Σαγαλασσός | |
 | |
  Sagalassos Shown within Turkey | |
| Location | Ağlasun,Burdur Province,Turkey |
|---|---|
| Region | Pisidia |
| Coordinates | 37°40′41″N30°31′10″E / 37.67806°N 30.51944°E /37.67806; 30.51944 |
| Type | Settlement |
| History | |
| Abandoned | Middle of the seventh century CE |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1990–present |
| Archaeologists | Marc Waelkens |
Sagalassos (Greek:Σαγαλασσός), also known as Selgessos (Greek:Σελγησσός)[1] and Sagallesos (Greek:Σαγαλλησός),[2] is anarchaeological site in southwesternTurkey, about 100 km north ofAntalya (ancientAttaleia) and 30 km fromBurdur andIsparta. The ancient ruins of Sagalassos are 7 km fromAğlasun (as well as being its namesake) in the province ofBurdur, onMount Akdağ, in the WesternTaurus Mountains range, at an altitude of 1450–1700 metres.InRoman Imperial times, the town was known as the "first city ofPisidia", a region in the westernTaurus Mountains, currently known as theTurkish Lakes Region. During theHellenistic period it was already one of the major Pisidian towns.
The urban site was laid out on various terraces at an altitude between 1400 and 1600 m. After suffering from a major earthquake in the early sixth century CE, the town managed to recover, but a cocktail of epidemics, water shortages, a general lack of security and stability, a failing economy and finally another devastating earthquake around the middle of the seventh century forced the inhabitants to abandon their town and resettle in the valley.
Large-scale excavations started in 1990 under the direction ofMarc Waelkens of theKatholieke Universiteit Leuven. A large number of buildings, monuments and other archaeological remains have been exposed, documenting the monumental aspect of theHellenistic,Roman and earlyByzantine history of this town.
Human settlement in the area goes back to 8000 BCE, before the actual site was occupied.Hittite documents refer to a mountain site ofSalawassa in the fourteenth century BCE and the town spread during thePhrygian andLydian cultures. Sagalassos was part of the region ofPisidia in the western part of theTaurus Mountains. During thePersian period, Pisidia became known for its warlike factions.
Sagalassos was one of the wealthiest cities in Pisidia whenAlexander the Great conquered it in 333 BCE on his way to Persia. It had a population of a few thousand. After Alexander's death, the region became part of the territories ofAntigonus Monophthalmus, possiblyLysimachus of Thrace, theSeleucids ofSyria and theAttalids ofPergamon. The archeological record indicates that locals rapidly adopted Hellenic culture.
TheRoman Empire absorbed Pisidia after the Attalids and it became part of the province of Asia. In 39 BCE it was handed out toGalatianclient kingAmyntas, but after he was killed in 25 BCE Rome turned Pisidia into the province of Galatia. Under the Roman Empire, Sagalassos became the important urban center of Pisidia, particularly favoured by the EmperorHadrian, who named it the "first city" of the province and the center of theimperial cult. Contemporary buildings have a fully Roman character.
Around 400 CE Sagalassos was fortified for defence. Anearthquake devastated it in 518, causing damage to some buildings that the inhabitants attempted to repair,[3] and a plague circa 541–543 halved the local population. Arab raids threatened the town around 640 and after another earthquake destroyed the town in the middle of the seventh century, the site was abandoned. The populace probably resettled in the valley. Excavations have found only signs of a fortified monastery—possibly a religious community, continuing as a bishopric,[4] which was destroyed in the twelfth century. Sagalassos disappeared from the records.
In the following centuries, erosion covered the ruins of Sagalassos. It was not looted to a significant extent, possibly because of its location.
ExplorerPaul Lucas, who was traveling inTurkey on a mission for the court ofLouis XIV of France, visited the ruins in 1706. After 1824, whenFrancis Vyvyan Jago Arundell (1780–1846), the British chaplain at Smyrna and an antiquarian, visited the site and deciphered its name in inscriptions,[5] Western travelers began to visit the ruins. Polish historian of art, countK. Lanckoroński produced the first map of Sagalassos. However, the city did not attract much archaeological attention until 1985, when an Anglo-Belgian team led by Stephen Mitchell began a major survey of the site.
From 1990 Sagalassos, a major tourist site, has become a major excavation project led byMarc Waelkens of theCatholic University of Leuven in Belgium. The monumental city center is now exposed; four major restoration projects are (nearly) completed. The project also undertakes an intensive urban andgeophysical survey, excavations in the domestic and industrial areas, and an intensive survey of the territory. The first survey documents a thousand years of occupation—fromAlexander the Great to the seventh century—while the latter has established the changing settlement patterns, the vegetation history and farming practices, the landscape formation and climatic changes during the last 10,000 years.
On 9 August 2007, the press reported the discovery of a finely detailed, colossal statue of the EmperorHadrian, which is thought to have stood 4–5m in height. The statue dates to the early part of Hadrian's reign, and depicts the emperor in military garb. It was carved in sections that were fitted together with marble tenons on the site, which was athermae, a public bath. A major earthquake sometime between the late sixth and early seventh centuries CE brought the vaulting crashing down; the statue was felled, coming apart along the joins of its facture. The discovery of carved marble toes drilled with dowel holes to fasten them to the hem of a long mantle suggests the possibility of finding a companion sculpture ofSabina, the emperor's consort. On 14 August 2008, the head statue ofFaustina the Elder, wife of Roman emperorAntoninus Pius (Hadrian's successor and adopted son) was discovered in the same site.[6] On 22 August 2008, another colossal portrait head was found, this time ofMarcus Aurelius.[7]
A study involvingmitochondrial analysis of aByzantine-era population, whose samples were gathered from excavations in the archaeological site of Sagalassos, found that Sagalassos samples were closest to modern samples from Greek / Balkan and Persian and Italy."[8]
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