The Roman Harbour of Alexandria Troas, Turkey
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The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2011) 40.2: 256–273 doi: 10.1111/j.1095-9270.2010.00294.x The Roman Harbour of Alexandria Troas, Turkey Stefan Feuser Heinrich Schliemann-Institut für Altertumswissenschaften, Universität Rostock, 18055 Rostock, Germany, [email protected] This article summarizes the results of a survey conducted in the area of the ancient harbour of Alexandria Troas. It presents an outline reconstruction of the harbour and explains its significance for our understanding of the region. The harbour is located at the point where two important sea-routes met and where ships waited for favourable winds to travel through the Dardanelles. It was built in the reign of Augustus and consisted of an outer basin protected by two breakwaters and an inner basin. The area was occupied until the beginning of the 7th century. © 2010 The Author Key words: Alexandria Troas, harbour, Roman, survey, Troad. he following article summarizes the results of a of them very ruinous, were documented through draw- survey in the harbour of Alexandria Troas (for ings, photography and written descriptions. All other T a fuller account see Feuser, 2009). Introductory remains such as individual columns, piles of stone, a remarks about the aims and methodology of the cistern and modern bunkers were described and pho- survey, and the history and the natural and geographi- tographed, and their precise locations marked on the cal setting of Alexandria Troas, are followed by an topographical plan. Cleaning or excavation of any of examination and interpretation of the archaeological the partially-exposed structures was not possible. The remains and the pottery. This leads to a reconstruction underwater archaeologists surveyed the sea-bottom of the ancient harbour and its chronology. from the shoreline out to a distance of c.100 m, and cleaned and documented the submerged remains to the north of structure H11 in a depth of up to 4 m. Because Aims and methodology of the strong prevailing northerly winds it was difficult, During August and September of 2005 and 2006 a and on some days impossible, to document the sub- team of archaeologists, underwater archaeologists and merged rock pile west of structure H5. As the survey geophysicists from the Universities of Münster, area is densely overgrown with bushes geophysical Germany, and Çanakkale, Turkey, conducted a survey survey was only possible in a few areas. The aims were: in the area of the ancient harbour of Alexandria Troas to trace the quay north of the salt lake; to get more (Figs 1–2). The aims were: to document ancient struc- information about buildings on the ridge north of the tures which are exposed to natural and human destruc- salt lake; and to verify whether or not built structures tion; to reconstruct the original layout of the harbour west and north-west of the salt lake continue further and of the connection between the city and the harbour under the sand. Only magnetometry was used. The area; and to gain a better insight into the periods of use aims and methodology of the ceramic survey are of the harbour for a more thorough understanding of explained in the section about the pottery and glass the history of Alexandria Troas and the Troad. The finds. research area is situated in the north-west of the modern Republic of Turkey, on the Aegean coast, immediately south of the modern village of Dalyan A brief history of Alexandria Troas Köy and west of the plateau on which the ancient city The city of Alexandria Troas is located in the north- of Alexandria Troas was located (Fig. 2). It measures west of the modern Republic of Turkey, c.27 km south c.700 m north-south and c.400 m east-west. Most of of the entrance to the Dardanelles Straits just opposite the ancient remains are situated on land; only two the island of Bozcaada (ancient Tenedos) (Fig. 2). It structures are nowadays submerged. was founded by Antigonos Monophthalmos under the First a topographical plan of the survey area was name ‘Antigoneia’ between 311 and 307 BC by a syn- produced, which served as the basis for all further oikismos of the surrounding poleis of Colonae, Larisa, work. The still-visible built structures (H1-H31), most Hamaxitus, Chrysa, Neandria, Cebren and Scepsis (for © 2010 The Author. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2010 The Nautical Archaeology Society. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. S. FEUSER: THE ROMAN HARBOUR OF ALEXANDRIA TROAS, TURKEY Figure 1. Aerial view of the harbour area from the west. (Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster) Figure 2. City plan of Alexandria Troas. (Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster) more detail see Cook, 1973: 198–204; Ricl, 1997: 1–21; of the pax Romana the economic and social life of the Tenger, 1999: 118–73; Akalin, 2008). After the battle of city flourished, especially in the first half of the 2nd Ipsus in 301 BC Lysimachos gained control over the century AD. An important benefactor of Alexandria city and renamed it Alexandria in the Troad. He built Troas was Herodes Atticus who financed an aqueduct a wall some 40 stadia long around the city. For the rest and a bath-complex in 134/5. After sack by the Goths of the Hellenistic era we know little about the political, in 262 the city’s prosperity ended. Recent research, for social and economic life of the city. After the death of example, has demonstrated that the sewage system was Lysimachos Alexandria Troas remained under Seleu- abandoned in the 4th century AD (Esch and Martin, cid control until 227 BC, and was then a free city for 2008: 93). nearly 100 years. In 129 BC it was incorporated into The Emperor Constantine thought of building his the established Roman province of Asia. new capital in the territory between Alexandria Troas Under the rule of Augustus—probably in 12 and Ilium, which demonstrates the good geographical BC—Alexandria Troas became a Roman colony and setting of the Troad, but in the end he built it at Byz- was granted the ius italicum (Schwertheim, 1999). The antium. This meant that the importance of Alexandria Ephesian toll regulations conceded the city the use of Troas was reduced, as the sea-routes in the eastern dues that were previously collected by the publicani Mediterranean were now mainly focused on Constan- (Engelmann and Knibbe, 1989: 114–15). In the climate tinople (Tenger, 1999: 172). In the 4th and 5th centu- © 2010 The Author. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2010 The Nautical Archaeology Society 257 NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 40.2 Figure 3. Detail of the 1786 plan of Alexandria Troas by L-F. Cassas. (Choiseul-Gouffier, 1842, tab. 39) ries three bishops and the emperor Julian are wall, the ridge in the north and several ancient struc- mentioned visiting the city in 451 (Ricl, 1997: 234f.). tures around the lakes. The map also records a cemetery After that Alexandria Troas vanishes from literary (‘Tombeaux’) to the north-east of the salt lake. The sources. The city must have been abandoned at the second map was drawn by M. L. J. J. Dubios in 1814 latest during the 7th century, and we only come to (Choiseul-Gouffier, 1842: tab. 44) (Fig. 4). It shows know about the former metropolis again in the reports only one lake, which has no connection to the sea, and of travellers from the 14th century onwards. no ancient foundations. It records several smaller The earliest traveller visiting Alexandria Troas and granite columns and three huge, probably monolithic, its harbour was Ludolf of Sudheim, a priest from granite columns instead, two of them positioned paral- Westphalia, during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem lel to each other. Nearly all the travellers mentioned that between 1336 and 1341. The harbour must have been marble and granite stones and columns of the ancient destroyed very thoroughly as he only mentions a few city were transported from the site and used as building foundations in the water and columns buried under the material in Constantinople/Istanbul (Feuser, 2009: 33). soil (van der Vin, 1980: 30–37, 294, 579–86). The most detailed accounts of the harbour ruins are given by Pietro della Valle (1674: 7–8), who visited Alexandria Natural and geographical setting Troas in August 1614, and Anton Prokesch von Osten Knowledge of the natural and geographical setting is (1837: 370–72; Biller, 2008), who investigated the city of great importance for understanding the function in 1826. Both describe the harbour in the condition and the development of the harbour of Alexandria that it is today. Several sarcophagi, however, men- Troas. From April to October the wind blows mainly tioned by Prokesch north-west of the city plateau from between the north-north-west and north-north- (Prokesch von Osten, 1837: 371) were not relocated east (Neumann, 1986: 347–57). Winds from a southerly during the present study. direction almost exclusively occur in spring and Two maps of the ruins of Alexandria Troas illustrate autumn. In winter the harbour basin had to be pro- the harbour in detail. Both were drawn under the tected against heavy storms, especially from the south. instruction of M. Choiseul-Gouffier. One produced by As it was not possible to conduct geomorphological L-F. Cassas in 1786 (Choiseul-Gouffier, 1842: tab. 39) drillings along the coastline we have to rely on work (Fig. 3) reveals two lakes—the smaller one connected to done by I. Kayan in Bes¸ik Bay near Ilium for changes the sea, the city plateau with the rest of the fortification in relative sea-level along the west coast of the Troad 258 © 2010 The Author.