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Hellenistic Karia

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Carbon Jan-Mathieu van Bremen Riet

Part four. The Role of the Landscape

New research on the region around Aphrodisias

Christopher Ratté

Testo integrale

  • 1 For a general account of the founding of Aphrodisias, summarized in the first paragraphs of this p (...)
  • 2 Appian BC 1.11.97.

1Aphrodisias lies in north-eastern Karia, in a fertile valley south of the Maeander River1. Even before sustained archaeological investigation of the city had begun, it was clear to scholars from study of the civic coinage and the inscriptions built into the city’s late Roman fortification walls that it was a relatively late foundation, of the second or first century BC. In addition, the inscriptions indicated that from at least the late Republican period, Aphrodisias had notably close ties to Rome. The earliest literary reference to the city is an account in Appian’s Civil Wars of a dedication by the Roman general Sulla to the local sanctuary of Aphrodite2.

2The excavations sponsored by New York University since 1961 have provided much new information. While the sanctuary of Aphrodite has been shown to be considerably older than the city, with monuments and votive offerings dating as early as the sixth century BC, the inscriptions of the so-called archive wall of the theater and archaeological discoveries such as the Julio-Claudian Sebasteion have led historians and archaeologists to emphasize the importance of Rome in the initial founding of the city as well as in its later urban development.

  • 3 The community is named in the earliest inscriptions as the ‘politeia of the Plarasans and Aphrodis (...)

3Ongoing research continues to contribute new archaeological and epigraphic evidence for the early history of the city. Of special significance on the archaeological side was the discovery that Aphrodisias was a grid-planned town, as revealed by a geophysical survey carried out between 1995 and 1998. The date of the grid plan is uncertain. The earliest epigraphically datable building aligned with the grid belongs to the 30s BC, but the street plan could be (and in my mind most likely is) contemporary with the initial founding of the city. It could, to be more precise, be contemporary with the initial founding of the first epigraphically and numismatically attested community on the site, a sympoliteia between Plarasa, apparently the leading settlement on the plateau to the south of Aphrodisias, and Aphrodisias itself3.

4Our best new evidence for the date and circumstances of the founding of the city is an honorific inscription discovered in 2003, discussed in detail in a separate paper in this volume by A. Chaniotis. This is one of two Hellenistic decrees that were apparently set up in the sanctuary of Aphrodite in honor of Rhodian commanders (hegemones). Although neither inscription preserves the name of the dedicating city, it seems very likely that it is Aphrodisias. As Chaniotis observes, the decrees should date to the period of Rhodian domination over most of inland Karia – that is, between 188 and 167 BC.

5In light of this new evidence and on general historical grounds, I would join Chaniotis in arguing for a reversal of the conventional ‘top-down’ model for the founding of Aphrodisias. Rather than being ‘called into being’ by Rome or any other central power, Aphrodisias was perhaps created ‘from the bottom up’ by the regional population in a manner that could in some ways have directly contravened the interests of the central authority. For the period of Rhodian domination provided a kind of ‘window of opportunity’ for local communities to claim privileges, such as the status of a polis, or in this case a sympoliteia, that in more stable times only a more powerful ruler could grant.

  • 4 For the image of Aphrodite of Aphrodisias, see Brody 2007.

6Unlike towns in the Maeander valley proper, such as Tralles, Nysa, and Antioch on the Maeander, which had been founded or re-founded as Hellenistic royal colonies in an earlier generation, Aphrodisias and similar towns represent a second wave of foundations, in which urbanisation spread from the Maeander valley itself to the tributary valleys and surrounding plateaux. The details of this process of ‘rural urbanization’ in the case of Aphrodisias remain unclear. On the one hand, it is obvious that the Hellenistic royal colonies provided the models that the new town emulated. On the other hand, the archaeological evidence shows that the area around Aphrodisias already had a long history of settlement by the second century BC and, to judge by later images of the local goddess, a distinctively Anatolian character4.

