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Exploring urbanism in ancient North Syria

E-BookEPUBDRM AdobeE-Book
416 Seiten
Englisch
De Gruytererschienen am18.07.20221. Auflage
This book accounts for the results of fieldwork in Doliche, located in Gaziantep, South East Turkey. Doliche was an important city of ancient North Syria which continued to thrive into the Middle Ages. For the first time, an international research project started to explore the site in 2015. The chapters collected in this volume discuss the main discoveries of the first seasons. It is divided in two parts. The first part considers the main excavation results, with a particular emphasis on a newly discovered early Christian basilica and its decoration. This section also contains the first comprehensive discussion of a newly discovered Roman Imperial hypogeum from the city necropolis. The chapters of the second part deal with the preliminary findings from an intra-urban intensive survey. Between 2017 and 2019, a significant portion of the city area has been investigated, and the results of the survey offer new insights in the spatial and chronological of the city. The chapters consider methodological questions, but also discuss artefact groups. In general, the results presented in this volume add to the knowledge of urbanism in Roman and Late antique North Syria.

Michael Blömer and Engelbert Winter, University of Münster, Germany.mehr
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Produkt

KlappentextThis book accounts for the results of fieldwork in Doliche, located in Gaziantep, South East Turkey. Doliche was an important city of ancient North Syria which continued to thrive into the Middle Ages. For the first time, an international research project started to explore the site in 2015. The chapters collected in this volume discuss the main discoveries of the first seasons. It is divided in two parts. The first part considers the main excavation results, with a particular emphasis on a newly discovered early Christian basilica and its decoration. This section also contains the first comprehensive discussion of a newly discovered Roman Imperial hypogeum from the city necropolis. The chapters of the second part deal with the preliminary findings from an intra-urban intensive survey. Between 2017 and 2019, a significant portion of the city area has been investigated, and the results of the survey offer new insights in the spatial and chronological of the city. The chapters consider methodological questions, but also discuss artefact groups. In general, the results presented in this volume add to the knowledge of urbanism in Roman and Late antique North Syria.

Michael Blömer and Engelbert Winter, University of Münster, Germany.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9783110748109
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisDRM Adobe
FormatE101
Erscheinungsjahr2022
Erscheinungsdatum18.07.2022
Auflage1. Auflage
ReiheDoliche Urban Excavations
Reihen-Nr.1
Seiten416 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Illustrationen154 b/w and 90 col. ill., 32 b/w tbl., 2 col. graphics
Artikel-Nr.10967630
Rubriken
Genre9200

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe


The Doliche Project 2015-2020: Aims and Outcomes



Prof. Dr. Michael Blömer
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster Institut für Klassische Archäologie und Christliche Archäologie Domplatz 20-22 48143 Münster Deutschland




Unless otherwise stated, the figures are property of the Forschungsstelle Asia Minor.


Introduction

Doliche was a city of ancient Syria, located at the southern fringe of the Taurus foothills (Fig.â1). The urban area spreads over a natural hill which is called Keber Tepe today (Fig.â2). 1 It borders an arable high plateau of red soil, which covers an area of approximately 24âkm² and is surrounded by largely barren karstic limestone hills. 2 The area receives plentiful rainfall and is also irrigated by the headwaters of the Nizip Çay, a small river that flows into the Euphrates in the vicinity of Zeugma/Seleucia-on-the-Euphrates. One of the main springs that feeds into this stream was located at the south-eastern foot of Keber Tepe. 3

Fig.â1 Map of Ancient North Syria.

Fig.â2 View of Keber Tepe and the adjacent plain from Dülük Baba Tepesi.

Apart from Doliche, two tell sites can be discerned on the high plateau: Bedirköy at its eastern edge, and Karahöyük at the centre of the plain. 4 With a height of 35âm, the latter is of considerable size and might have been the main settlement of this plain before Doliche took over this role. However, neither tell site has ever been investigated and hence their occupation history remains enigmatic.

Almost immediately south of Doliche, the Dülük Baba Tepesi Mountain range rises to a height of 1,204âm, protruding from the plain by roughly 350âm. The mountain separates Doliche from the valley of the Alleben/Savur, where the centre of Gaziantep is located. The peak of Dülük Baba Tepesi is the highest point in the wider region. It accommodates the main sanctuary of Doliche, the temple of Jupiter Dolichenus.

The favourable position of the Doliche region is easy to perceive. It is linked to the Aksu and Amuq valleys and the Syrian Gates in the west, to the Merzumen valley and Commagene in the north, to the important Euphrates crossing at Zeugma in the East and to the valleys of the Alleben/Savur and the Afrin in the south. 5 In antiquity they connected Doliche with Hierapolis, Cyrrhus, Beroea, and Antioch-on-the-Orontes. It is therefore not surprising that Doliche, and later Gaziantep, were hubs in the trans-regional networks of Anatolia, North Syria, and North Mesopotamia.

