Melia (city)
Melia ( Greek Μελία ) or Melite ( Μελίτη ) was an ancient site in Caria .
Hecataeus of Miletus describes Melia as a " polis " in Caria . According to Vitruvius , a place called "Melite" (probably written from Melia) was one of the 13 colonies originally founded by Ion , which later formed the Ionian League , but was due to the 'arrogance' (Latin adrogantia ) of its citizens after a joint resolution (communi consilio ) covered with war and destroyed. In his place, Smyrna was accepted into the covenant.
The war against Melia supposedly took place in the time before the Cimmerian invasion under Lygdamis , but actually only around 600/590 BC. The land of Melia, which stretched from Cape Trogilion (today Dip Burnu ) in the west of the Mykale (today Dilek Dağları ) to Phygela (today Kuştur) north of Kuşadası , was divided among the victors Ephesus , Milet , Samos and Priene . However, especially the northern part of the Mycale between Samos and Priene remained a matter of dispute until the Hellenistic period. The Panionion , the common main sanctuary of the Ionian League, which had been in the area of Melia, belonged to Priene from then on.
Gerhard Kleiner , Peter Hommel and Wolfgang Müller-Wiener located Melia on the hill Kale Tepe near Güzelçamlı north of the Mykale. But in 2004 a fortified Carian hill settlement was discovered in the center of the Mykale in the southwest flank of the Çatallar Tepe (" fork mountain ") at an altitude of approx. 800 m, which Melia can claim for far better reasons. Excavations in 2008 by Hans Lohmann and his colleagues from the University of Bochum revealed that the once densely built-up settlement was around 640 BC. Founded in the last quarter of the 7th century BC Fortified and approx. 600/590 BC. Was destroyed and abandoned. In the ruins of the destroyed settlement was built around 560 BC. An early Ionian temple in which the Panionion , attested by Herodotus , can be seen. The ruins on Kale Tepe near Güzelçamlı are a typical Carian ring wall from the 7th century BC. BC without interior development. Such refuges are very typical for the rest of the Carian settlement area. In the ring wall near Güzelçamlı , the karion phrourion , i.e. the Carian fortress, can be seen, which is mentioned no less than 18 times in an inscription from Priene. Older researchers ( Theodor Wiegand , Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen ) had already represented this view . It is particularly important that the inscription clearly distinguishes between Melia and the karion phrourion . Melia is therefore by no means identical to the karion phrourion .
literature
- Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: Panionion. In: Session reports of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. 1906, 3rd reprint in this: Small writings. Vol. 5.1, 1971, pp. 128-151.
- Carl Roebuck: The Early Ionian League. In: Classical Philology. Vol. 50, No. 1 (Jan. 1955), pp. 26-40.
- Gerhard Kleiner, Peter Hommel, Wolfgang Müller-Wiener: Panionion and Melie (= Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute. Supplement 23). de Gruyter, Berlin 1967.
- Franziska Lang: Archaic Settlements in Greece. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-05-002873-4 , Index sv Melia, esp. 196f. Fig. 69f.
- G. Ragone: La guerra meliaca e la struttura originaria della lega ionica in Vitruvio 4,1,3-6. In: Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica. 114: 173-205 (1986).
- Hans Lohmann: On the historical topography of southern Ionia. In: Orbis Terrarum. Vol. 7 (2002), pp. 218-219 sv Melia.
- Hans Lohmann: Melia, the Panionion and the cult of Poseidon Helikonios. In: E. Schwertheim, E. Winter (ed.): New research on Ionia (= Asia Minor Studies. 54) Bonn 2005, pp. 57–91.
- Hans Lohmann, Hermann Büsing, Frank Hulek, Georg Kalaitzoglou, Gundula Lüdorf, Marc Müllenhoff, Philipp Niewöhner: Research and excavations in the Mykale 2001–2006. In: Istanbul communications. 57, 2007, pp. 59-178.
- Anna Magnetto: L'arbitrato di Rodi fra Samo e Priene. Edizioni della Normale, Pisa 2008.
- Hans Lohmann, Georg Kalaitzoglou, Gundula Lüdorf: probes in the fortified Carian hillside settlement of Melia in the Mykale (Dilek Dağları / Aydın). In: Archäologischer Anzeiger. 2010, no. 2, pp. 123-137.