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Site on Mt Latmos in Caria (now in south-west Turkey), 15 km north of Mylasa (now Milas). A sanctuary there flourished c. 600 bc–c. ad 400. Swedish excavations began in 1948 under A. W. Persson, and finds from the site are now in the Archaeological Museum, Izmir, and Bodrum Museum. After a modest beginning in the 6th century bc, the sanctuary had its greatest building period under the Hekatomnids, who made it the main sanctuary of Caria and gave it a completely new layout on a series of terraces. Mausolos (reg 377–352 bc) erected a large in antis banqueting building, ‘Andron B’ (w. 11.76 m). Its marble front had two Ionic columns carrying a Doric entablature, an early example of mixed orders in the front of a sacred building. Unusually, the frieze had four metopes to each intercolumniation. A male bearded sphinx (Bodrum Mus.) was probably a corner acroterion. At the back of the cella was a large niche (4.77 m wide, 1.35 m deep and ...

[Gr. Lésvos; now Mitilíni]

Large and mountainous Greek island off the coast of Turkey in the north-east Aegean, south of Lemnos and north of Chios. An important centre in the Early Bronze Age (c. 3600–c. 2000 bc), after c. 1000 bc it became a principal area of Aeolic Greek civilization. Somewhat neglected apart from a systematic German survey in the late 19th century, Lesbos numbers Mytilene (the capital), Methymna, Eressos, Pyrra, Antissa and Arisbe among its cities (see fig.), but only at the first has much work been done.

The only Bronze Age site on the island excavated and published is Thermi, some 10 km north of Mytilene town on the south-east coast. British excavations in 1929–33 under Winifred Lamb uncovered an Early Bronze Age coastal settlement similar to Troy that passed through five stages before its abandonment, resettlement a thousand years later and final destruction by fire c....

[now Tekin]

Town in central Ionia (now western Turkey), which flourished in Hellenistic times. According to tradition, Magnesia was among the earliest Greek settlements in Anatolia and was found by the Aeolians from Thessaly. In the 7th century bc it was captured by the Lydian king Gyges (reg 680–652 bc) and destroyed by the Cimmerians c. 650 bc. After being rebuilt with help from Miletos, it fell to the Persians c. 530 bc, and in 460 bc they presented it to the exiled Athenian general Themistokles. The exact location of this early city is uncertain, but in 400–398 bc the Spartan general Thibron transferred the settlement to its present site beside Mt Thorax (Gümüṣ Daḡi), where the Archaic Sanctuary of Artemis Leukophryene stood. The reason for the transfer was to evade the silt carried down by the Maeander River. Although it retained its original name, the new settlement was not actually sited on the river but on its tributary, the Lethaeus (Gümüṣ Çay), on an important road between Ephesos, Priene and Tralleis....

Source of a group of late 2nd-century bc Greek works of art. In 1907 an ancient shipwreck was located by sponge-divers in the waters off Mahdia on the east coast of Tunisia. The subsequent careful exploration of the ship and the lifting of its extensive cargo, carried out between 1908 and 1913, was the first operation of its kind in the Mediterranean. The principal cargo consisted of 60 marble columns, together with Ionic and Corinthian capitals, but also on board was a whole range of sculpture in both bronze and marble. The bronzes include an archaistic herm, a Dancing Eros, three grotesque dancing dwarfs (with suspension rings attached), statuettes of Eros with a Lyre, satyrs, Hermes and actors, two lamp holders in the form of an Eros and a Hermaphrodite, and various assorted appliqués, vessels, candelabra (for illustration see Candelabrum), lamps and couch attachments. The marbles, some badly corroded, include heads or busts of ...

(reg 377–352 bc). Ancient Greek ruler. He was the Satrap (i.e. vassal of the King of Persia) of Caria in Asia Minor, now western Turkey, and a member of the Hekatomnid dynasty. Although Carian by birth, Mausolos greatly admired Greek culture and art. He was famous for having moved his capital from Mylassa to the coastal site of Halikarnassos, where there was a good harbour. He laid out the new capital in the natural hollow by the harbour, as described by Vitruvius (On Architecture II. 811ff), with his tomb, the Mausoleum, at the centre. He employed the most famous Greek architects and sculptors of his time to build and decorate this, but he died before it was completed. The Mausoleum was finished by his wife and half-sister, Artemisia, who reigned after him. A fine portrait statue from the Mausoleum (London, BM, 1001) has been thought to represent Mausolos, though there is no proof of this....

