Magnesia on the meander
Coordinates: 37 ° 51 ' N , 27 ° 32' E
Magnesia am Meander ( Greek Μαγνησία ἐπὶ Μαιάνδρῳ ) was an ancient city in western Asia Minor in what is now Turkey . The remains of the city can be seen in the Plain of the Great Meander (in Turkish: Büyük Menderes ) from the road from Selçuk to Söke . In the stepy grass there are only huge rubble, temple foundations, column drums, there are only a few remains of the surrounding wall.
A temple of Artemis Leukophryne , which Hermogenes built around 130 BC, once stood here . BC, as well as a temple of Zeus Sosipolis . In the Pergamon Museum in Berlin , copies of a pillar yoke from the Temple of Artemis and the pronaos of the Temple of Zeus (the latter contains two original pieces) have been recreated.
history
According to legend, the city of Magnesia was founded by magnets from Thessaly a generation before the Trojan War ; in fact, it probably came into being during the Ionian migration and later came under the rule of the Lydian king Gyges (716–678 BC). Around 657 BC Conquered by the Cimmerians in BC , later taken by Ephesus , Cyrus II struck Magnesia to the Persian Empire. Themistocles moved into his residence here. 400/399 BC It was rebuilt by Thibron . Magnesia became Macedonian through Alexander the Great , fell to various diadochi, became Seleucid (221 BC epiphany of Artemis Leukophryne ) and experienced its cultural heyday with the kingdom of Pergamon in the 2nd century BC. Magnesia is mentioned in the works of Herodotus , Diodorus Siculus and Pausanias , among others . There was a war with Miletus in 196 BC. Ended by a peace treaty, after 190 BC. The city was freed by the Romans .
133 BC Magnesia was inherited by the Roman Empire together with Pergamon. As a reward for resisting King Mithridates VI. from Pontus it received the status of a free city from Sulla . Destroyed by an earthquake in 17 AD, the city was rebuilt by the Roman Emperor Tiberius within twelve years from his own resources. There was an early Christian community there as early as 114 AD, which regularly sent its bishops to the councils in the following centuries. Magnesia, like the neighboring towns of Ephesus and Miletus, could never fully recover from the conquest and sacking by the Goths in AD 262 . Although it was still a late antique episcopal city and received a curtain wall against the onslaught of Persians and Seljuks , it was little more than a Byzantine border fortress in the Middle Ages. Around 1300 the royal family of the Aydınoğulları took over the rule. As a result of floods, epidemics and other plagues, magnesia was gradually abandoned by its last inhabitants and fell into decay.
Coinage
Since at least the middle of the 5th century, magnesia minted its own silver coins, later also bronze coins as small change. A bull is often depicted. A meander band in the section or a meander circle as a border on the reverse of the coin are often used as a reference to the landscape.
Excavations
Magnesia was also rediscovered during the great excavation campaigns in Asia Minor by French, German and British scientists. The Gadatas letter was found in 1886 . In the years 1891-1893 excavations were carried out by the Berlin museums under the direction of Carl Humann . a. the remains of the Temple of Zeus and the Temple of Artemis of Hermogenes were uncovered.
Most of the surviving finds - temple friezes, altar reliefs and others - are now distributed among the museums in London, Paris, Berlin and Istanbul. The fact that little more than stone chunks and wall fragments are left on the site is due to the widespread practice of lime burning (marble is a crystalline limestone) by the local population, especially in the 19th century in the Ottoman Empire. In the period between 1893 and 1895, it also fell victim to the remains of the Temple of Zeus, which Humann found and documented in good condition. The building survey of this temple made before 1893 served as the basis for the reconstruction of the Pronaos facade in the Berlin Pergamon Museum.
After the first excavation campaign was completed in 1893, the excavations remained idle until 1984. The alluvial sediments and the layers of clay removed by rainwater, some up to 4–5 m thick, covered the excavated areas and structures again with earth. Magnesia was forgotten for nearly a hundred years, although important research was being done on Hermogenes during this time. Since 1984, Ankara University has been undertaking new excavations under the direction of Orhan Bingöl .
Particularly noteworthy is the stadium, which is built into the mountainside and impresses with its size and good condition.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pliny : Naturalis historia 35, 8.
- ^ Albrecht Behmel : Themistocles: Sieger von Salamis. Lord of Magnesia . Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3932602722 .
- ↑ Szaivert / Sear, Greek coin catalog, Volume 2, pp. 139–140
- ↑ Volker Kästner : The Temple of Zeus Sosipolis of Magnesia on the Meander , in: Brigitte Knittlmayer, Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer (ed.): Die Antikensammlung . 2nd edition, Zabern, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-8053-2449-9 , p. 230f. See also: Johannes Althoff: A master of realizing. The archaeologist Theodor Wiegand , in: Klaus Rheidt , Barbara A. Lutz (eds.): Peter Behrens, Theodor Wiegand and the villa in Dahlem . Zabern, Mainz 2004, ISBN 3-8053-3374-9 , p. 151.
literature
- Otto Kern : The inscriptions of magnesia on the maeander . Spemann, Berlin 1900 ( online ).
- Emil Herkenrath : The frieze of the Artemision of Magnesia a. M. Berlin 1902.
- Carl Humann : Magnesia on the Maeander. Report on the results of the excavations between 1891 and 1893 . Reimer, Berlin 1904 ( online ).
- Sabine Schultz : The coinage of magnesia on the meander in the Roman Empire . Olms, Hildesheim 1975, ISBN 3-487-05750-6 .
- Abdullah Yaylalı: The frieze of the artemision of magnesia on the maeander . Wasmuth, Tübingen 1976, ISBN 3-8030-1713-0 ( Istanbuler Mitteilungen , Supplement 15).
- Orhan Bingöl: Magnesia on the meander = Magnesia on the maeandrum . Ankara 1998, ISBN 975-387-068-X .
- Orhan Bingöl: Magnesia on the meander / Magnesia on the maeandrum. The city of Artemis with "white eyebrows" . Homer Kitabevi, Istanbul 2007, ISBN 978-9944-483-01-8 . (Further editions also in Turkish and English).
