1,800-year-old Headless Greek Statue Found at Turkey’s Metropolis Site

Archaeologists in western Turkey have unearthed a 1,800-year-old marble statue from the ancient ruins of Metropolis, known as the ‘City of the Mother Goddess’ during the Roman period.

Earlier this month, the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry’s Department announced the discovery of the Roman-era statue, a robed female figure with her head and both arms missing.  

The limbs were probably attached separately, according to Art News, though more work needs to be done to uncover the identity of the figure, researchers say.

The current excavation is a collaboration between the ministry and Celal Bayar University in Manisa, Turkey.

Metropolis (Greek for ‘mother state’) was a name bestowed on various cities, though this one is in Western Turkey’s Torbali municipality, about 25 miles from modern-day Izmir, the country’s third-largest city.

Humans have occupied the land for at least 8,000 years, since the Neolithic period. 

Artifacts indicate it was inhabited by Hittites during the Bronze Age (when it was known as Puranda) and were also active during the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods.

It was founded as Metropolis by the Greeks in roughly 300 BC and, despite its matriarchal name, was home to one of only two known temples devoted to Ares, the Greek god of War.

The sculpture dates to the Metropolis Roman era—when the empire controlled Anatolia, the portion of Turkey located on the Asian continent.

Roman scientist-philosopher Ptolemy described the town as an important trading post in Lydia, about halfway along the ancient trade routes between Smyrna and Ephesus.

Fieldwork began in the region in the 1970s, with excavations at Metropolis starting in the mid-1980s.  

Since then, archaeologists have uncovered more than 11,000 artifacts, according to Art News, including coins, ceramics, glass, ivory and metal objects.

The city ‘has a deep-rooted history dating back to prehistoric times,’ Celal Bayar University archaeologist Serdar Aybek told the Turkish-language Demirören News Agency in January, according to an English-language report in Arkeonews. 

‘It has the fertility brought by the Küçük Menderes River. It is a region that has always been settled.’ 

Notable finds include a Hellenistic marble seat of honour uncovered in the outdoor theatre, elaborate Roman baths featuring sculptures of Zeus and Thyke, goddess of good fortune, as well as other Roman-era buildings including a sports complex, government building, various shops, galleries and public toilets.

More recently, four massive interlocking cisterns big enough to hold 600 tons of water were uncovered in the city’s acropolis last year.  It’s believed they were used during the Late Roman period and may have been helpful when the city was under siege by invaders.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, when the cisterns were no longer used to provide water, they became a garbage dump, with animal bones, broken ceramics and other detritus of daily life found on the site, according to the Daily Sabah. 

Hundreds of Ornate, Rock-Cut Tombs Discovered in Ancient Turkish City

Some 1,800 years ago, residents of Blaundos buried their dead in highly decorated graves cut into the sides of a surrounding canyon.

Excavations at Blaundos in Uşak, Turkey, have revealed 400 rock-cut tombs dated to 1,800 years ago, when the ancient city was under Roman control. Many of the tombs are decorated with images of vine branches, bunches of grapes, flowers, animals and mythological figures, the state-run Anadolu Agency (AA) reports.

Blaundos was located atop a hill and surrounded by a canyon that offered protection from attackers. The tombs were carved into the steep sides of the canyon.

“There are arched sarcophagi carved into the bedrock in front of the walls of each room,” expedition leader Birol Can, an archaeologist at Uşak University, tells AA.

“Apart from these, places that are thought to be used for funeral ceremonies were also found inside the rock tombs. The main door of the tombs was closed with a marble door and reopened during burial or ceremony times in the past.”

Some of the tombs have only one chamber, while others are “complex structures formed by arranging rooms one after the other,” Can says to Live Science‘s Laura Geggel.

“These rooms were not created in one go,” he adds. “It is understood from the traces on the walls that these tombs were originally designed as a single room.

However, in time, when there was no place for burial in this single room, the room was expanded inwards and the second, third and then the fourth rooms were added.”

Archaeologists have been aware of the rock-cut necropolis—one of the largest burial sites of its kind in the world—for more than 150 years. But researchers only began systematically excavating Blaundos in 2018. Aside from the tombs, writes Argun Konuk for Daily Sabah, the team has identified temples, a theater, a public bath, aqueducts, a state building, a stadium and more.