The little we know about the city from ancient sources has been compiled elsewhere and there is no need to reiterate it in detail. 6 It must be stressed, however, that the bulk of information pertains to the Late Antique and Medieval city. In the 4th century CE, Doliche became the seat of a bishop and appears to have played a continuous role as a regional urban centre for several centuries. After the Arab conquest, the city was located on the frontier zone between the Byzantine Empire and the Caliphate. 7 When the Byzantine Empire regained control over Northern Syria in the later 10th century CE, the written sources portray Doliche as the capital of a small eponymous border province. 8 While it cannot be ascertained whether Byzantine troops were indeed stationed at Doliche/Telouch, it is noteworthy that the famous Byzantine commander Georgios Maniakes started his career as the commander of Doliche/Telouch around 1030. 9 In the Crusader period, the Latin counts and countesses of Edessa controlled the city. However, after the Seljuks conquered Doliche in 1156 CE the site was abandoned and never reoccupied. 10 In the later 13th century the Arab geographer Izz al-DÄ«n ibn SaddÄd reported that the city was in ruins, but a fortified castle, an aqueduct bridge, and the remains of large stone buildings were still visible. 11

Much less is known about previous periods. Despite the prominence and international reputation of the city s main god, Jupiter Dolichenus, Doliche always remained a second-tier city which does not figure at all in ancient sources. However, some conclusions about the history of the settlement have been drawn from circumstantial evidence. Scholars have taken the name of the city, which has a counterpart in Thessaly, as evidence for a Seleucid foundation, possibly as a military settlement. 12 The results of recent research corroborate this assumption inasmuch as no unambiguous evidence of a pre-Hellenistic occupation has been discovered. Consequently, the close connection between the city of Doliche and the sanctuary on Dülük Baba Tepesi, which expresses itself most strongly in the name of the god Jupiter Dolichenus, developed only in the Hellenistic period. Whether the Iron Age sanctuary was previously connected to a different settlement in the vicinity of Dülük Baba Tepesi - possibly the tell site that is superseded by the Gaziantep castle - cannot be determined. In any case, the strong link between the sanctuary and the new city suggests the presence of an indigenous population at Doliche and corroborates a significant presence of local cultural traditions. However, any further conclusions about the identities of the city s inhabitants would be pure speculation. It must be stressed, though, that evidence from the Roman period clearly shows that Doliche was organized as a Greek polis, and it can be assumed that it held this status already in the Hellenistic period. 13

It seems likely that Doliche had remained under Seleucid control until the early first century BCE. After the Seleucid state was finally dissolved in 64 BCE, the city became part of the kingdom of Commagene. This is confirmed by a fragment of an inscription set up by king Antiochos I of Commagene in the sanctuary on Dülük Baba Tepesi. 14 A few decades later, however, after the battle of Actium in 31 BCE, Doliche changed hands again and was incorporated into the Roman province of Syria. The use of the name deus commagenus for Jupiter Dolichenus implies that within the province of Syria Doliche was part of the koinon of Commagene. 15

For the ensuing 250 years, outside sources for the history of Doliche do not exist. Yet it has been assumed that the city prospered in this period. The first results of excavations in the city, and also in the extra-urban sanctuary of Jupiter Dolichenus, have confirmed this assumption. Coins were minted for a brief period in the name of Doliche under Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, and the young Commodus (Fig.â3). 16 The chance find of a tombstone of a Roman soldier from Apulum, which dates to the reign of Caracalla, indicates that Roman soldiers were temporarily stationed at Doliche. 17 An inscribed statue base from the sanctuary of Jupiter Dolichenus even suggests that Caracalla himself passed through the city. 18 The city s heyday had ended, however, by the time of the Persian invasion of Syria in 253 CE. In a famous rock-inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam, the Persian Great king SÄpÅ«r I mentions Doliche as one of the many cities destroyed during the war. 19

Fig.â3 Doliche, 161-169 CE, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, Bronze, 23âmm, 11.38 g, 12 h (@Leu Numismatik Web Auction 17, 14.â08.â2021, Lot 1829).

The few pieces of information available on the history of the city hardly provide a good picture of the city s development. Most importantly, they do not shed light on the socio-economic milieu of Doliche and its inhabitants. Questions pertaining to the cultural dynamics which created and transformed the city cannot be answered. Yet Doliche certainly is an ideal place to study the complex and multi-faceted world of Hellenistic and Roman Northern Syria. It was a small town at the crossroads of Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia that became the centre of an international cult in the Roman period. Moreover, the city proved to be remarkably resilient after the Byzantine retreat from Syria in the 7th century CE. Oscillating between local traditions and global trends, Doliche can serve as a test case for a plethora of questions with far-reaching implications for our understanding of urban development in Greater Roman Syria. However, the only way to tap into this potential and thus to develop a fine-grained picture of urban life at Doliche is by way of a holistic analysis of data retrieved in archaeological fieldwork.
The site and its exploration

The city area of Doliche seems to have been largely restricted to the Keber Tepe hill, which means that it encompassed a territory of a little more than 0.5 square kilometres. The precise borders, however, have not yet been established. 20 The main reason for this uncertainty is the scarcity of visible markers...

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