7Chaniotis suggests that the sympoliteia was founded by the descendants of the original Macedonian settlers of places such as Antioch on the Maeander, arguing from the near-total absence of Karian names in the inscriptions from the site, including a number of documents that purport to list the city’s founding families. Alternatively, it seems to me still possible that the principal actors were the indigenous local population, tempted by the benefits that urbanisation had brought the nearby Seleucid colonies. The leading local families could have adopted Greek names even before the founding of the city – just as their local goddess was at some point renamed Aphrodite – particularly if they did not in this border region have a clearly defined regional identity.

  • 5 Roueché 1991; id. 2004, 1.2-10.
  • 6 For discussion of the interaction between Karia and Lydia, see Ratté 2009.

8This last point is of special interest in the context of the symposium that produced this volume. Perhaps because Aphrodisias was the metropolis of the late Roman province of Karia, its Karian character in earlier periods tends to be taken for granted. But in fact Aphrodisias lies in a natural frontier region, toward the east end of the Maeander river basin, near the borders of Karia, Lydia, and Phrygia, and it owed its late Roman administrative prominence to something of a historical accident. In the mid-third century AD, Aphrodisias was named the capital of a new province called Karia-Phrygia precisely because of its border location, and it retained its status as a provincial capital a generation later when Karia and Phrygia were separated into distinct provinces5. In earlier periods, it is unclear whether Aphrodisias should be considered part of Karia at all. It lies well outside the traditional Karian heartland, and the pottery and other artifacts found in excavations in the 1960s and 1970s in occupation levels of the sixth and fifth centuries BC showed the strongest ties to Lydia; there are no Carian inscriptions from Aphrodisias, and this is the only site in Karia to have produced an epichoric Lydian inscription (a new Lydian inscription was discovered in 2009)6.

9Of course, the inhabitants of this region must have been called something before they adopted Greek names; the point is only that the abandonment of their indigenous names would not have had the same significance here that it had in Mylasa, for example, or Sardis. We shall return to this subject below. For now, suffice it to say that even if Macedonian settlers were involved in the founding of Aphrodisias, the success of their mission would have depended on cooperation with the local aristocracy of hereditary landowners, including the authorities of the sanctuary. For whoever the founders of the city were, the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias was an obvious source of communal identity, and an obvious choice for the location of the new town – which may indeed have occupied formerly sacred land.

10This much we have learned about Hellenistic Aphrodisias from the excavations of the city-site. While new epigraphic discoveries could come at any moment – the inscription of the Rhodian general Damokrines was actually found during conservation work in the sanctuary – archaeological investigation of the city-center may be approaching the point of diminishing returns, at least as far as our general understanding of the early history of the city is concerned. Continued excavation of the city-center is less likely to yield new and decisive evidence for the date of the city plan, for example, than exploration of the city’s residential neighborhoods – which would of course also provide a much more balanced picture of this exceptionally well-preserved ancient town, especially of those aspects of its material culture which were not carved in or out of stone. And a crucial missing ingredient for all periods of history is a better understanding of Aphrodisias in a regional context.

  • 7 Figures taken from the Karacasu local government website: http://www.karacasu.gov.tr/tr/.

11A new perspective on the circumstances of the founding of Aphrodisias and a clearer picture of the effects of the growth of the new town on pre-existing settlement are among the many desiderata of the Aphrodisias Regional Survey, begun in 2005 and largely completed in 2008. During most of the more than 5,000 years extending from the date of the earliest evidence for human habitation in this region to the present day, the local population appears to have lived in scattered, small agricultural settlements. For the last decade, for example, the population of the district of Karacasu, the major modern town, has remained constant at roughly 22,000, with the largest single community numbering about 6,0007. The period extending from the second century BC to the seventh century AD, when a large percentage of the population appears to have been concentrated in a single urban site, stands out by contrast as exceptional. I estimate that the population of Aphrodisias at its height numbered between 10,000 and 15,000 inhabitants. The Aphrodisias Regional Survey is thus conceived in part as a case study in one of the most characteristic aspects of classical antiquity, namely the extension of the habits of urban life to rural communities throughout the Mediterranean world. How and why did cities first come into being in areas like this, and how and why, after centuries of prosperous existence, did they disappear so completely from the landscape? The remainder of this paper consists of a preliminary presentation of some of the evidence relevant to the first of these questions.

