", and she would eventually be awarded the Founder's Gold Medal by the Royal Geographical Society for her contributions.

Travel & Illness

Throughout the 1930s, Stark continued to travel, write, and publish. Her works were immensely popular and translated into a number of languages. She traveled through Luristan, photographing and talking with the Lurs, a culture virtually unknown to the outside world at that time. She heard from some of them of a great treasure of gold, statuary, and rare gems hidden in a cave outside of the city of Nihavend and set out to find it with a guide who, like her earlier guides, had no knowledge of the cave or how to find it.

She separated from her guide to search alone but was turned back by local police. Pursuing what she called "a lovely blank on the map" she traveled to Masanderan on the Caspian Sea to fill in that blank for herself. She was struck along the way with dysentery and malaria and would have died if not for the intervention of a local woman who was a healer.

Shabwa

BluesyPete (CC BY-SA)

Once back on her feet, she set out for Shabwa in Yemen, an ancient trade center and oasis famously associated with frankincense. Unlike her earlier expedition to Alamut, no European had ever visited Shabwa. She traveled this time with two female archaeologists and reached the city of Shibam, "the oldest skyscraper city in the world" before, one by one, they fell ill with fever. Stark had contracted the measles shortly before leaving and now became seriously ill. She had to be airlifted to the hospital facilities in Aden by the RAF, an event which quickly became the news of the day when the media learned that the famous explorer and author Freya Stark had only barely cheated death.

Influence as a Writer

Her books were so popular not just because of the exotic subject matter but because of her unique voice. The narrative of Stark's works is alive with experience and wonder as she recounts her travels to ancient sites and natural wonders but, like many of the best travel writers, her greatest gift is in describing the most common-place moments in her travels: an evening talking around the fire, the time a man came to her asking for medicine for his sick wife, the scent of the cool morning breeze before starting off into a day trekking across the desert, or a moment of silence alone gazing across a landscape of flowers, hills, and streams at the distant mountains.

In addition to these kinds of reflections and sketches of everyday life and the people she encountered, Stark routinely condemned western interference in the politics of the region. Her commentary on the western mandates were given through her eyewitness accounts of the French using Druse labor for their building projects, noting the injustice of enslaving an indigenous people for one's own ends.

The Brotherhood of Freedom

When World War II began, Stark volunteered for the British Middle East Propaganda Section of the Ministry of Information and slipped into Yemen with a projector and a few cans of film. Her intent was to keep Yemen from siding with the Nazi cause and since, as a woman, she had free access to the harems of the rulers, she thought that, by showing her propaganda films to the ladies of the court, she could influence the men in control.

SHE FORMED THE BROTHERHOOD OF FREEDOM, A NETWORK OF UNITED BRITISH & ARAB NATIONALS WHO SPREAD THE IDEALS OF PERSONAL FREEDOM & EQUALITY.

Her plan worked, and Yemen remained neutral, denying the Nazis a strategic ground from which they'd hoped to launch attacks. She then formed the Brotherhood of Freedom, a network of united British and Arab nationals who spread the ideals of personal freedom and equality and whose numbers rose to 40,000 members.

The Brotherhood of Freedom is generally considered instrumental in solidifying Egyptian and Arab loyalty to the allied cause. Stark travelled extensively throughout the Middle East at this time as part of her job and more than once relied on her cleverness, and the male perception of women, to get to where she wanted to go or get out of trouble.

Stark in Iran

A famous example of this happened in April of 1941 when the government of Iraq allied itself with the Nazi cause. Stark had been in Tehran and was travelling back to the British Embassy in Baghdad when she was arrested at the border between Iran and Iraq. British citizens were no longer allowed free travel, she was told, and she would be detained. She was imprisoned in the railroad rest house while her guards decided how best to deal with her and, listening to their conversations, she learned others in her position had been sent to prison camps.

Stark instantly conjured all her charm and sweet-talked her guard into bringing her tea. When it was brought, he could not resist her invitation to share some with her and sit awhile in conversation. Stark asked his help with a serious problem which, as a refined man she said, she knew he would be able to appreciate: it was simply impossible for her, as a lady, to remain in their custody without a proper ladies' maid. Her guard did not immediately relent, but Stark kept at him, persistently, flattering him as a civilized man who surely understood how weak and incapable women were and what his obligation, as a gentleman of culture, called on him to do.

The guard set her free and arranged for her trip by train to Baghdad; where she then seems to have cajoled her way into a horse-drawn carriage, which brought her to the British Embassy. She was the last person admitted to the embassy before the Siege of Baghdad began. In reflecting on the many moments throughout her life she had managed to get her way by playing the role of the helpless damsel, Stark wrote, "The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one will be surprised” (Geniesse, 136).

