Monumentum Ancyranum

39.94416666666732.858333333333Koordinaten: 39 ° 56 ' 39 " N, 32 ° 51' 30" E

The Temple of Rome and Augustus ( Turkish Ogüst ve Roma Mabedi ), often shortened as the Temple of Augustus called, in Ankara, the ancient Ancyra in Galatia, is in the district Ulus, the historic center of the Turkish capital. He is known by the only completely preserved largely epigraphic copy of the Res gestae divi Augusti, the annual report of the first Roman emperor Augustus. After the location of the temple the inscription is also known as the Monumentum Ancyranum.

Location

The temple is situated in the district Hacıbayram Mah on a square where the streets Şehit Keskin Sokak Hacı Bayram Veli Caddesi and west of the castle hill of Ankara. To the southeast lies the small park Haci Bayram Cami Parkı. In the northwest directly to the temple then Hacıbayram mosque is built. Approximately 200 meters to the west is the Julia column in place Hükümet Meydanı.

Plant

The built in Corinthian temple has the shape of a pseudodipteros. He is oriented to the north-east and measures about 36 × 55 meters. He stood on a two-meter high podium with eight stages. Prior to the narrow side 8 columns and 15 were on the long side. In addition, there were four pillars in front of the pronaos ( porch ) in the south-west and two to the opisthodomos (rear hall). From the pronaos led a decorated portal in the cella ( inner space ), which was again a meter higher and four levels was available. Add the reserved for the priests, windowless room was probably a cult image. Get today are only the side walls of the cella with a length of 32.5 and a height of almost 12 meters. On the inner wall of the pronaos southeastern received the Latin version of the inscription is to read the Greek version is located on the southeast exterior wall of the cella. The letters of the document were originally designed in color.

History

The building was originally built in the 2nd century BC as a temple of the Phrygian deities Men and Cybele. After Ancyra in 25 BC became the capital of the Roman province of Galatia, the temple was rebuilt and consecrated to the cult of the Roman goddess Roma and the deified Augustus. In the 6th century AD, he was reclassified by the Byzantines to the church. Here, the floor of the interior were lowered, the wall between cella and rear hall replaced by an apse and incorporated into the southeast face three windows. 1427/28 the Hacıbayram Mosque was built on the northwest corner of the temple, after which the temple was used as a madrasah.

History of Research

1865 explored the German historian Theodor Mommsen the Monumentum Ancyranum and published the inscription. He relied on a copy of Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, an envoy of the German Emperor Ferdinand I, from 1554, as well as on the work of French archaeologist Georges Perrot from the 1860s. At the suggestion of the archaeologist Carl Humann Mommsen in 1882 on behalf of the Royal Museums of Berlin plaster casts of the inscription. The building of the temple was first 1926/28 explored by Martin Schede and Daniel Krencker in excavations, published the results in 1936. 1936-38 examined the Turkish archaeologist Hamit Zübeyir Koşay the temple. Since 1997, the University of Trieste in Ancyra Project with the photogrammetric recording, the further investigation and restoration of the monument is concerned. It works together with the Turkish Ministry of Culture and the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.