12The area under examination in the survey focuses on two regions: the upper Morsynus river valley, and an elevated plateau to the south. The valley of the Morsynus divides naturally into two roughly equal parts: the lower valley, on the edge of the Maeander plain, and the upper valley, near the river’s source. Aphrodisias is situated at the center of the upper valley, 35 km upstream, at an elevation of approximately 500 m. The dominant feature of the local landscape, and the source of the Morsynus river, is Mount Kadmos, modern Baba Dağ, which rises to an elevation of 2308 m. From its source, the river flows northwest through the very well defined watershed of the upper valley, which encompasses an area of approximately 475 km2 (fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Map of region around Aphrodisias.

13This is the core survey area, bordered on the north and northeast by Baba Dağ, on the southeast and south by a chain of hills connecting with the plateau to the south, on the southwest by Karıncalı Dağı, the highest mountain in the province of Aydın, and on the northwest by deep gorges which mark the boundaries between the upper and the lower parts of the valley. The survey also includes the plateau to the south, encompassing an additional 125 km2. The principal ancient site in this area lies near the modern village of Bingeç, traditionally, and probably correctly, identified as ancient Plarasa.

14The survey began with a three-week season of preliminary reconnaissance by a team of six persons in 2005, and continued with three six-week seasons by teams of 12-14 persons in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It has combined non-intensive survey based largely on local information of the entire survey region; mapping and controlled surface collection of certain classes of sites; detailed architectural recording where appropriate; and intensive survey of an area extending 500 m in every direction outside the walls of Aphrodisias and of a series of 5 km transects radiating out from the site. To date, we have recorded 670 points of archaeological interest, including architectural blocks, tombs, farmsteads and settlements, olive oil presses, quarries, aqueducts, fortified citadels and hilltop watchtowers, ranging in date from the prehistoric era to Ottoman times.

  • 8 The ‘phallus marker’ and a typical tumulus tomb are illustrated in Ratté 2009, figs. 2 and 4.
  • 9 Ratté 2009.

15Categories of evidence for Hellenistic occupation of the territory of Aphrodisias include tombs, settlements, and rural fortifications. Most of the sites that will be discussed in this paper were initially shown to us by local informants. Fig. 1 shows the location of nine small tumulus tombs, together with a tomb marker of the so-called phallus type8. In terms of both layout and construction, these tombs show close affinities with tumulus tombs of the sixth to the fourth centuries BC in Lydia, in the cemetery of Bin Tepe near Sardis, for example, as well as with similar tombs in other parts of northwest Karia. The ‘phallus marker’ is also comparable with Lydian tomb markers. In most cases, there is no evidence besides the architecture and construction of the tombs for dating them, but the megalithic masonry of the tomb chambers, the unmortared masonry of the entrance passageways or dromoi, and the absence of vaults of any kind all seem to point to a pre-Hellenistic or early Hellenistic date. As I have suggested elsewhere, the distribution of the tumulus tombs may provide some evidence for social organization in the area around Aphrodisias before the founding of the city9. The tombs seem to fall into two groups: one set strung out along the Morsynus River, the others scattered in the hills to the south and, especially, north. These are perhaps the tombs of an aristocracy of hereditary landowners, buried either on their rural estates (the tombs near the river) or near their dependent villages (the tombs in the hills).

16In addition to tumulus tombs, fig. 1 shows the locations of six small settlements, situated in the hills on both the north and the south sides of the valley. Before discussing one of these settlements in detail, a few words should be said on our classification of sites, and especially on the distinction between farmsteads (also shown on fig. 1) and settlements. We called ‘farmsteads’ places where we observed unusual concentrations of pottery and roof-tiles on the surface, but no extensive architectural remains in situ. Often associated with farmsteads were isolated architectural blocks, in many cases probably from monumental tombs. On the evidence of the roof-tiles and architectural blocks, most of the sites identified as farmsteads are tentatively dated to the Roman period. We called ‘settlements’ places with more extensive in situ architectural remains: the example discussed extends over at least about 75 by 25 m, and in six out of seven cases where we have carried out controlled collection of surface finds, the evidence indicates that these settlements were occupied in Hellenistic times and then abandoned in or before the early Imperial period. The distinctions between what we are calling farmsteads and what we are calling settlements are real, but they may have more to do with changing historical circumstances than with original size and function.