Marriage & Further Travels

After a speaking tour in the United States, she returned to Italy to a cottage in Asolo she had inherited from Henry Young, an old family friend, many years before. She used her Italian cottage as a home base from which to launch her travels after the war. She married a man named Stewart Perowne in 1947, but they quickly separated (never divorced) as they found themselves more suitable as friends than lovers.

Villa Freya, Asolo

F. Tronchin (CC BY-NC-ND)

In 1951, at the age of 58, she traveled through Greece, Turkey, and Syria. She was away from home most of the time for the next 14 years. In her seventies, she traveled to China, and when she was 76 made a tour of some the more remote areas of Afghanistan. In the 1970s she explored Nepal on the back of a pony and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1972.

She lived in her small cottage in Asolo, writing her books (she would publish over two dozen) and entertaining guests whenever she was not traveling. In 1984 the town awarded her the key to the city as their most illustrious citizen. She continued to write and receive visitors for the next nine years until her death on 9 May 1993, a few months past her 100th birthday.

Conclusion

In a letter to a friend in 1929, Stark wrote, "One life is an absurdly small allowance" but, as with everything handed to her, she took what she had been given and turned it to her advantage. She very much wanted to be loved, and to be married (she even called herself 'Mrs. Stark' after her separation from Perowne) but came to understand she could not have everything, and a conventional life would have meant settling for less than her ideal.

Critics have pointed out that Stark's actual achievements as an explorer were technically minimal: she was not the first European to visit or write about the Elburz mountains, she was prevented from reaching Shabwa by illness, was denied access to Luristan's treasures by authorities, and in several other instances, she failed in her immediate objectives.

She succeeded, however, in conveying the vitality of the region and the people and in leaving behind a chronicle of the Middle East in the first part of the 20th century in a voice which still holds all the charm and vigor which made her famous while she lived. In every respect, Freya Stark lived her life completely through the allowance she was given - the whole hundred years of it - and even won the love she desired through her work, which touched the lives of so many around the world and continues to do so today.

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!

The Lycian Way by Kate Clow

The Lycian Way by Kate Clow (ISBN 0-9539218-2-4) is the best walking guide you can find to navigate the 530 kilometers long route throughout Lycia in southern Turkey.

The Lycian Way follows ancient Greek and Roman roads as well as traditional nomad trails and forest tracks, which are linked up to form a continuous walking route. The walker will travel at the pace of the farmers and goat herders who roamed through Lycia for eons. Since it once was one of the richest and most densely populated areas, signs of ancient civilizations are plentiful. Because of its rugged landscape, the area has not been spoiled by modern hotels and other facilities.

This book simply provides you with all the information you need, whether you travel solo or with a group, whether you are interested in history, botany, wildlife, geology or simply want to enjoy the quietness of nature.

The route is always clearly marked with white and red stripes on rocks or trees and sign-posted in green and yellow where it leaves the asphalted road. An excellent detachable map is included giving full details about the elevation, the terrain to cross, pertinent points of reference and the water points and cisterns. GPS Data can also be downloaded from their website which is regularly updated.

An entire chapter is devoted to what to bring and what to wear, followed by one centered around traveling in Turkey, shopping and first aid and rescue. If you read these carefully, you are fully prepared to start walking through this magnificent region. The book even contains hints about what to look out for if you are not acquainted with recognizing remnants of antique cities like theaters, temples, city walls and necropolises.

The Lycian Way by Kate Clow is to be your travel companion. You can start your walk at any point and stop wherever you like. For each stretch of the route, the book provides full information about shops and water availability, lodging possibilities, the length of the walk and the time it will take you, with in between key points you’ll have to cross-check on the way – keep your eyes peeled and you most certainly will get there.

For those who truly fall in love with Lycia (as I did) the book also provides a rather complete and very comprehensive history of the region as well as a handy list of Turkish vocabulary for trekkers.

The tempting site of Kibyra

It was only by chance that I noticed the name of Kibyra on a signpost but since I was running out of time I never visited the site, which I deeply regret.

Kibyra seems to be mentioned for the first time in 189 BC, which is during Roman expansion, but it must have been a rather important city since it had two votes in the Lycian League. After the major earthquake of 23 AD, nobody less than Emperor Tiberius financed the city’s reconstruction and renamed it Caesarea Kibyra. It is not surprising that it thrived under Hadrian but suffered about a century later from the invasion of the Goths after which it was largely deserted.

