Allianoi

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Allianoi sanatorium with courtyard
(early excavation stage)
Source nymph

Allianoi ( Greek Ἀλλιανοί ( m. Pl. )) Is an extensive ancient health resort located 18 kilometers northeast of Pergamon in the Turkish province of İzmir at the Paşa-Ilıcası thermal baths . The ancient place is well preserved. He was acutely threatened by the construction of a dam that was to be flooded on November 15, 2005. On October 29, 2005, the responsible monument protection authority in İzmir upheld a lawsuit against the flooding of Allianoi. The Yortanlı dam was not allowed to be flooded until the necessary protective measures for the ancient site were completed. In January 2007 it became known that the same committee of the agency had revised its decision in a closed meeting. Allianoi could now be flooded again at any time. A highly controversial report, which the water authority had received since October 2007, recommended the immediate commissioning of the dam.

In December 2008, the Yortanlı dam was put into operation, the mosaics should be covered with sand as a makeshift for the next five decades of operation. The ancient city has since been flooded.

history

Marble-paneled thermal baths in the northern area of ​​Allianoi
(with temporary roofing)

Allianoi was first settled in the late Hellenistic period. In its current form, however, it was created through a large building program during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (117 AD to 138 AD). Under the Byzantines, buildings were constructed over those of the Roman period and remained in use until the 11th to 12th centuries. In Roman and Byzantine times, the seaside resort was visited by a wealthy urban population. Individual bathing springs were even used by the local population until the 1950s.

The ancient health resort has now been identified as Allianoi by the epigraphist Helmut Müller from the Commission for Ancient History and Epigraphy of the German Archaeological Institute . In his Hieroi Logoi ( ἰεροί λόγοι "Holy Reports") the Roman Aelius Aristides described a treatment that he received there. The rhetor who lived in the 2nd century AD described his illnesses and miraculous healings. Research considers Allianoi to be one of five places worldwide with an Asklepieion - an ancient medicinal bath named after Asklepios ( Ἀσκλήπιος , Latinized Aesculapius ), the god of healing.

The thermal baths

The spring nymph became a symbol of the Allianoi rescue campaign

Different bath rooms were connected by a long underground water tunnel. They are unusually complete and well preserved, as large parts of the archaeological site were covered by alluvial soil (alluvial land). Another highlight of the excavations was a one and a half meter tall marble statue of a spring nymph, found almost intact; it is interpreted as Aphrodite .

The Allianoi hot springs have a temperature of 45 to 50 ° C. By 2004, an area of ​​40,000 square meters had been exposed. Excavation manager Yaraş estimates this proportion to be no more than 10 or 20 percent of the total area of ​​the historic city area. The most important building is the northern thermal bath, which covered an area of ​​9,700 square meters. Further discovered structures are bridges , roads from marble stones , shops, public fountains , ornate gates and houses with perfectly preserved, colored geometric mosaics from the Roman period. The Byzantine era is assigned to accommodations on the outskirts, a basilica , chapels and necropolis . There were found objects in abundance, such as several hundred pottery ( oil lamps , dishes) and rare glass kilns. All houses were connected to a water pipe system. Among the finds are sculptures, ceramics , metal, bones and glass objects and a large number of coins .

Another striking building is a hospital with an inner courtyard and colonnades, surrounded by interconnected treatment rooms. All rooms have an individual mosaic floor and access to the pillared courtyard, in the middle of which there was once a fountain. The purpose of the building was evident from the ancient medical instruments, a rarity in archeology.

Threat from dam

Allianoi was to be covered on November 15, 2005 with up to 17 meters of water from the then dammed Yortanlı dam , which was named after the Yortanlı stream. The dam is located a few hundred meters from Allianoi. According to Yaraş, an alleged opening of the locks by Prime Minister Erdoğan himself was also under discussion . According to Agence France-Presse , the water reached the ruins of Allianoi on February 22, 2011 after the gates of the reservoir were closed. According to their lawyer, the protests of the dam opponents should continue, as the flooding started before the end of the legal dispute. Despite the legal dispute, the flooding of the lake began on December 31, 2010, which finally caused Allianoi to sink.

Emergency excavations

Knowing the construction plans, emergency excavations were therefore carried out in 1994 at a place that had long been known as the magnificent Paşa Ilıcası complex. Since 1998, the excavation has been led by the Turkish Ministry of Culture Assistant Prof. Dr. Ahmet Yaraş with his team of archaeologists and with the support of the German Archaeological Institute . The team has the support of the Ministry of Culture, the State Water Administration, Philip Morris Sabancı , the Bergama Yortanlı Rescue Society and the University of Thrace ( Edirne ). Finds from Allianoi are collected in the Bergama Archaeological Museum .

The EU supports the rescue of this archaeological site in its "Culture 2000" program. The pan-European heritage federation Europa Nostra , an umbrella organization comprising 200 non-governmental organizations , also decided to join the funding with its own funds. Together with UNESCO , the European Council appealed on March 10, 2005 to the Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gül , to prevent the renewed irretrievable destruction of part of the common cultural heritage. The letter has remained unanswered to this day.