Fig. 2. View looking south of olive oil factory (showing crushing basin and counterweight) at settlement southwest of Ataköy.

Fig. 3. Plan of settlement southwest of Ataköy.

17One settlement which may serve as a typical example lies near the modern village of Ataköy. The feature of the site that first brought it to our attention is an olive oil factory, shown in fig. 2 (cf. no. 1 on fig. 1). The settlement extends over the brow of a low ridge south of this olive oil factory in the form of scattered rock piles and wall foundations. A sketch plan of these architectural remains is shown in fig. 3, produced with the aid of a Trimble Geo XT field computer and GPS receiver, then redrawn in Adobe Illustrator (the crushing basin of the olive oil factory appears as a circle toward the top of the plan). The site consists of an isolated tower on a high point to the southeast, and of a series of rooms near the olive oil factory. The owner of the property told us that similar architectural remains had once been visible in the area southeast of the olive oil factory, but that this area had recently been leveled.

18In addition to mapping, the field computers were used to lay out surface find collection transects – one more intensive transect consisting of a row of 10 by 10 m squares running through the middle of the site for its whole length, the other less intensive transects 10 m wide and equal in length to the intensive transect but without internal subdivisions. The intensive transects were sampled first by a group of four or five persons, walking 2 m apart, collecting all diagnostic materials, and discussing the finds for each separately recorded square. The less intensive transects were then surveyed by pairs walking 5 m apart. We recorded both the number of sherds removed and the total sherd counts for each 10 by 10 m square of the intensive transect, and for each less intensive transect. These numbers give us a sense of where surface finds were concentrated, and they record the character of our intervention on each site. We feel that this method of collecting gave us a representative sample of sherds for dating purposes, but we were not collecting intensively enough to detect patterns of use in different areas of the sites.

Fig. 4. Surface finds from settlement northwest of Ataköy.

19A sample of finds is illustrated in fig. 4. The pottery appears to be exclusively Hellenistic and early Imperial in date. Most diagnostic are fragments of Hellenistic mould-made bowls, and there are no identifiable fine wares later than the first or early second century AD. The most common coarse fabric is a gritty light colored ware, also very common in Hellenistic levels down to the late first century BC in Aphrodisias, but not found in later levels. The darker colored fabric of the most common Roman coarse ware at Aphrodisias is not represented. We found exactly the same assemblage in the majority of the settlement sites where we carried out controlled surface collection on this model, as well as in all six of the fortified sites that we examined (see below). The evidence thus seems to indicate that rural settlements and the territorial defenses were abandoned at the same time as the explosive growth of the city of Aphrodisias in the Augustan and early Imperial periods.

Fig. 5. View looking east of watchtower south of Ören.

20We shall return to this point presently, but let us now turn to the rural fortifications, all of which are grouped on fig. 1 under the general rubric ‘citadels and watchtowers’. Some of these clearly do have to do with territorial defenses, but others may be associated with rural settlements or even independent towns. To the first category belong isolated watchtowers, of which two were noted in the southeast corner of the valley near the modern village of Ören. The better preserved of these is illustrated in figs. 5 and 6 (cf. no. 2 on fig. 1).

21It consists of a square marble tower, approximately 8 m along a side, set within a larger square enclosure, approximately 50 m along a side. The well-fitted trapezoidal masonry of the tower is exposed on the west side, as is the drafted southeast corner. The masonry of the tower is certainly consistent with a late Classical or Hellenistic date, as was the surface pottery, but it is difficult to be more precise than that. As already noted, none of the pottery is later than the late Hellenistic or early Imperial periods. A structure such as this could conceivably be associated with the territorial defenses of a large entity such as the Hecatomnid kingdom (unlikely) or the Seleucid empire (more likely). It could also belong to a pre-urban local defense system (unlikely) or to the territorial defenses of either Hellenistic Plarasa or Hellenistic Aphrodisias (more likely).

