Burying A Sage: The Heroon Of Thales In The Agora Of Miletos

This article addresses the heroon of Thales in the agora of Miletos, so far only literarily attested (§§ IV, VII). The sage was worshiped as secondary founder, having the status of a ‘cultural hero’, an age-old Indo-European concept. Graves of founders are typically placed on the agora (§ V), but not those of the mythical founders of Miletos, Asterios, Miletos and Kelados or Ionian Neileos (§ VI). Of the intramural heroa excavated in Miletos none can claim to be that of Thales: Neither ‘Heroon I (the grave of the Macedonian general Dokimos?), II and III’ (§ I), nor the ‘Ehrengrab’ in the courtyard of the Hellenistic bouleuterion, which is most likely an altar (§ II). Instead, a thesauros in the assembly hall may have served as a heroon (§ III), and the philosopher Anaximander may also have received cult in the bouleuterion (§ VIII). Finally, a chamber tomb slightly west of the bouleuterion is discussed (§ IX). At the end some general remarks on Greek hero cults are added, stressing the common concept of the immortal divine soul, again an Indo-European heritage, manifest for example in the apotheosis of the Hittite kings as well as that of the Roman emperors (§ X).This piece is devoted to the memory of my grandaunt Josefine Schmitz, teacher and friend, who always encouraged me to study archaeology and history and ask what’s behind human beliefs and knowledge. It was written in the inspiring atmosphere of the library of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens to whose always helpful staff, Soi Agelidis, Christina Zoiga and Katharina Brandt, are addressed my warmest thanks. The English was corrected by Robert Hahn, of whose keen insight into early Ionian philosophy I profit a lot. The figures were improved with the ingenious skills of Stefan Gräbener

On the lion harbour and other harbours in Miletos: recent historical, archaeological, sedimentological, and geophysical research

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Le Mort dans la ville

Le développement de rites mortuaires complexes dans l’histoire de l’Homme a résulté dans un rôle croissant joué par les pratiques funéraires utilisées comme moyen de resserrer les liens à l’intérieur d’une même communauté. À cet égard, le singulier usage d'inhumer un individu au cœur de la communauté révèle avec acuité la force de cette relation que pouvaient entretenir les vivants et les morts. Les découvertes archéologiques récentes ont souligné l’importance de telles pratiques liées aux inhumations intra-muros en Anatolie. Bien qu’il semble possible de tisser un lien continu entre ces coutumes, les contextes dans lesquels s’inscrivent la pratique d’inhumer une personne au cœur même de la communauté, depuis l’enfant du Néolithique à Çatalhöyük à la libraire de Celsius à Ephèse, en passant par le Mausolée d'Halicarnasse, ont néanmoins radicalement changés en fonction des époques et des lieux. L’objectif de ce volume, en rassemblant des spécialistes de périodes et d’horizons différents, est d’offrir non seulement un point général de nos connaissances sur ces questions, mais aussi un éclairage concernant le mécanisme de ces pratiques, leur contexte et leur impact en Anatolie, du début de l’Âge du Bronze à l’époque romaine

Burying a sage: the heroon of Thales in the agora of Miletos: With remarks on some other excavated Heroa and on cults and graves of the mythical founders of the city

International audienceThis article adresses the heroon of Thales in the agora of Miletos, so far only literarily attested (§§ IV, VII). The sage was worshiped as secondary founder, having the status of a 'cultural hero', an age-old Indo-European concept. Graves of founders are typically placed on the agora (§ V), but not those of the mythical founders of Miletos, Asterios, Miletos and Kelados or Ionian Neileos (§ VI). Of the intramural heroa excavated in Miletos none can claim to be that of Thales: Neither 'Heroon I (the grave of the Macedonian general Dokimos?), II and III' (§ I), nor the 'Ehrengrab' in the courtyard of the Hellenistic bouleuterion, which is most likely an altar (§ II). Instead, a thesauros in the assembly hall may have served as a heroon (§ III), and the philosopher Anaximander may also have received cult in the bouleuterion (§ VIII). Finally, a chamber tomb slightly west of the bouleuterion is discussed (§ IX). At the end some general remarks on Greek hero cults are added, stressing the common concept of the immortal divine soul, again an Indo-European heritage, manifest for example in the apotheosis of the Hittite kings as well as that of the Roman emperors (§ X)

A Phoenician ostracon from the Delphinion: Abdalonim the “gardener king” in Miletos?

International audienceA happy coincidence has delivered another glimpse of the many languages which were once spoken and written in the ancient Greek-Ionian harbour town of Miletos, an economic and transportation hub on the central western coast of Asia Minor at the mouth of the Maeander River. So far known were Minoan and Cypro-Minoan, Mycenaean Greek, Anatolian/Luwian Hieroglyphic, Karian, ancient Greek, Lydian, Nabataean, and Latin.1 In 2011, a deep sondage in the sanctuary of Apollo Delphinios, the Delphinion, the main city sanctuary located at the northern side of the central agora of the city-state and close to her main “Lion Harbour” (figure 1), brought to light a small, initially unsuspicious artefact, which immediately turned out to be a little sensation: on the outer face of an amphora sherd were written some lines in ink.The remarkable find of a 4th-century Bc Phoenician ostracon in the Delphinion-sanctuary of Miletos, the first of its kind in western Asia Minor (today’s Turkey), spotlights the presence of Phoenicians during Persian dominance of Ionia, and the period after the liberation by Alexander the Great in 334-332 Bc, otherwise rarely documented by stone inscriptions or archaeological evidence

A Phoenician ostracon from the Delphinion: Abdalonim the “gardener king” in Miletos?