Site on the west coast of Turkey, near the mouth of the River Meander (now Bügük Menderes). The city flourished under the Greeks and the Romans from the 5th century bc to the 3rd century ad. A large Byzantine church was built there in the 6th century. Miletos was once a port but is now 9 km from the sea. German archaeologists have been excavating there since the late 19th century. Milesian architecture played a significant role in the development of ancient Greek architecture in general. It comprised three phases of varying importance.

Little is known of the first settlement, established near the Theatre Bay in the late 16th century bc, except that it consisted of largish but fairly simple dwellings. Towards the end of the 13th century bc it was fortified with a strong wall, mud-brick on stone foundations, 4.3 m high and reinforced by bastions; it enclosed an oval area measuring ...

(b Kilmarnock, Aug 18, 1835; d Edinburgh, July 3, 1900).

Scottish soldier, archaeologist, diplomat and collector of Iranian art. He was educated at Glasgow University, and in 1855 he obtained a commission in the Royal Engineers. The following year he joined the expedition of Charles Newton to Halikarnassos, which resulted in the discovery of the Mausoleum and the acquisition of its sculptures for the British Museum. In 1860 with E. A. Porcher, Murdoch Smith formed at his own expense an expedition to Cyrene in Libya. From this expedition he returned with Greek sculptures and inscriptions (London, BM). In 1863 he was selected for service on the Iranian section of a proposed telegraph line from Britain to India, and in 1865 he became its director in Tehran, holding that post for the next 20 years. He initiated his collecting activities for the South Kensington (later Victoria and Albert) Museum in 1873 when he offered his services as an agent. From 1873 to 1885...

Site in Lycia, Turkey, 1.5 km north of Demre. The inscriptions and rock-cut tombs indicate that it was an important settlement at least as early as the 5th century bc. In the 2nd century bc it became a member of the Lycian League and continued to flourish under Roman rule (1st century bc–3rd century ad). The miracles performed by its bishop, St Nicholas (b c. 300), brought Myra widespread fame, and under Theodosios II (reg 408–50) it became the provincial capital of Lycia. The rock-cut tombs include a wide variety of types that imitate local wooden and masonry techniques.

Among the more elaborate examples are seven tombs decorated with external reliefs that reflect the process of Hellenization in the 4th century bc. Contrary to earlier scholarly opinion, the façades of these tombs are not based on Lycian houses or Greek temples, but on the banqueting halls within Lycian dwellings. The reliefs frequently contain lifesize figures in a mixed setting such as that of a battle scene combined with a funeral repast....

[Diocaesarea; anc. Gk. Diokaisareia; now Uğura]

Site of the city of the priestly kings of Cilicia Tracheia (Rough Cilicia), Turkey, in mountainous country 22 km north-east of Seleucia. It is now a village with impressive Hellenistic and Roman remains. The local tribes became hellenized under the Seleucids and were ruled by a dynasty of potentates, the high priests of the sanctuary of Olban Zeus; according to Strabo, the priests traced their line back to Ajax (son of Teucer, the brother of the Homeric Ajax, who had settled in Rough Cilicia after founding Salamis in Cyprus). The Temple of Zeus is among the most interesting and conspicuous buildings of the Hellenistic period at Olba. It is of the Corinthian order, peripteral and hexastyle with 12 columns (h. 13 m) on its flanks. It was built in the first years of the 3rd century bc with funds donated by Seleukos Nikator (c. 358–281 bc) and is the earliest known ...

[Turk. Bergama]

Site of an ancient Greek city in Asia Minor (now Turkey), later part of the Roman Empire. Pergamon (Gr.: ‘fort’ or ‘stronghold’) occupies a steep-sided hill (h. 355 m) 110 km north of Smyrna and c. 15 km from the Aegean. It is flanked by two tributaries of the River Kaikos, the Selinos to the west and the Ketios to the east. Pergamon flourished especially under Attalid rule (282–133 bc).