22Similar uncertainties as to date and function apply also to two well-preserved citadels, situated in the northeast and southwest parts of the valley, near the modern villages of Seki (in the northeast) and Yazır (in the southwest). Both citadels show at least two major construction phases. Figs. 7 and 8 illustrate the citadel at Yazır (cf. no. 3 on fig. 1), which crowns a promontory-like hill commanding a sweeping view over the valley below.

Fig. 6. Plan of watchtower south of Ören.

Fig. 7. View looking northeast of citadel near Yazır.

Fig. 8. Plan of citadel near Yazır.

  • 10 Livy 38.13. The identification of Yazır as Gordiouteichos was first to my knowledge suggested, and (...)

23It consists of an enclosure approximately 100 m long and 50 m wide at its widest point. At the center of the enclosure rises a two-storied double-chambered keep. The exterior walls of the keep are built out of isodomic schist blocks, with finely drafted corners. The enclosure wall of the citadel is more crudely built, except for its eight or more towers, of which at least one (in the northeast) is composed of finely dressed marble blocks. To the west, a separate outer defense wall guarded by at least three more towers may have been a later addition. Two more possibly independent towers stood to the west and south. In addition to the possibilities entertained for the tower near Ören, it is conceivable that these citadels may have been associated with independent communities. For the citadel near Yazır, one candidate is Gordiouteichos, whose name and location would suit this site well; according to Livy’s account of the upland march of the Roman general Manlius, it lies a third of the way between Antioch on the Maeander and Tabae10. If this is Gordiouteichos, there must be a substantial settlement on the hill below the citadel, possibly on the site of the modern village.

24Another important feature of this site is a substantial marble quarry just northwest of the citadel (see fig. 9). This is the largest but by no means the only previously unrecorded quarry on the south side of the valley. The presence of these quarries is consistent with the view expressed by N. Asgarı over a decade ago (in an unpublished report) that the well-known quarries nearest to Aphrodisias were not adequate for the needs of a city. It requires a significant rethinking of the level of resources expended on marble building and marble carving at Aphrodisias in the Roman period, inasmuch as the most expensive part of building was transport of materials, and transport from Yazır, 15 km by the most gradual path, would presumably have been many times more expensive than transport from local quarries, only 2 km away. The evidence from Yazır also suggests that at least this quarry was in use in the Hellenistic period.

  • 11 The site is illustrated in Ratté 2009, figs. 6-7.

25The two other fortified sites shown on fig. 1 are harder to categorize. One, called Asartepe near modern Ataeymir, is a compact settlement, approximately 75 m by 50 m in area, consisting of a number of large rooms built out of schist slabs, surrounded by a similarly built enclosure wall. It is comparable with the settlement near Ataköy, only larger and better preserved. The other, known locally as Oyukkıranı Tepesi, covers the south side of a high ridge near modern Yeniköy, and is larger than any comparable site. It encompasses an area of approximately 115 m by 85 m, surrounded by c. 2 m-thick schist walls supplied with nine or more towers of which at least one is characterized by neatly drafted corners11. Apart from a single north-south dividing wall, there are no discernible architectural features within the citadel. Along the ridge to the west, approximately 100 m outside the citadel, lies a small tumulus tomb, surrounded by a stone crepis wall. As with the other sites discussed in this paper, the surface pottery suggests use in the Hellenistic period, and abandonment in early Imperial times. Notable among the surface finds were iron-oxide bearing rocks, and large quantities of iron slag. Study of satellite imagery of this area shows that the soils below the citadel are unusually rich in iron, suggesting that this site may have been intentionally located near a valuable natural resource. This site is large enough to have served as a place of refuge for the inhabitants of villages lower down, and the relationship between the fortified settlement and the nearby tumulus tomb is reminiscent of ancient Anatolian patterns of settlement both in Karia and throughout western Asia Minor.

Fig. 9. View looking south of quarry near Yazır.

