Bathonea

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Bathonea was an ancient and Byzantine settlement in Thrace known only from the sources. At the Küçükçekmece lagoon west of Istanbul , an extensive excavation site was tentatively identified with Bathonea.

Pliny mentions a Thracian river called Bathynias , Theophanes calls the river "Bathyrsos", Appian calls it "Bithyas", it also appears in Claudius Ptolemy's .

First excavations by Ernest Mamboury

The ruins were visited by the Swiss archaeologist Ernest Mamboury as early as the 1920s , but he identified them with the Rhegion , also known from the sources , which had existed since the 2nd century BC. Is known.

The ruins of the city, which have always been visible since its demise, were archaeologically examined by Mamboury from 1938 (according to other information from 1937).

Hypothetical identification with Bathonea, Late Antiquity to Neolithic

In 2007, the excavators found early Neolithic pieces of flint around 7,000 years old, making them one of the oldest Neolithic artefacts in Europe.

In August 2009, on the Marmara Sea , about 20 km west of Istanbul , ruins of a city were tentatively associated with Bathonea by the excavation director Şengül Aydıngün from Kocaeli University , who has been working there since 2007 . Aydıngün later reported on Hittite figurines and ceramics from around 2000 BC. Ceramics from the island of Cyprus come from the same period. A total of around 50,000 ceramic pieces were found by 2011.

The site is located on the Küçükçekmece lagoon , the depth of which was between 4 and 25 m, but which was navigable in any case. According to previous knowledge, Bathonea covered an area of ​​almost 8 km², its sea walls were half as long as those of Constantinople . The capital's wealthy built villas and palaces here. In the middle of the lagoon , underwater archaeologists found the remains of a lighthouse , one of the few Roman ones other than those of Alexandria and Patara in Lycia , and a port. In addition, hundreds of bricks were found with the “Konstans” stamp, which can also be found in buildings in the capital, such as the Hagia Sophia . Long-distance trade can be seen in pottery that came from Syria and Palestine .

Bathonea was a phyle in the sense of a settlement dependent on Byzantion , the predecessor of Constantinople. The main finds date from the period between the 2nd century BC. BC, from which a second port on the eastern edge of the peninsula comes, and the 6th century AD These include the Roman port with docks, landing stages and surrounding buildings, harbor walls, a huge cistern of 120 × 30 m area with several hundred Meter long water pipes and remains of roads, as well as a cemetery with the remains of 20 individuals.

By 2011, around 70 graves had already been discovered. Investigations showed that the men were on average 1.65 m tall, the women 1.50–1.55, and that many had suffered from arthritis, rheumatism, rachithis, at times also from malnutrition and excessively hard work. In at least one case a cranial operation was performed which the patient must have survived for a very long time. In addition, 440 terracotta bottles of "unguanterium", a mixture of substances that were inhaled as smoke, had a pain-relieving effect, only 10 to 20 mm high. The house where the bottles were found was probably a storehouse for medicines. At least one woman had severe wear and tear on her incisors, even a hole, which probably indicates needles as tools.

A monastery dates from the 4th century and its workshops have been excavated. Jewelry was created there, as well as metal and glass objects. There was also a 5th or 6th century church built on top of a Greek temple. The church was badly damaged by an earthquake in 557 but was in use until it collapsed in 1037. The remains of three men who were slain by collapsing walls in the process have been recovered. It appears the city never recovered from the earthquake, which was possibly 8.0 magnitude.

The city may have been a secondary port of Constantinople, but underwater archaeological research is very difficult because the lagoon is heavily polluted by industrial sewage. The underwater work can only be intensified after the construction of a planned sewage treatment plant.

In 2020, the settlement of Vikings during the 9th to 11th centuries could be proven in Bathonea .

literature

  • Oğuz Tekin: Byzantion'un Etnik Yapılanması ve bir Örnek: Bathonea. Bir Lokalizasyon Önerisi Üzerine Düşünceler . In: Arkeoloji ve Sanat 132, 2009, pp. 139–141 ( full text ).
  • Şengül Aydıngün: Küçükçekmece Gölü Havzası (Bathonea?) Kazıları (2009‒2012) : In: İstanbul Araştırmaları Yıllığı 2 2013, pp. 41–53 ( full text ).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Naturalis historia 4, 47; see Bathynias . In: William Smith : Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London 1854 ..
  2. ↑ Vol. V, p. 340, ed.Bonn.
  3. ↑ Mithridatius 1.
  4. ^ Tetrabiblos 3, 11, 6.
  5. ↑ See Jonathan Bardill: Brickstamps of Constantinople , Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, pp. XXXII, 301 u. a.
  6. ↑ Belleten 17 (1953), p. 399 ff.
  7. ↑ Sengül Aydingün: Early Neolithic discoveries at Istanbul .
  8. ↑ Against this identification: Oğuz Tekin: Byzantion'un Etnik Yapılanması ve bir Örnek: Bathonea. Bir Lokalizasyon Önerisi Üzerine Düşünceler , in: Arkeoloji ve Sanat 132 (2009) 139–141 ( online ).
  9. ^ Bathonea excavations shed light on Istanbul's history , in: Hürriyet Daily New, September 13, 2011.
  10. ↑ Sirma Ramazanoğullari Turgut, Eda Cactas Ceylan: In the Wake of a Local Government Initiative. Istanbul - Küçükçekmece, Ayazma-Tepeustu Urban Regeneration Project , WIT Press, Southampton 2012, pp. 16-18.
  11. ↑ Bin yıl önce beyin ameliyatı yapılmış , TRT Haber, December 13, 2014 and Thousands-year-old bones come to surface in Istanbul , in: Hürriyet Daily News, September 13, 2011.
  12. ↑ Archaeologists unearth Viking neighborhood in Istanbul , in: Hürriyet Daily News, August 24, 2020.