Universal Journal of Educational Research 7(1): 106-110, 2019 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2019.070114 Anatolian Cultural Heritage: Ancient Stadiums Related to Sport or Physical Culture? Aylin Zekioglu*, Naci Kalkan Faculty of Sports Science, Manisa Celal Bayar University, Turkey Copyright©2019 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract Anatolia has hosted many civilizations and also important in shaping the cultivated culture, making the has made great contributions to the history of humanity in humanities, customs, traditions, customs and beliefs scientific, social and cultural terms. Two of the most permanent. These tangible and intangible cultural elements important cultures that make up this cultural heritage in can be observed directly, with 118 currently being Anatolia are Hellenic and Roman culture. The material and preserved ancient city in Turkey and the Anatolian intangible cultural heritage of this turnover is still alive in geography of our world is of great importance. Anatolia, which is home to the Hellenistic and Roman Stadium means a sports facility that is designed cultures. In our work, we have studied material cultural specifically for sports competitions [3]. It is a structure that heritage, stadiums of Hellenistic and Roman culture. The consists of an area for organizing a sportive event and an aim of these stadiums is to assess the architecture, culture, area allocated for audience to watch this event. Although lifestyles, social rules of different periods on a case the underlying logic is the same, it is known that many appealing to large communities such as sports. This study, stadium designs were made and built in various shapes and which deals with the effects of the legacies left by the quality in many geographical regions of the world civilizations that lived in the Anatolian geography in the throughout the history [4]. In the Ancient Greek historical perspective of the sport, also aims at shedding Civilization, physical education activities and athletic light on the sportive activities made at that time at the same games were in agoras in early periods, and then in stadiums, time. The stadiums studied in the study include Didyma, gymnasiums and hippodromes; and in this context, the Ephesos, Magnesia, Miletus, Priene, Smyrna, Aphrodisias, palestras, eliothesiums (oiling rooms), baths constituted Labranda, Blaundos, Nysa, Sardeis, Arykanda, Kadyanda, indispensable parts of gymnasiums. In ancient times, Letoon, Pergamon, Aspendos, Sillyon, Perge, Aizanoi, physical education and sports activities were considered Laodikeia, Selge are stadiums located in the ancient cities. important, and agoras in cities were used for these purposes and to raise young people in early periods [5]. In agoras, Keywords Anatolia, Ancient, Stadiums, Cultural, where games and sports activities were organized, it was Sport observed that ceremonial running competitions were organized; however, agoras were not adequate to cover these needs and it was difficult to control the audience in such areas in the competitions organized in these areas [6]. 1. Introduction Young people who were educated in gymnasiums where there were different activity areas according to age groups Society refers to an entity that consists of individuals and had the rest of soul in small sanctuaries in these areas groups, exceeding their sum [1]. Culture implies and before they started sportive activities [7]. There were represents all the products of all the structures that make up running tracks, and disk and javelin throw areas in society [2]. In other words, culture, people and society gymnasiums [8]. In following periods, changing rooms, together express production. This relationship; we can baths, classrooms and conversation rooms were added [9]. express it as the cultural heritage of all the material and Palestras, where fight sports and jumping competitions intangible accumulation of the material that was were organized, had a rectangular shape, and were covered transferred from the past. Examples of material cultural at the top surrounded with columns. One of their main heritage are worship places, monuments, historical artifacts, functions was to provide athletes with an indoor area to stadiums, etc. It covers everything that man has left behind, workout in bad weather conditions. There were at least one which is left for future generations. In addition to the Palestra, which belonged to private entities, in each city material cultural heritage, the intangible cultural heritage is until the end of the Roman Empire in the 6th Century B. C., Universal Journal of Educational Research 7(1): 106-110, 2019 107 and mostly only members could use them. In some area. The stadium is located in the southern part of the Palestras, there was skamma, which was filled with sand temple. It is understood that this temple was used under for wrestling, and keroma, which was watered and filled sacred conditions about the religious ceremonies in the with mud for ground wrestling and wrestling in pancration, ancient Didyma. About 250 names that belonged to just like in the Olympia [8]. audience carved on the steps of the temple show that these Before the physical education and sports activities that steps were also the place to watch the start and finish of were performed in gymnasiums in antiquity, young people competitions [6,10]. and the athletes who would compete in games oiled each Ephesos: The stadium is located in the eastern part of other with olive oil in rooms that were called eliothesium, the Acropolis in ancient Ephesos north to the grand theatre and those who would wrestle would cover their bodies with on the skirts of the Panayir mountain. The stadium was sand in konisterum, which constitute important parts of built during the Hellenistic period and was restored and gymnasium and palestras. There were also bathrooms and expanded during the period of Neron. The stadium is in washing rooms called loutron, built or added as a part of ruins today. Because of the reinforcement area built on the gymnasium and palestras [5]. top of the hill located in Selcuk, the stones were pillaged. Stadiums have an important place in ancient Greek The rows in the stadium showing good workmanship in culture. Stadium was first brought into the agenda as an terms of the inscriptions on them were used during the idea and application during the ancient Greek civilization. restoration and building in 4th and 6th Centuries in Ephesus. This idea was developed and changed throughout history in The stadium is 230 m long and 40 m wide. No start line can terms of idea, design and meaning according to the social be observed in this stadium. The slopes of the mountain change process. Although the understanding and structure were made use of for the place of audience and the sitting of stadiums of each period were similar to previous and steps were placed on the slope without having to use larger following ones in terms of the underlying logic, they differ infrastructure on the long edge at the southern part of the from each other in details [4]. stadium. There are marble plates revealed today on the Stadiums were built in different architectural designs in western side. These plates were brought from other areas Greek, Hellenic and Roman periods in city states of and were used here. These plates, which have figures of Anatolia. Due to the requirement of bigger areas in the date branches, vase, and rabbits on them, depicting the building of stadiums, they were built outside city walls, rewards given in some sports competitions. A gaming area which is also the case in Perge, and sometimes were built in was allocated on the eastern edge of the stadium which has suburban areas within the city by considering the natural the shape of semi-circle and was used for the fights of the status and ground formations of the area [6,9]. gladiators and wild animals. This area is specific to the The aim of this study is to present the cultural heritage Roman culture, because there were no other places to be and the ancient stadiums of Anatolia and to shed light on used as an arena. During these shows, Christians were slain. the sportive activities made at that time. For this reason, after Christianity was accepted as the formal religion, the Ephesus stadium was destroyed by religious people [11,6,10]. 2. Materials and Methods Magnesia: The structures seen today in Magnesia To collect data in this study; books, articles, dissertations, belong to the Roman Empire Period and to later times. papers were investigated. At the same time, the ancient Gymnasium was a sports-based training center and was a cities were examined on site and various observations were smaller copy of the Faustina Bath in Milet. There is also made. Odeion, which is a stadium located between the theatre and Artemision that could host 25.000 people. The stadium was located on a slope of a mountain, which stretched from the 3. Results north to the south. This stadium has the U-plan and double-sided sitting places and is located on the south of The data on ancient stadiums in Aegean and the Gymnasium. The entrance of the running track was Mediterranean regions were collected. Some of them like determined with a front gate. The length of this road was Aphrodisias, Perge, Saittai are well-preserved. Some of 185,90 m until the starting point of the semi-curve. A them like Tralleis and Smyrna were destroyed in history. partial protection structure attracts attention in this stadium The existence of some of them like Myndos are known [12,6]. with the help of the travel notes of travelers in these areas Miletus: The eldest hellenistic stadium of Anatolia is at or with the help of inscriptions.