As with other dam projects in the 1990s ( Hasankeyf , Zeugma ), the Turkish government pushed for the archaeological excavation to be flooded. Under no circumstances do they want to hold up the dam for a rescue or covering with clay to secure it.

See also: Southeast Anatolia Project (Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi - GAP)

process

In July 2005, excavation manager Yaraş and an association of 73 private individuals and associations filed a lawsuit against the planned course of the dam. The plaintiffs successfully invoked a law from 2001, under which this excavation site is also officially considered a "first-rate cultural asset worth preserving". Flooding was therefore not permitted under current Turkish law.

The citizens' initiative calls for the dam to be relocated. Today's course came about expressly at the request of the local large landowners, just to protect their fields. In contrast to the dams in the Kurdish southeast, this reservoir is not used to generate electricity, but to irrigate agricultural land. The commissioning of the dam on October 29, 2005 was temporarily prohibited by a new decision by the responsible monument protection authority. Without protective measures for Allianoi, the dam could not initially be flooded.

Alternatives

Yaraş advocates a reconstruction of the ancient seaside resort and its conversion into an open-air museum . More locals could live better from the income from the tourism business than with irrigated agriculture, which only benefits the large landowners here. Furthermore, Turkish surveyors have suggested that the dam crest should be dismantled deeper and Allianoi should be protected from the backwater by two massive protective walls. An underground tunnel then connected the two lakes that were created to one lake again. This suggestion was ignored by the authorities.

Revision of the flooding ban

The decision to stop the flooding of October 29, 2005 was secretly repealed by the same committee at the end of 2006, which only became known at the end of January 2007. Representatives of the Allianoi protection initiative suspect political pressure. The government wanted to “show vigor” to voters in rural areas before the Turkish parliamentary elections in November 2007. Excavation director Yaraş again appealed against the unpublished decision, but this time without the certainty of suspensive effect. The media and the EU bodies are hoping for more impact - unfortunately without success.

Quotes

“ A layer of humus washed up by rainwater filled the city's rooms and preserved them well. Despite the later use of the complex in the Byzantine period, everything is in excellent condition. Something like this is a rarity in the Aegean region. The reconstruction of the city would be easily possible. Its architecture is just as well preserved as that of Pompeii. "

- Dr. Ahmet Yaraş (from: "Treasures in the wet grave.")

“ Only a few meters of water separate Allianoi from the destruction. But that does not impress the Turkish authorities. They want the dam to be completed on schedule in a year. The Allianoi excavation team, in turn, tries to save what can be saved.
But things don't look good for Allianoi's future. If something does not happen after all, a historical site in Turkey will once again be buried under water - without ever having been properly explored. "

- Dr. Wolfgang Radt, head of excavations in Pergamon from 1971 to 2005 (from: "Treasures in the wet grave.")

Filmography

literature

  • Helmut Müller: Allianoi. To identify an ancient spa in the hinterland of Pergamon. In: Istanbul communications. Wasmuth, Tübingen 54, 2004, pp. 215-225. ISSN  0341-9142
  • Ahmed Yaraş: The Allianoi thermal baths . Archäologischer Anzeiger 2004, 2005 pp. 71–74. ( online )
  • Stephan WE Blum, Frank Schweizer and Rustem Aslan: Aerial photos of ancient landscapes and sites in Turkey. With aerial pictures by Hakan Öge, Verlag Philipp von Zabern , Mainz 2006, 144 pages with 97 color illustrations, ISBN 3-8053-3653-5 , pp. 30-32.

Web links

Commons : Allianoi  - collection of images, videos and audio files
items
On the revision of the flooding ban
photos

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Allianoi excavation site is to be flooded, Die Welt , March 11, 2008.
  2. ↑ a b c Allianoi is under water, Doğan Haber Ajansı , December 22, 2011.
  3. ↑ Helmut Müller: “Allianoi. To identify an ancient spa in the hinterland of Pergamon ”, in: Istanbuler Mitteilungen 54, 2004, pp. 215–225.
  4. ↑ Researchers sound the alarm: Turkey is drowning its ancient legacy, Der Standard , January 24, 2007.
    “Environmentalists in the nearby city of İzmir want to take the decision to court, which, according to Yaraş, had already been made at the end of last year but which has been kept secret until now. The Allianoi supporters suspect political motives behind the sudden rush to flood the dam. Before the Turkish parliamentary elections in November, the government wants to show the voters in rural areas energy, ”says Yaraş. "But it would be a heavy loss for science."
  5. ^ Treasures in the wet grave, ( Memento from June 17, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) NDR , December 3, 2002.
  6. ↑ Pergamon: City and Landscape, ( Memento from November 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) German Archaeological Institute (DAI)

Coordinates: 39 ° 14 ′ 5.4 ″  N , 27 ° 18 ′ 20.1 ″  E