One of the main buildings is, of course, the theater offering a wide view over the surrounding plain and the mountains further south. With a diameter of 81 meters, it is one of the largest theaters in Anatolia. It is rather well preserved with up to fifty tiers of seats where a two-meter-wide diazoma could have led to another ten rows. The total seating capacity of this theater is estimated at 7,400 spectators.

South of the theater, we find the Odeon which has recently revealed a rather unique flooring of eleven meters in diameter, entirely covered with fine mosaics representing Medusa - the sole such example known in the world. This Odeon has been dated to the middle of the third century AD.

Further east of the theater, there are several larger buildings, including the agora and the surrounding Stoas. The streets are paved with limestone slabs covering the antique sewage system and lined with stubs of columns.

The Stadion is another striking element in the landscape. It is about 198 meters long and 7.5 meters wide with 25 tiers of seats that are particularly well-preserved, especially at the upper end.

Today, Kibyra is tentatively put on the list of UNESCO, while excavations have been ongoing since 2006. Recently, close to the agora, a round-shaped Nymphaeum has been exposed. This fountain plays a key role in understanding the city’s water management. With its conical roof, it is one of the most magnificent structures and archaeologists are hopeful to restore this Nymphaeum to make it working again by 2018. 

The site will open to the public at some time in 2017.

[Pictures from Hurriyet Daily News and Arkeoloji Haber]

The monument in honor of Opramoas of Rhodiapolis is taking shape

In an earlier post “Opramoas of Rhodiapolis” I mentioned the many benefactions this wealthy man made in his lifetime as recorded on the walls of the monument built in his honor at the heart of this city. All his good deeds have been well documented (see the abovementioned post for his main achievements) although we could not read the full text till the many loose blocks were put together in the correct sequence.

It is a painstaking job and it seems to be taking shape as can be seen in the recent pictures of the reconstruction. It is such a great pleasure to see how this building is rising from its ashes in all its glory!

To summarize the importance of this text, the longest ever found in Lycia or perhaps even in all of Anatolia, we should remember that 12 of these inscriptions contain letters which Opramoas exchanged with the Roman Emperors and with Antoninus Pius in particular, 19 letters to the Procurator and 33 various documents related to the Lycian League.

Opramoas was the richest man in Lycia and moved among other wealthy relatives like C. Julius Demosthenes of Oenoanda and Licinus Langus of Oenoanda. He came from a long lineage of important and influential people who wore such titles as Lyciarch (President of the Lycian League), Strategus (Military Commander), and Hipparch (Commander of the Cavalry). Besides, his brother Apollonios was a scribe of the Lycian League and also occupied the post of Lyciarch.

For more information about the Lycian League, please refer to my post The world’s first Parliament Building in Patara.

[Pictures from Turkish Archaeological News]

The world’s first Parliament building - Patara

Only a few people will have heard about the opening of the first-ever Parliament building in the ancient city of Patara, Turkey.

First discovered in 1991, restoration works started in 2010, and it took two full years to complete the project, re-erecting and repairing inside and outside walls, gateways, and the entire seating area. When I visited Patara in 2007, the building was fenced off, but it now shines in full splendor. It may feel somewhat overdone, too well reconstructed, but, on the other hand, this is the closest one can get to tasting what it is like to sit inside a Council House – and this one is regarded as being the world’s first democratic Parliament (to use modern words).

[Picture from The Hurriyet Daily News]

The Lycian League, for which this Council House was built, has always fascinated me. The very idea matured in the early 2nd century BC after Lycia came under the control of Rhodes, with the influence of Rome. Yet Rhodes did not give the Lycians fair treatment, and after many complaints, Rome judged it only fair to grant them their freedom. Finally, the Lycian cities all agreed it was time to unite, and the Lycian League, as dreamed of by King  Pericles several centuries earlier, now became a reality. The six main cities: Xanthos, Pınara, Tlos, Patara, Myra, and Olympos were the administrative, judicial, military, financial, and religious centers, and each received three votes in the meetings of the League. Most of the other cities had one single vote each, while some very small cities shared one vote (for instance, Istlada, Apollonia, and Aperlai). Besides, some cities and small federal states were allowed to mint their own coins, provided they bore the inscription ΛΥΚΙΩΝ ΚΟΙΝΩΝ. This must have been an enormous boost to the Lycians’ pride and eventually to their prosperity.

The building we see here in Patara was, however, built in the first century AD and served for five hundred years. It could seat 400 representatives coming from all the member cities of the Lycian League, squeezing inside the walls of this 43-meter-long and 30-meter-wide Council House. When the Lycian League was at last dissolved, the building was still used as a theater.

Like Patara’s theater, the Council House had been swallowed and hidden under the moving sand dunes for centuries, which, in a way, helped to preserve the stones, making them look like new.