Temple of the Roma and Augustus (Ankara)
Coordinates: 39 ° 56 ′ 39 ″ N , 32 ° 51 ′ 30 ″ E
The Temple of the Roma and Augustus ( Turkish Ogüst ve Roma Mabedi ), often shortened to the Temple of Augustus , in Ankara , the ancient Ancyra in Galatia , is in the Ulus district, the historical center of the Turkish capital. He is known from the only largely completely preserved inscription of the Res gestae divi Augusti , the report of accounts of the first Roman emperor Augustus . According to the location of the temple, the inscription is also known as Monumentum Ancyranum .
location
The temple is located in the Hacıbayram Mahallesi district on a square between Şehit Keskin Sokak and Hacı Bayram Veli Caddesi, west of Ankara Castle Hill . In the southeast is the small park Hacı Bayram Cami Parkı . In the northwest directly adjacent to the temple, the Hacibayram mosque is built. The Julian's Column is located about 200 meters to the west at Hükümet Meydanı . About 400 meters northwest of Çankırı Caddesi are the ruins of the Caracalla Baths , a bathing complex from the 3rd / 4th centuries. Century. The complex was probably connected to the area of the temple by a street of columns.
investment
The temple, built in the Corinthian order, has the shape of a pseudodipteros . It is oriented to the northeast and measures about 36 × 55 meters. He was standing on a two-meter high dais with eight steps. In front of the narrow side there were 8 columns and 15 on the long side. In addition, there were four columns in front of the pronaos (vestibule) in the southwest and two in front of the opisthodom (rear hall). A decorated portal led from the pronaos into the cella (interior), which was a meter higher and accessible via four steps. In the windowless room reserved for the priests, there was probably a cult image. Only the side walls of the cella with a length of 32.5 and a height of almost 12 meters are preserved today. The Latin version of the inscription can be read on the preserved southeastern inner wall of the pronaos , the Greek version is on the southeastern outer wall of the cella. The letters in the document were originally colored.
history
The building was originally built in the 2nd century BC. Built as a temple of the Phrygian deities Men and Cybele . After Ancyra 25 BC. BC became the capital of the Roman province of Galatia, the temple was rebuilt and dedicated to the cult of the Roman city goddess Roma and the deified Augustus. In the 6th century AD it was rededicated by the Byzantines as a church. The floor of the interior was lowered, the wall between the cella and the rear hall was replaced by an apse and three windows were built into the south-east wall. In 1427/28 the Hacibayram Mosque was built on the north-west corner of the temple, after which the temple was used as a medrese .
Research history
In 1865 the German historian Theodor Mommsen researched the Monumentum Ancyranum and published the inscription. He relied on a copy by Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq , an envoy of the German Emperor Ferdinand I , from 1554 and on the work of the French archaeologist Georges Perrot from the 1860s. At Mommsen's suggestion, the archaeologist Carl Humann took plaster casts of the inscription on behalf of the Royal Museums in Berlin in 1882 . The building of the temple was thoroughly examined for the first time from 1926 to 1928 by Martin Schede and Daniel Krencker and parts of it were excavated; the results were published in 1936. Between 1936 and 1938 the Turkish archaeologist Hâmit Zübeyir Koşay examined the temple. Since 1997 the University of Trieste has been involved in the Ancyra Project with the photogrammetric recording, further research and restoration of the monument. She works with the Turkish Ministry of Culture and the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations .
literature
- Daniel Krencker, Martin Schede: The temple in Ankara. de Gruyter, Berlin 1936.
- Theodor Mommsen: Res gestae divi Augusti ex monumentis Ancyrano et Apolloniensi . Weidmann, Berlin 1865 ( digitized version ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ancyra project: The survey of the Augustus' temple in Ankara .
- ↑ Marianne Mehling (Ed.): Knaurs Kulturführer in Farbe Turkey . Droemer-Knaur, 1987, ISBN 3-426-26293-2 , p. 74.
- ^ Friedrich Karl Dörner : The throne of the gods on the Nemrud Dağ 2nd edition. Gustav Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1987, ISBN 3-7857-0277-9 , p. 14.