Iain Browning

When Pergamon was visited by Xenophon in the early 4th century, it was merely the stronghold of a local dynast, and it continued as such during early Hellenistic times. In the partition of Alexander the Great’s empire by his ‘Successors’ (Diadochi), Lysimachos, one of Alexander’s bodyguard, received Pergamon as part of a province comprising Thrace and north-west Asia Minor. There he established a military stronghold in which he deposited his treasury, his portion of Alexander’s wealth. Before the battle of Ipsos (...

Site in Pamphylia, now southern Turkey. It was celebrated in Greek and Roman times for its worship of Artemis, in whose honour annual festivals were held. The deity was of Anatolian origin, but the city was a Greek foundation, according to legend dating back to the wave of Greek settlers led by Kalchas and Mopsos after the fall of Troy. An inscription found in the older gate of the city bears the names of these two mythical heroes. Perge spread and flourished at the foot of the acropolis on which the first settlement had been established but where only some Byzantine remains survive. No traces of the Temple of Artemis have been found, but the cult of the goddess brought about an accumulation of valuable offerings from the whole region; they were plundered by Verres in 79 bc. Practically nothing is known of the history of Perge until Alexander the Great, to whom it peacefully surrendered (...

(fl late 3rd–2nd century bc).

Athenian sculptor. He worked in the service of the Pergamene kings and made the colossal marble cult statue of Asklepios at Pergamon (c. 180 or c. 170 bc), carried off by King Prusias II of Bithynia in 156 or 155 bc (Polybius: Histories XXXII.xxv; Diodorus Siculus: World History XXXI. xxxv). The bearded head of the god on Pergamene coins may be derived from the statue, while a Roman Imperial copy of it has been seen in the colossal marble head in Syracuse (Mus. Archeol. Reg., inv. 693), and the type of his body in the seated marble Asklepios in Cherchel (Mus. Archéol., inv. no. S. 136). The same Phyromachos, presumably, was described as a bronzeworker by Pliny (Natural History XXXIV.li), who set his floruit in the 121st Olympiad (296–292 bc). This date, however, might have been an attempt by Pliny to set Phyromachos just before the dead period (...

Site in Ionia, now south-west Turkey, which flourished from the mid-4th century to late 2nd. It is situated on the southern slopes of Mt Mycale (now Samsun Daǧı), close to the River Maeander and c. 16 km north of its important neighbour Miletos, which overshadowed Priene economically. An earlier (Archaic) settlement probably occupied lower ground that has since been silted over by the Maeander, but around 352 bc Priene was refounded, and its remains constitute one of the best examples of a planned ancient Greek city. Originally an independent Ionian Greek polis, Priene was later ruled by the Attalids of Pergamon, followed by the Romans. In the late 2nd century bc the city was destroyed by fire, although an insignificant settlement remained on the site into Byzantine times. It was rediscovered in the mid-18th century, when architects and scholars, directed by references in Vitruvius, began studying the Temple of Athena. Excavations by the German archaeologists ...

[Arab. Tolmeita; Tolmeta; Tulmaythah]

Hellenistic and Roman city in Cyrenaica, Libya, the only natural harbour between Eusperides-Berenice (now Benghazi) and Apollonia (now Susa). It was probably founded in the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes (246–221 bc), although the site had been used as the port of nearby Barca since the 6th century bc. Ptolemais came under Roman control in 96 bc and under Diocletian (reg ad 284–305) became the capital of Libya Pentapolis. Its buildings extend the whole width of a fertile, 2 km-wide coastal plain, bounded to the south by the foothills of the Jabal al-Akhdar (the Green Mountain).

There are traces of the Hellenistic grid plan with at least five transverse streets (decumani) intersected by two main longitudinal ones (cardines), enclosing blocks measuring 180×36 m. Most of the major streets are 8.8 m wide, but the principal thoroughfare, the Street of the Monuments, is 14.8 m wide including the colonnades either side. The city walls, as is so often the case, are unrelated to the street-plan. They are punctuated by square towers and extend from the sea to the Jabal, where they enclose a commanding triangle of high ground. There were probably seven gates in the circuit, of which the best preserved is the Taucheira gate, flanked by two massive square towers with finely drafted masonry....