“Apart from these, we know that there are many religious, public and civil structures still under the ground”.

Over the centuries, grave robbers partially destroyed some of the tombs while removing jewelry and other precious items. But many objects remain.

They include pottery fragments and coins dated to the second through fourth centuries C.E., as well as grave goods like mirrors, rings, cups and oil lamps presumably intended for use in the afterlife.

Murals decorating 24 of the chambers remain visible but are in poor shape.

“Some of these tombs were used as animal shelters by shepherds a long time ago,” “The frescoes were covered with a dense and black soot layer due to the fires that were set in those times.”

A conservation team has cleaned some of the paintings, which include motifs of vines, flowers, wreaths and geometric patterns, as well as mythological figures like Hermes, Eros and Medusa and animals including birds and dogs.

Blaundos was founded by a commander of the same name who served under Alexander the Great after his army swept into Asia Minor in the fourth century B.C.E. Originally inhabited by Macedonians, it later became an important Roman city, notes Peta Stamper for “History Hit.” In the later Roman and Byzantine eras, Blaundos was a seat for bishops leading Christian communities in the surrounding area.

The tombs uncovered so far are just a part of the necropolis. Hundreds of other graves have yet to be excavated. The team also plans to conduct DNA and chemical analyses aimed at determining the ancestry, age, sex and diet of those buried in the ancient city.

Anatolian Neolithic Weavers At Çatalhöyük Used Trees to Make The Oldest Cloth

A new study published in the journal Antiquity has revealed some surprising information about the inhabitants of the ancient city of Çatalhöyük, an early Neolithic settlement located in southern Anatolia (modern-day Turkey).

It seems these industrious people found a way to convert fibers from oak trees into textiles that were used to make clothes. Based on the study’s results, the oak fiber textiles of Çatalhöyük are the oldest cloth artifacts, or the oldest preserved woven fabrics in the world.

This is just the latest discovery that highlights the accomplishments of the residents of this famous Stone Age city, which was founded around 9,500 years ago and remains one of the oldest urban enclaves found in the archaeological record.

Çatalhöyük Weavers Made The Oldest Cloth Artifacts Ever

Excavations have been ongoing in Çatalhöyük since the 1950s, and at the time was believed to have been the world’s first true city. Originally settled in about 7,500 BC, in the early Neolithic ( Chalcolithic) era, shortly after the end of the last ice age, Çatalhöyük may have been home to as many as 10,000 people at its peak of population.

Over the approximately 1,100 years the city was occupied, its residents built a culture that was quite sophisticated for the time.

Among other capacities, the people of Çatalhöyük were skilled and accomplished weavers. They produced ample supplies of baskets, ropes, mats, and clothing made from finely-woven materials, examples of which were recovered during excavations that tracked centuries of activity within the city’s confines. These woven artifacts are considered to be the oldest cloth artifacts ever found so far on Earth.

What was this Oldest Cloth Made From?

Archaeologists learned a lot about the Çatalhöyük weaving industry from studying such items. There was one thing they didn’t know about the weavers of Çatalhöyük, however, and that was about the type of material they used to make their clothing fabric.

In other ancient textile samples, scholars had identified wool from sheep and linen made from plant fibers harvested from flax, as the top candidates, based on the clothes-making practices of other ancient peoples.

To obtain a definitive answer for the material used to make the cloth at Çatalhöyük, a team of archaeologists with expertise in this area collaborated on a study of pieces of clothing fabric recovered during 1993—2017 excavations led by Stanford University archaeologist Ian Hodder. These fabrics were made between 8,700 and 8,500 years ago and were still quite well preserved despite the immense passage of time.

As they detail in their Antiquity article, archaeologists Lise Bender Jørgensen from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Antoinette Rast-Eicher from the University of Bern (Switzerland) used a scanning electron microscope to closely examine the fabric samples. When they undertook their study, the archaeologists expected to find evidence that would confirm either the wool or the linen hypothesis.

