Limyra
Coordinates: 36 ° 21 ' N , 30 ° 10' E
Limyra ( Greek Λίμυρα , Lycian Zemuri ) was an ancient city in southern Lycia in Asia Minor . The ruins of the city are located about 6 km northeast of today's Turkish city of Finike .
history
Very little is known about the city's history.
The oldest finds ( late Geometric pottery ) date back to the late 8th century BC. BC, but they do not allow any statements to be made about the structure and extent of the branch indicated thereby. Little information is available about the archaic and early classical Limyra. However, Zemuri was in the 5th century BC. Chr. Minting of Xanthian dynasts kuprlli and should have taken a significant position within the regional settlement hierarchy.
The city experienced a heyday in the High Classical period, when it was expanded to become the residential city of an up-and-coming East Lycian dynasty. Its protagonist, the dynast perikle , changed the political landscape of the region. The active general is likely to have defeated the dynasty of Xanthos in the 1st half of the 4th century and briefly ruled all of Lycia and neighboring areas in the north and east. This shift in the balance of power probably took place against the will of the Persian overlords, so that research linked perikle with the participation of the Lycians in the so-called satrap revolt .
In the late dynastic period, a comprehensive building program was carried out in Limyra, in the course of which a 25 hectare wall ring and a summit fortification were built. Two towering, donjon-like towers towered over this citadel . They should probably tell of the power and importance of their builder. The monumental Heroon of the East Lycian dynasty was also created at that time . This amphiprostyle podium building, the front halls of which were supported by caryatids and whose side walls were adorned with friezes with a military theme, clearly shows the mixture of local building tradition with Greek influence. Other monumental graves probably served as burial sites for an aristocratic upper class. The two-storey tomb of the xntabura deserves special mention here , whose relief decorations include , in addition to a sacrificial scene, an apobatism and a revelation scene, i.e. central themes of classic Lycian iconography . Extensive necropolises , in which numerous reliefs and inscriptions in the Lycian language and script have been preserved, lined the settlement and formed a large ensemble of Lycian rock tombs. Particularly impressive is the necropolis I, carved into a towering rock face at the entrance of the Arykandostal . A simple rock grave in the grave foundation of the xuwata in necropolis II is decorated with a relief depicting a duel based on the template of the famous shield of Athena Parthenos of Phidias . On another grave, tebursseli can be depicted as a victorious hero, defeating the general arttumpara in the Xanthostal with his king perikle . On the double grave of artimas in necropolis V, one of the few Aramaic inscriptions in Asia Minor testifies to the connections between Lycia and the core areas of the Achaemenid Empire . The high-class collection of monuments in Limyra shows a pronounced philhellenism of the political ruling class of the dynastic period, but the semantics of the Lycian culture of this period was largely determined by belonging to an oriental world. The independent dynastic rule came to an abrupt end after the suppression of the satrap uprising by the Persians, and Lycia was added to the rule of the Carian Hecatomnids .
Magnificent buildings in the lower town, such as the Hellenistic Ptolemaion and the cenotaph for Gaius Caesar , Augustus' adoptive son who died in Limyra in AD 4, testify to the importance of the settlement in later periods. The theater, a thermal bath, a gate and colonnaded streets illustrate Limyra's urban flourishing during the imperial era. Limyra's position as a bishopric is illustrated by the bishop's church and other Christian cult buildings. The titular bishopric Limyra of the Roman Catholic Church goes back to the diocese .
The huge post-antique city wall rings in the east and west of the city bear witness to troubled times. With the Tekke des Kâfi-Baba, the oldest Bektashi monastery on the Turkish south coast, founded in the 16th century , Limyra also has an important monument of Islamic history.
Approx. 3.2 km east of the ruins of Limyra is the hardly noticed Roman bridge at Limyra . The neglected structure is one of the oldest segment arch bridges in the world. It is 360 m long and rests on a total of 26 segment arches.
The Austrian Archaeological Institute has been carrying out excavations in Limyra since 2002 . The first excavations began as early as 1969 under Jürgen Borchhardt on behalf of the German Archaeological Institute (Istanbul branch) and this was continued as an Austrian project from 1984 to 2001 by the Institute for Classical Archeology of the University of Vienna (IKA). A late antique synagogue was discovered during these excavations in 2012. As in Ephesus , the excavations in Limyra had to be stopped prematurely at the end of August 2016 due to political tensions between Turkey and Austria. Another excavation permit was issued by the Turkish authorities in July 2018. The work of the Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences on site was therefore resumed.
literature
- Jürgen Borchhardt , The stones of Zemuri. Archaeological research on the hidden waters of Limyra. Vienna 1993, ISBN 978-3-901232-01-5 .
- Jürgen Borchhardt (among others), excavations and research in Limyra from 1984-1990. , In: Annual Books of the Austrian Archaeological Institute 61, 1991/92, Beibl. 125-192.
- Jürgen Borchhardt (among others), excavations and research in Limyra from 1991-1996. In: Annual Books of the Austrian Archaeological Institute 66, 1997, Beibl. 321-426.
- Jürgen Borchhardt, The frieze from the cenotaph for Gaius Caesar in Limyra. 2002.
- Jürgen Borchhardt, Anastasia Pekridou-Gorecki: Limyra. Studies on art and epigraphy in the necropolis of antiquity (= research in Limyra 5), Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-85161-062-8 .
- Zeynep Kuban, The Limyra Necropolis. Architectural history studies on the classical epoch (= research in Limyra 4), Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-85161-049-9 .
- Thomas Marksteiner, The fortified settlement of Limyra (= research in Limyra 1). 1997.
- Thomas Marksteiner - Michael Wörrle, An altar for Emperor Claudius on the Bonda tepesi between Myra and Limyra. In: Chiron 32, 2002, pp. 545-569.
- Martin Seyer (Ed.), 40 years of excavation Limyra. Files of the international symposium Vienna, 3.-5. December 2009 , Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-900305-63-5
- Michael Wörrle , Epigraphic Research on the History of Lycia I: Ptolemaios I and Limyra. In: Chiron 7, 1977, pp. 43-66.
- Michael Wörrle, Epigraphic Research on the History of Lycia IV: Three Greek Inscriptions from Limyra. In: Chiron 21, 1991, pp. 203-238.
- Michael Wörrle: Epigraphic research on the history of Lycia V: The Greek inscriptions of the necropolis of Limyra. In: Chiron 25, 1995, pp. 387-417.
- Michael Wörrle, Epigraphic Research on the History of Lycia VII. Asarönü, a Peripolion of Limyra. In: Chiron 29, 1999, pp. 353-370.
Web links
- Description, pictures and plans of Limyra in Lycia
- The excavations in Limyra on the homepage of the Austrian Archaeological Institute
Remarks
- ↑ It is uncertain which declension the name belongs to. The neuter plural ( Strabon XIV 666; Velleius Paterculus II 102.5) or the feminine singular ( Ovid , Metamorphosen IX 646; Basilius the Great , epistula 218) would be possible. In many places, however, it is not clear to which declension the word belongs ( Skylax 100; Pliny the Elder , Naturalis historia V 100).
- ↑ Velleius Paterculus II, 102, 3.
- ↑ Wolfgang W. Wurster, Joachim Ganzert: A bridge near Limyra in Lycia . In: Archäologischer Anzeiger , German Archaeological Institute, Berlin 1978, ISSN 0003-8105 , pp. 288-307.
- ↑ Discovered ancient synagogue in Turkey. In: science.orf.at. October 16, 2012, accessed November 23, 2017 .
- ↑ Ephesus excavations fully started after approval has been granted | Science.apa.at. Retrieved September 11, 2018 .