26This brief overview of some of the preliminary results of the Aphrodisias Regional Survey shows that the evidence for Hellenistic occupation in the upper Morsynus river valley is indeed rich. How then has this survey improved our understanding of the founding of Aphrodisias, and of the city in the Hellenistic period? What does it tell us about the cultural identity and social organization of the population of the valley before Roman times? Let me offer three tentative conclusions.

  • 12 The tombs at Bingeç (28 in total) will be published in the final report on the survey. For a sketc (...)

27First, the tumulus tombs throughout the valley suggest the presence of a Lydianizing local aristocracy in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. It is uncertain precisely when this traditional form of burial was abandoned, but it is worth noting that none of the tombs identified so far exhibits any kind of vaulted construction – in contrast with at least some of a cluster of tumulus tombs near Bingeç on the plateau south of Aphrodisias, notable for their vaulted entrance passageways12. In any case, it is certainly possible that the abandonment of tumulus burial coincided with the founding of the city of Aphrodisias, which must have accelerated, if it was not caused by, the Hellenization of the local populace. Later tombs take the form of vaulted hypogea sometimes associated with monumental superstructures supporting or enclosing sarcophagi above ground.

28Second, the distribution of settlements identified to date suggests a pattern in which Hellenistic habitation generally took the form of small villages nestled in the hills surrounding the valley, rather than in the less protected valley floor. On this point it must be noted, however, that the evidence of non-intensive survey may be deceptive. The valley floor is more intensively cultivated today than the surrounding hills, and so the evidence for ancient settlement is likely to be harder to recognize. The numerous ‘farmsteads’ in this area were generally identified on the basis of architectural blocks (remains of monumental tombs?) and terracotta roof tiles, neither of which is to be expected from Hellenistic settlements. It is to be hoped that the ongoing analysis of the results intensive survey carried out in 2007 and 2008 will provide some form of control for this evidentiary problem. In any case, the evidence is clear that the hillside settlements were abandoned in or before the early second century AD, presumably because their inhabitants had moved either into the city, or into new settlements situated in a time of unprecedented stability in the valley floor (such as the ‘farmsteads’).

  • 13 But see Rumscheid 1999, for the defenses of Mylasa, which consisted in a system of territorial for (...)

29Finally, the fortified sites are the most difficult to interpret, in part because they are so varied. The watchtowers near Ören and the small but heavily fortified citadels near Yazır and Seki could represent the extension of Seleucid power into the upper Morsynus valley (in which case they would constitute the earliest evidence for a Greek presence in the valley), or they could belong to the territorial fortifications of Plarasa/Aphrodisias – or both. It is tempting to associate the two building phases observed at both Yazır and Seki with, a) the construction of Seleucid territorial outposts, and b) the absorption of those outposts into the defenses of the sympoliteia constituted after the loss of Seleucid control. I have also suggested that the citadels may have been associated with independent communities, but if so, they would have served only as lookouts and to house garrisons, not as places of refuge for substantial numbers of people13. The larger and more remote citadel near Yeniköy, on the other hand, seems more likely to have been an independent settlement or a Fluchtburg, possibly associated with nearby iron sources, than part of a system of territorial fortifications. The association of the citadel, on the high point of a ridge, and a tumulus tomb lower down on the same ridge seems to point to ‘pre-Hellenic’ social and political customs. In any event, like the hillside settlements, the various watchtowers, citadels, and outlying fortifications in the upper Morsynus valley were all abandoned in or before the early second century AD.

30It has long been clear that the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias and a small associated settlement were much older than the city founded on a Greek model in the Hellenistic period. Not surprisingly, the Aphrodisias Regional Survey has detected no other Classical site as old as Aphrodisias in the surrounding valley. But it has provided a fuller picture of the occupation of the valley in the centuries immediately preceding the creation of the community attested in the inscriptions, and of the effects of the growth of the city and the extension of the Pax Romana on regional traditions. Still uncertain are the answers to some of the central questions raised at the beginning of this paper, such as the cultural identities both of the local population before the founding of the city, and of the actual city-founders. It is to be hoped that the completion of the survey and of the comparative analysis of the results will help to resolve these questions. In any case, they will certainly provide more evidence to argue from.