(fl c. 370–c. 330 bc).

Greek architect who worked in Asia Minor. Vitruvius (On Architecture I.i.12–15, VII.Pref.12) cited the Commentaries by Pytheos on his most famous works, the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos (see Halikarnassos §2) and the Temple of Athena Polias at Priene; Pytheos has also been credited with the original design for the altar of Athena at Priene. He may have produced new town plans for Halikarnassos and Priene, including, at Priene, provision for the sanctuary of Zeus east of the agora, and he may be Pliny the elder’s ‘Pythis’, the designer of the quadriga on top of the Mausoleum (Natural History XXVI.iv.31). He apparently incorporated a traditionally Doric opisthodomos and acanthus-scroll sima in the Temple of Athena at Priene, setting a precedent for later Ionic temples such as the new Temple of Artemis at Ephesos. The Priene temple evidently inspired some features of the new Temple of Zeus (c....

Term for the return of lost or looted cultural objects to their country of origin, former owners, or their heirs. The loss of the object may happen in a variety of contexts (armed conflicts, war, colonialism, imperialism, or genocide), and the nature of the looted cultural objects may also vary, ranging from artworks, such as paintings and sculptures, to human remains, books, manuscripts, and religious artefacts. An essential part of the process of restitution is the seemingly unavoidable conflict around the transfer of the objects in question from the current to the former owners. Ownership disputes of this nature raise legal, ethical, and diplomatic issues. The heightened tensions in the process arise because the looting of cultural objects challenges, if not breaks down, relationships between peoples, territories, cultures, and heritages.

The history of plundering and art imperialism may be traced back to ancient times. Looting has been documented in many instances from the sack by the Romans of the Etruscan city of Veii in ...

[Aǧlasun]

Site in Pisidia, south-west Turkey, which flourished c. the 4th century bc–c. the 4th century ad; it occupies a naturally defensible position some 1650 m above sea-level. It was the leading city of Pisidia at the time of Alexander the Great, who attempted to capture it, and throughout the Imperial period, when it was an ally of Rome and part of the province of Galatia, with territory extending some 45 km west. Its civic titles and abundant coinage proclaim its prosperity during the Imperial period.

The city axis is directed south–north, being almost level in the south yet rising steeply to the upper agora in the north. During the Hellenistic period the civic centre was situated on the upper ridge, where a Doric temple and bouleuterion (council chamber) are located (both 2nd century bc). A well-preserved frieze of dancing maidens came from a heroon (before 150 bc). The upper agora was laid out with porticos in the ...

[Bibl. Shomeron; Gk. Sebaste; Arab. Sebastiyah]

Ancient capital of the northern kingdom of Israel from the time of Omri (reg 882–871 bc) until the final conquest of the kingdom by the Assyrian king Sargon II in 721 bc. It has been identified with the modern Arab village of Sebastiyah, which lies c. 10 km north-west of Nablus and 40 km west of the River Jordan. The site is situated on a hilltop about 90 m above a large and extremely fertile agricultural plain; more importantly, it stands at the crossroads of two ancient major routes, one passing west to east from the coastal plain, through Shechem to the Jordan Valley, and the other leading north from Judah to Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley. According to biblical tradition (1 Kings 16:24), the hill on which the capital was to be established was purchased by Omri from Shemer (hence the name Shomeron) for two talents of silver. During the reign of Herod the Great (...

Greek island in the eastern Aegean near the coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey). It was inhabited in the 3rd millennium bc or earlier, and from the Archaic period onwards it was a major centre for the ancient Greek cult of Hera. Samos flourished during the 6th century bc under the tyrant Polykrates (reg c. 540–c. 522 bc), who initiated a series of ambitious building projects, including the Tunnel of Eupalinos and the fourth Temple of Hera. As part of the Roman Empire the island’s fortunes were varied, but during Byzantine times it suffered steep decline, and after the Turkish invasion of 1453 it was depopulated for two centuries. After several changes of sovereignty, Samos again became part of Greece in 1912. Though there are later buildings of interest, most of the important remains on Samos are of ancient Greek or Roman date (see fig.)....