Seleucia (Pamphylia)

36.87372531.475552777778Koordinaten: 36 ° 52 'N, 31 ° 29'

Seleucia (Greek Σελεύκεια ) was an ancient city in Asia Minor landscape Pamphylia. It has long been identified with a ruined site about 23 kilometers north of today's Side in Turkey, but recent research suggests out that it is the ruins of the ancient city Lybre ( Λύρβη ) is and not that of Seleucia, which might was 15 km west of Side.

History

Seleucia is for several geographical works of antiquity known by name, the history of the city, however, lies largely in the dark. Your name indicates a Seleucid foundation, possibly directly by Seleucus I Nicator. You will have been founded around 300 BC.

Archeology

The ancient city with the best preserved agora ( marketplace ) is difficult to access and spared of modern colonization amongst a dense pine forest. The site was explored in the early 1970s of Istanbul Archaeologists an Orpheus mosaic and a bronze statue of Apollo secured as art historically valuable finds of the city - now in the Museum of Antalya.

The foundations of a Byzantine church - close to the surrounded by four Ionic columns space of the Orpheus mosaic on the north side of the square - to show that the place was still inhabited, or at least the Middle Ages. Due to its strategic location on a plateau sloping to the west hillside of the city needed to be protected by a city wall today still preserved to a height of 9 meters just to the south.

The imperial times Agora rests to win a flat terrain to the west on massive substructures with barrel vaults, which were used as magazines. To the west rise eight -storey shop buildings, as they are known in their preservation only from Pompeii or Herculaneum. To the south, a small Odeion connects.

A few meters north of the town square, a small podium temple is well preserved with a former four-columned pronaos. Further west, überwaldet today, to various thermal indicate speak the remains of massive marble linings for the original richness of the city. Subsequent modifications were then made only with thin sheets of pressed marble dust.