Note

1 For a general account of the founding of Aphrodisias, summarized in the first paragraphs of this paper, see Ratté 2008.

2 Appian BC 1.11.97.

3 The community is named in the earliest inscriptions as the ‘politeia of the Plarasans and Aphrodisians’. If this entity were in fact a sympoliteia, as most recently argued by A. Chaniotis (Chaniotis 2004, 378-86), that would seem to imply the prior existence of separate poleis of both Plarasa and Aphrodisias. While Plarasa certainly did exist in its own right and issued coins, there is no epigraphic or numismatic evidence for the earlier existence of a polis called Aphrodisias, and it seems to me possible that this polis may have been a retroactive invention contemporary with the establishment of the sympoliteia. In any case, it was clearly the creation of the joint polity that ‘put Aphrodisias on the map’, and this is what I shall refer to here as the founding of the city.

4 For the image of Aphrodite of Aphrodisias, see Brody 2007.

5 Roueché 1991; id. 2004, 1.2-10.

6 For discussion of the interaction between Karia and Lydia, see Ratté 2009.

7 Figures taken from the Karacasu local government website: http://www.karacasu.gov.tr/tr/.

8 The ‘phallus marker’ and a typical tumulus tomb are illustrated in Ratté 2009, figs. 2 and 4.

9 Ratté 2009.

10 Livy 38.13. The identification of Yazır as Gordiouteichos was first to my knowledge suggested, and then rejected, by W. R. Paton (Paton 1900, 64). For a fuller discussion of Gordiouteichos, see Chaniotis’s contribution to this volume. Like Chaniotis, I am not inclined to believe that Gordiouteichos is an earlier name for Aphrodisias. It is not one of the alternative names attested for the site (Steph. Byz. s. v. Ninoe), and the survey reported here has shown how much remains to be learned about Hellenistic settlement in the surrounding region. I am grateful to R. van Bremen for her comments on this matter, and for pointing out that Gordiouteichos was possibly one of the communities absorbed into the sympoliteia of the Plarasans and Aphrodisians.

11 The site is illustrated in Ratté 2009, figs. 6-7.

12 The tombs at Bingeç (28 in total) will be published in the final report on the survey. For a sketch plan and bibliography, see Ratté & Smith 1995, 40-2.

13 But see Rumscheid 1999, for the defenses of Mylasa, which consisted in a system of territorial fortresses and places of refuge instead of a city wall.

Indice delle illustrazioni

Legenda Fig. 1. Map of region around Aphrodisias.
URL http://books.openedition.org/ausonius/docannexe/image/2771/img-1.jpg
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Legenda Fig. 2. View looking south of olive oil factory (showing crushing basin and counterweight) at settlement southwest of Ataköy.
URL http://books.openedition.org/ausonius/docannexe/image/2771/img-2.jpg
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Legenda Fig. 3. Plan of settlement southwest of Ataköy.
URL http://books.openedition.org/ausonius/docannexe/image/2771/img-3.jpg
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Legenda Fig. 4. Surface finds from settlement northwest of Ataköy.
URL http://books.openedition.org/ausonius/docannexe/image/2771/img-4.jpg
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Legenda Fig. 5. View looking east of watchtower south of Ören.
URL http://books.openedition.org/ausonius/docannexe/image/2771/img-5.jpg
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Legenda Fig. 6. Plan of watchtower south of Ören.
URL http://books.openedition.org/ausonius/docannexe/image/2771/img-6.jpg
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Legenda Fig. 7. View looking northeast of citadel near Yazır.
URL http://books.openedition.org/ausonius/docannexe/image/2771/img-7.jpg
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Legenda Fig. 8. Plan of citadel near Yazır.
URL http://books.openedition.org/ausonius/docannexe/image/2771/img-8.jpg
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Legenda Fig. 9. View looking south of quarry near Yazır.
URL http://books.openedition.org/ausonius/docannexe/image/2771/img-9.jpg
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University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

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