But their research findings revealed an unexpected truth. Neither of those common choices for fabric making had been used, despite previous determinations that it must have been one or the other. The clever and inventive weavers of Çatalhöyük had instead used a substance obtained from oak trees , which were grown and harvested as a construction material.

“These findings shed new light on early textile production in the Neolithic, suggesting that tree bast played a more significant role than previously recognized,” the scientists wrote in their Antiquity article.

Tree bast is a fibrous substance that can be found coating the inside of tree bark. It forms an extra protective layer between the bark and the tree’s wooden interior. Like the oak tree itself, oak bast is durable and strong, which would have made it an ideal choice for Stone Age and Neolithic textile weavers.

“In the past, researchers largely neglected the possibility that the fabric fibers could be anything other than wool or linen , but lately another material has received more attention,” Bender Jørgensen told Norwegian SciTech News . “Bast fibers were used for thousands of years to make rope, thread, and in turn also yarn and cloth.”

All the oak used would have been sourced locally, and the bast would have been collected as a waste product following the harvest of the trees.

The Communal Society of Çatalhöyük

Ancient Çatalhöyük was a unique city , in that it appears to have resembled a vast housing development project more than anything else.

All the structures unearthed there seem to have been used as homes, and there is no sign that larger public buildings were ever built. Homes were constructed from mudbrick, and they were built so close together that it would have been easy for people to travel from one location to another by simply walking across the roofs. Archaeologists believe they likely did that, since ground pathways have not been found at Çatalhöyük.

Oak wood was used to add various features to these homes, including doors and ladders. The construction industry in Çatalhöyük would have been incredibly busy and resource-intensive, meaning weavers in the city would have had no problem collecting an enormous amount of oak bast for the manufacture of clothing and other fiber-based items.

Taken as a whole, the artifacts and ruins found over 70 years of excavations at Çatalhöyük suggest the city was built and occupied by a highly egalitarian culture, one that recognized few if any distinctions rooted in class or gender.

Houses were uniform and modest in size and architectural design. Tools, clothes, and other artifacts were equally distributed between homes, and it appears many of these items were widely shared rather than being privately owned and used. Large communal ovens have been discovered, showing that food preparation was a shared experience involving multiple families.

Agricultural activity was most certainly a communal affair as well, as crops were grown, and animals raised in the fields that surrounded the vast city housing complex. The inhabitants of Çatalhöyük lived during a time when people were transitioning from the hunter-gather to a farming-centered lifestyle, and animal remains found in the city show its residents relied on a combination of both to acquire adequate food supplies.

The people of Çatalhöyük buried their dead within the confines of the village. The arrangement of the skeletons plus the evidence of burial rites shows no sign of aristocratic privilege or any difference in the treatment of the bodies of men and women . Religious figurines and statues have been found in the ruins at Çatalhöyük that portray both male and female deities, with the latter being far more common.

No one knows exactly why the city of Çatalhöyük was abandoned around 6,400 BC. But while they were around, the residents of Çatalhöyük seemed to have lived peacefully, cooperatively, and productively – and they have left us the oldest cloth artifacts ever found so far by archaeologists.

5,000-Year-Old Toy Chariot Unearthed in Child Tomb in Turkey

Archaeologists have unearthed a 5,000-year-old toy chariot and rattle while excavating an ancient city in Turkey. Experts suggest that the recent discovery could shed light on how children in the Bronze Age used to play.

Ancient City of Sogmatar Yields Interesting Finds

IBTimes reports that the toys were unearthed as part of ongoing excavations in the ancient city of Sogmatar in the south east of Turkey. Previously believed to be one of the oldest known settlements on Earth, Sogmatar is also considered to be the region that Prophet Moses escaped from pharaoh and later engaged in farming there.

The hill town at the Centre of the village, points out that Sogmatar could have been established before Common Era . The remnants of walls and towers at the hill reveal that the hill town was used as a castle in the second century AD.

Assistant Professor Yusuf Albayrak of Turkey’s Harran University and member of the team of archaeologists that are digging in the area, said that Sogmatar was a Pagan religious center dating back to the second century AD.

Albayrak explained that after conducting a surface survey in the ancient city in 2012, he discovered that it was dedicated to the god of the moon, Sin.

