Başkan Dernek Kapattırdı - Update

For those, like me, who have to rely on software to translate Turkish to English, below is a link to Jack Snowden’s blog “Turkish News Tuhaf” which contains a translation of the article reporting the rift between the local association and Prof Şahin.

Turkish News Tuhaf Blog 

I’ve been in touch with an acquaintance who has close ties with the UU Archaeology team. In his opinion the withdrawal of support is not viewed as a serious issue, and will not affect future excavations. He also added that the biggest setback to work commencing on the theatre, referred to in the article, is that the proposed excavation site is on privately owned land.

Access to the archaeology on the mainland has been an issue since 2006. The excavations in 2005 & 2006 and the subsequent geophysical surveys strongly suggest that a considerable portion of the ancient city may still remain, relatively undisturbed. Unfortunately the majority of the features are on privately owned land and there seems to be reluctance on the part of the local landowners to grant access.

Başkan Dernek Kapattırdı

An article in yesterday’s Canli Haber described a disagreement between Prof Şahin, the leader of the Uludağ University Archaeology team, and the president of the local association formed to protect and promote the ancient city. This rift seems to have resulted in the termination of the ties between the two groups.

Canli Haber -.Baskan Dernek Kapattirdi 

There has been no statement posted on the association’s website or on UU’s Myndos Facebook page so if anyone has any information of what happened at the meeting, please email or post a comment.

Latest Newspaper Articles On The Rabbit Island Excavations

There have been a number of articles in the Turkish over the past two days regarding excavations on Rabbit Island / Tavşan Adasi / Asar Adasi which may be associated with an end of (excavation) season press release.

The articles suggest that the island will be open to visitors next year, excavations started in 2009 and access has been limited since that date.

The newspaper reports also contain an apparent revised date for some of the human remains first uncovered in 2009. Early reports suggested that the grave constructions and artefacts suggested interment dates from the 5^th to the 11^th century A.D. however the latest press reports state that some of the remains date from the 3^rd century. 

I was only considering the origins of some of the remains earlier this week as I tried to compile a summary of the excavation reports for 2009-2011. It would be interesting if those now dated to the 3^rd century have been carbon dated as they most likely pre date the church which has previously thought to have been constructed in the 5^th or 6^th century.

The Roman persecution of Christians ended with the Edict of Milan in 313 AD and the Council of Nicaea issued the Nicene Creed in 325 making Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire. 

Assuming that any Christian executed for their beliefs would have died before these dates raises several possibilities:

The church was dedicated to members of a local group who been punished for practising their religion prior to 313 and whose remains were reburied in the 5th or 6th century

The remains are “holy relics” which were interred in the church. This is was a known practice later in northern European churches where the remains of saints and other artefacts would be used to attract pilgrims.

That the present church is built on the site of an earlier 3^rd century church

The latter is fairly unlikely as it is difficult to believe that followers of what was viewed as an unofficial sect / religion would be allowed to construct a place of worship in such a prominent position. However that does discount the possibility that there was an active covert Christian community practicing in area before 313 AD.

As far as I’m aware there are no biblical references to an early 3^rd century Christian community in the area, however there are records of an active Jewish community at Myndos from as early as 139 BC and later around the 4^th to 6^th century AD

I’ve tried to contact UU regarding the dating of the remains, but I don’t hold out much hope of receiving a reply, past attempts to clarify dates etc have been disappointing.

Haberciniz 21-08-14


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Chart of the Promontory of Boodroom with the Karabaghla Islands and the North Point of the Island of Kos ... by Francis Beaufort F.R.S. ... 1811

Chart of the Promontory of Boodroom with the Karabaghla Islands and the North Point of the Island of Kos ... by Francis Beaufort F.R.S. ... 1811: United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO)

Possibly the first British naval chart of the Bodrum Peninsula, Beaufort a Captain at the time went on to become Hydrographer of the Navy.

Along with Boodroom some of the other anglicised pronunciations of Turkish place names include Biteh (Bitez) Kady –Kalassy (Kadikalesi) & Gumishlu (Gümüşlük ) 

TALES FROM THE BALCONY

To Bozdag and back

It was 23^rd of June 2010. Dave and I had decided see the recently identified late Roman marble quarry at the top of Bozdag Hill, which Dave had read a report about in Halicarnassian Studies. Some years before with Arif, we had climbed Bozdag on foot in a failed attempt to find remains of  Lelegian walls and foundations of a tower. Asking Arif the best way to get there was a bit of a no brainer, as we all remembered the difficulty we had climbing the 1 in 3 hill before.

    ‘We’ll go in my fathers car’ was Arif’s quick reply. ‘I’ll drive you to the top’

We couldn’t remember seeing anything like a road going up it, let alone a car.

So there we were in Arif’s dads old fiat 131, soon discovering there was no road but found ourselves bouncing up a loose dirt track that would have easily qualified as a stage in the WRC Rally of Turkey.

The trip to the top whilst full of bounce was uneventful.  The return trip however was to prove otherwise.

The journey down allowed me to film shots of the valley. The track from the summit ran into a road passing through the Munipicality refuse tip, which, as well as containing rubbish also held ramshackle building structures, a sort of shanty town for workers on the tip.

My camera was still running as we reached the tip area.  As workers saw us and the camera, people started remonstrating shaking their fists and shouting in Turkish, running alongside the car. Arif slowed down and attempts were made to snatch the video camera from the car. Arif stopped and got out of the car and started arguing aggressively with them. As the crowd and noise increased Arif pulled out his phone, made a call then passed it to the leader of the angry mob.

After the phone call, things were calmer, Arif returned to the car to explain that the people working/living on the tip thought we were an undercover film crew sent to film them. Arif’s phone call had been to the Jandarma, and the only way he could persuade the group to let us leave, was if we reported to the Jandarma station with one of the group’s leaders.

During the journey to the station, with Arif as an interpreter and using the maps and documentation we had, we tried to impress on the leader that we were only interested in the quarry. Arif said he seemed suitably impressed and had asked if Dave was a Professor. To which we all readily agreed, he seemed a little more impressed, as was Dave.

  

At the station I agreed to delete any footage of the tip that had caused offence. With everyone satisfied, we took the leader back to the tip. During the course of the journey the leader was chatting and laughing with Arif in Turkish. We just hoped that he was not about to try and raise his status with other members of his group by asking the Professor and his companions to have a glass of raki with them.

We had both seen Midnight Express, so the first beer on our return to Hera seemed like celebrating freedom.  

You can see a short video of the road trip to Bozdag and back (of course minus the angry crowd scenes deleted to appease the authorities ), at: Link To You Tube Video

New Page Added – Excavations in 2005 and 2006

The new page contains an interpretation of Uludağ University’s web reports of the 2005-2006 excavations cross referenced with an earlier version of the same reports downloaded in 2007; I’ve also added a few photographs of the area taken in 06 & 07.

New Page - Excavations in 2005 and 2006

The web reports only contain brief descriptions of the findings and I would love to get access to the full excavation reports as there are more tantalising references to finds which suggest a possible earlier period of occupation, but there is no detail of the context in which they were found e.g. were the fragments of obsidian tools, and the sherds of pottery dating from 740 – 700 BC found below undisturbed layers of Hellenistic deposits. 

New Page – Archaeological Survey 2004

Although certain areas of the village have been subject to a state protection order for some time there seems to have been no systematic or formal evaluation of the area until a survey was undertaken in 2004.

New page Archaeological Survey 2004  describes some of the areas and findings detailed in the survey report