Perge
Coordinates: 36 ° 57 ′ 39 ″ N , 30 ° 51 ′ 12 ″ E
Perge (Greek Πέργη, Hittite Parḫa ) is an ancient city 14 kilometers inland from the south coast of Turkey and 16 kilometers northeast of Antalya (ancient Attaleia) in Aksu . Along with Side, it was the most important city in Pamphylia . The ruins still standing give a good impression of a city complex from the late Hellenistic- Roman times.
location
The plain of Perge, in which the two rivers Aksu (the ancient Kestros ) and Köpruçay flow south to the Mediterranean Sea , is surrounded on all three sides by high mountains (up to 3070 m, east the Taurus Mountains up to 2980 m). In the northeast behind this mountain range lies the city of Konya - the ancient Iconium - 150 kilometers away . This landscape between the peninsula Lycia and Cilicia was partly counted as Pisidia in antiquity , but was also the capital of Pamphylia for a long time.
history
Traces of settlement from the early Chalcolithic period (4th millennium BC) on Table Mountain are the oldest evidence. In a Hittithic State Treaty from approx. 1235 BC Chr. Parha place indicated equates to Perge. This suggests a late Bronze Age settlement, the remains of which have now been discovered and published in 2010. There are so far only a few archaeological evidence of the Hittite period, as well as of the Greek immigration supposedly following the Trojan War , according to local tradition . For example, two participants in the Trojan War are named as founding heroes - the seers Kalchas and Mopsos . In the 7th century BC The development to a Greek-influenced settlement began under the influence of the Rhodians , after Perge in the 10th – 8th centuries. Century BC BC apparently maintained close contact with Cyprus . As the leading city, Perge belonged to the Attisch-Delischen Seebund . The city surrendered to Alexander the Great , then under Seleucid and Ptolemaic rule, after the Peace of Apamea from 188 to 133 BC. Under Pergamene rule; then Roman. Perge became the capital of the province of Lycia et Pamphylia in 73/74 AD .
ruins
Coming from the coast or from Antalya, to the west (left) is the ancient theater of Perge, which held 14,000 spectators and is therefore one of the largest of its kind. Half of the stage building has been preserved in full; you can still see parts of the earlier furnishings with marble friezes and reliefs , wall coverings and niches with statues . The reliefs show u. a. the battle of the giants and some centaurs . The top of the 48 rows of seats offer a magnificent panoramic view of the entire ruined city and its surroundings. Originally there was a circular arcade gallery there .
Between the theater and the city is a large, well-preserved stadium with 15,000 seats and 50 vaults that support the well-preserved rows of seats. Some of them served as shops, every third as access.
Most of the rest of the city lies behind impressive ramparts . They were built in the third century BC - probably under the influence of Alexander's rapid capture of the city. The wide and long colonnades open behind the first oval towers . However, the space up to the slope of a striking table mountain is now partially overgrown by weeds and reeds .
The round temple of Tyche, the goddess of luck, stands on the large agora . Palace ruins from the imperial era and the large palaestra, which is part of a large grammar school , follow in the direction of the city . This building is the oldest outside the original city wall.
At the west gate are the thermal baths - an aqueduct can also be seen - and behind it the necropolis . The most important of the sarcophagi and statues are now in the Archaeological Museum of Antalya.
The University of Istanbul has been excavating here since the 1970s , initially under the direction of Arif Müfid Mansel , then Jale İnan , now Halûk Abbasoğlu .
Research on Table Mountain
Archaeologists from the University of Istanbul have been cooperating with the University of Gießen on the excavations in Perge since 1988 .
The strategically located Table Mountain in the north has been called the Acropolis since the work of Count Karl Lanckoronski (1890) , because the main street of the city runs exactly towards it. The 90 m high and about 700 m wide plateau with steep flanks was an ideal settlement in pre-Hellenistic times. A first survey was in 1995 by a DFG - Priority Program promoted to Asia Minor, which is based on themes of the 1999 acculturation was expanded in the eastern Mediterranean. The excavations soon showed that Table Mountain was inhabited from the Neolithic to the Middle Byzantine era.
In 2001, a sacred center from the classical period was explored on the western edge of the plateau . It was probably dedicated to Artemis Pergai, whose cult - as in Ephesus - shaped art and the economy . Last but not least, this can be seen on some ancient coins.
Perge in Christian times
Christianity is documented very early in Perge . Paul and Barnabas came here twice on their first missionary trip (Acts 13: 13-14 and 14:25). From there they moved north (Pisidia) or east (Iconium). During the centuries that followed, Maria was particularly venerated in Perge . In Byzantine times it was the seat of a bishop who was also metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province . Today Perge is only a titular bishopric of the Roman Catholic Church. Under the Seljuks (from around 1400?) A large garrison was built here.
Personalities
Perge is the birthplace of the mathematician Apollonios von Perge .
Individual evidence
- ^ Max Gander: The geographic relations of the Lukka countries . Texts of the Hittites, issue 27 (2010). ISBN 978-3-8253-5809-9 . Pp. 63ff., 183
- ^ Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier , Greece and Asia Minor in the Late Bronze Age. in: Michael Meier-Brügger, Homer, interpreted by a large lexicon: files of the Hamburg Colloquium from 6.-8. October 2010 at the end of the Lexicon of the Early Greek Epic . de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston, 2012, p. 156 (with further references in note 140).
- ^ Wolfram Martini : The Acropolis of Perge in Pamphylia. From the settlement area to the Acropolis. (= Scientific Society at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main - meeting reports 48.1) , Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010, p. 21 ff.
literature
- Halûk Abbasoğlu, Wolfram Martini (ed.): The Acropolis of Perge. Volume 1: Survey and Sondagen 1994–1997. Zabern, Mainz 2003, ISBN 3-8053-3293-9 .
- George Ewart Bean : Perge (Aksu) Turkey . In: Richard Stillwell et al. a. (Ed.): The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976, ISBN 0-691-03542-3 .
- Hansgerd Hellenkemper , Friedrich Hild : Lykien and Pamphylien. Volume 1. Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-7001-3280-8 , pp. 360–372. ( Tabula Imperii Byzantini , 8)
- Adnan Pekman: Perge Tarihi - History of Perge. Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevı, Ankara 1989. (Turkish and English)
- Sencer Şahin: The inscriptions from Perge. Volume 1: Pre-Roman times, early and high imperial times. Habelt, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-7749-2888-6 . Volume 2: Historical texts from the 3rd century. AD, grave texts from the 1st – 3rd centuries Centuries of the Roman Empire, fragments. Habelt, Bonn 2004, ISBN 3-7749-3155-0 .
- Hüseyin Sabri Alanyalı: The Centauromachy and the Gigantomachy Frieze in the Perge Theater. (Wiener Forschungen zur Aräologie 15), Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-85161-094-9 .