Speaking about the historical importance of Sogmatar, Albayrak noted that the ancient city didn’t include just a temple but also a necropolis. “We found some 120 tombs in 2012. Seven in particular were really remarkable and almost all of the 120 tombs had a view of the mound.

We carried out searches in the mound and ceramic findings showed that this place was a settlement until recently. The tombs date back to the early Bronze Age, 5,000 years ago.

They are almost unique, in the shape of a well and reflecting the characteristics of this era. When the Romans arrived here they changed the architecture,” Albayrak said as IBTimes reports .

For the Children of Kings

The excavation works were launched in the area in May 2017, and since then archaeologists have unearthed many tombs, including the one containing the recently found toys. “We have so far obtained important findings in the excavation field,” Celal Uludag, the director of the Sogmatar excavations, told Turkish news agency Anadolu as IBTimes reported .

Uludag adds, “In a tomb in the necropolis area we found an earthenware toy horse carriage and its wheels. The toy dates back to the Bronze Age and is thought to have been produced for the children of kings or administrators in the city.

It shows us the sense of art and children’s sense of play 5,000 years ago,” highlighting the cultural and archaeological significance of this discovery.

Recent Discoveries of Ancient Toys Inside Greek Tombs

Two weeks ago, we reported another important discovery of ancient Greek toys in Turkey. Archaeologists found several ancient toys inside the tombs of children in the ancient Greek seaport city of Parion, now in modern-day Turkey.

Founded in 709 BC, the ancient city of Parion was a Greek colony that belonged to the Delian League. During the Hellenistic period it came under the domain of Lysimachus, and subsequently the Attalid dynasty. In Roman times, it was a settlement within the province of Asia. After that province was divided in the 4th century, it was in the province of Hellespontus.

Excavations of several ancient graves there revealed a number of children’s toys, which are believed to have been offered as gifts for the dead children to accompany them on their journey to the afterlife.

Professor Hasan Kasaoğlu from Atatürk University and director of the excavation works at Parion, stated that female figurines were discovered in tombs belonging to girls, while male figurines were unearthed in boys’ tombs. Kasaoğlu said that the new findings could provide valuable information about the sociocultural structure of the period, explaining that despite toys changing drastically throughout the centuries, the need of humans to play and be entertained has remained the same to this day.

Long hidden Iron Age castle revealed in 3,000-year-old ruins in Van Province, Turkey

The province of Van in Turkey is home to many amazing fortresses, castles and relics of the ancient past. Researchers have now located the site of castle ruins in Van, Turkey, near Hoşap Castle (pictured), which date back to the early Iron Age .

According to Archaeology News Network , the site is situated about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Yurtbaşı neighbourhood of Gürpınar district.

Village head İrfan Yücel, and Yüzüncü Yıl University (YYÜ) History of Art Department Professor Mehmet Top revealed the 3,000-year-old ruins, located on a high hill reached by way of a challenging hour-long hike.

Excavations have been ongoing on nearby Hoşap Castle since 2007, and both the ruins of the new site – referred to as Derbend Castle – and cultural artifacts have been found. Professor Top recently collected pottery pieces for study.

Mehmet Top said of the discovery, “My examinations showed that this castle might be from the early Iron Age. The remains of stones and ceramic pieces on the ground prove that this place was a settlement. Probably it was a tableland settlement.

Traces show us that it dates back to the pre-Urartian era, namely the early Iron Age. This age starts in 1200-1300 B.C. and continues through 1800 B.C. We already know that castle architecture began in this era and continued later on.”

These early fortresses and castles were often built on heights overlooking villages, valleys and plateaus. Many of the still-standing castles were built later, during the Urartian kingdom (860 B.C.–590 B.C.) and were used for regional control, rather than for defense against foreign invaders. The eastern province of Van was the center of the Urartu civilization.

The notable Fortress of Van (Van Citadel) is a massive stone fortification built in the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. Sections of the walls are still standing, and it hosts an ancient inscription by Xerxes the Great.

Hurriyet Daily News writes that preliminary examinations have been made on the newly discovered Derbend Castle, and the Van Museum has been informed about the ancient site.

The castle requires further documentation to continue plans for restoration and preservation. Work on this will begin soon, says Mehmet Top.