International audienceA happy coincidence has delivered another glimpse of the many languages which were once spoken and written in the ancient Greek-Ionian harbour town of Miletos, an economic and transportation hub on the central western coast of Asia Minor at the mouth of the Maeander River. So far known were Minoan and Cypro-Minoan, Mycenaean Greek, Anatolian/Luwian Hieroglyphic, Karian, ancient Greek, Lydian, Nabataean, and Latin.1 In 2011, a deep sondage in the sanctuary of Apollo Delphinios, the Delphinion, the main city sanctuary located at the northern side of the central agora of the city-state and close to her main “Lion Harbour” (figure 1), brought to light a small, initially unsuspicious artefact, which immediately turned out to be a little sensation: on the outer face of an amphora sherd were written some lines in ink.The remarkable find of a 4th-century Bc Phoenician ostracon in the Delphinion-sanctuary of Miletos, the first of its kind in western Asia Minor (today’s Turkey), spotlights the presence of Phoenicians during Persian dominance of Ionia, and the period after the liberation by Alexander the Great in 334-332 Bc, otherwise rarely documented by stone inscriptions or archaeological evidence

Carians in Miletus: On a Small, Late Classical Bowl with a Carian Graffito from Miletus

Die Entdeckung des ersten Graffitos in karischem Alphabet aus Milet bildet den Ausgangspunkt für eine Untersuchung über die Spuren der Anwesenheit der Karer in Milet und dem südlichen Ionien. Es ergibt sich das vielschichtige Bild einer komplizierten Wechselbeziehung zwischen den Karern und den seit der späten Bronzezeit in mehreren Migrationsschüben einwandernden ›ionischen‹ Griechen. Insbesondere die Schriftquellen, angefangen mit den hethitischen Annalen (16. – frühes 12. Jh. v. Chr.), aber dann vor allem Homer und die bruchstückhafte Überlieferung zur sog. Ionischen Migration (ab 8. Jh. v. Chr.) bezeugen eine Konfliktbeziehung, die spätestens im 12. Jh. v. Chr. beginnt (Milet VII, ca. 1180–1050 v. Chr.) und zumindest in Milet mit einer fast vollständigen Assimilation der karischen Bevölkerungsteile an die griechischen endet, während das karische Hinterland bis in das 4. Jh. v. Chr. hinein seine kulturelle Eigenständigkeit weitgehend erhalten konn- te. Das Graffito, das aufgrund des Inschriftenträgers, eines attisierenden Glanztonschälchens, in das beginnende 4. Jh. v. Chr. datiert werden kann, fällt in die Spätzeit des Gebrauchs der karischen Schrift. Der Schreiber mag ein aus dem karischen Hinterland nach Milet gekommener Karer gewesen sein, der das milesische Bürgerrecht erhielt. Es wurde in der klassischen Vorgängeranlage des sog. Heroon III gefunden, deren spätere Bauphasen Bezüge zum Apollon-Didymeus-Kult aufweisen. Der synkretistische, karisch-griechische Orakelgott Apollon Didymeus wurde wahrscheinlich als karischer Gott ntro-prŋida- (›Apollon Branchideus‹) in archaischer Zeit im zu Milet gehörigen Heiligtum von Branchidai/Didyma und möglicherweise auch im Filialheiligtum des Gottes im ägyptischen Naukratis verehrt.The discovery of the first graffito in the Carian alphabet from Miletus is the starting point for an investigation into the traces of the presence of the Carians in Miletus and southern Ionia.The picture that emerges is a multifaceted one of a complex interrelationship between the Carians and the ›Ionian‹ Greeks, who had arrived in several migration waves since the late Bronze Age. In particular the written sources, firstly the Hittite annals (16th – early 12th century B.C.) but above all Homer and the fragmentary records of the so-called Ionian Migration (from the 8th century B.C. on) provide evidence of a relationship of conflict which begins in the 12th century B.C. at the latest (Miletus VII, ca. 1180–1050 B.C.) and ends, at least in Miletus, in the almost total assimilation of the Carian population among the Greek, while the Carian hinterland was able by and large to remain culturally independent until well into the 4th century B.C. The graffito, on the basis of the Atticizing black- glazed bowl on which it is incised, can be dated to the beginning of the 4th century B.C., hence the late period of use of the Carian script. The inscriber may have been a Carian who came to Miletus from the Carian hinterland and acquired Milesian citizenship. It was found in the classical precursor of the structure known as Heroon III; the later construction phases of this preceding structure display links with the Apollo Didymeus cult. In the Archaic period the syncretic, Carian-Greek oracular god Apollo Didymeus was worshipped probably as the Carian god ntro- prŋida- (›Apollo Branchideus‹) in the sanctuary of Branchidai/Didyma, which belonged to Miletus, and possibly also in the af- filiated sanctuary of the god at Naukratis, Egypt

FROM THE GULF OF LATMOS TO LAKE BAFA ON THE HISTORY, GEOARCHAEOLOGY, AND PALYNOLOGY OF THE LOWER MAEANDER VALLEY AT THE FOOT OF THE LATMOS MOUNTAINS

Through a two-part approach, new light is shed on the evolution and history of Lake Bafa (modern Bafa Golu in western Turkey) and its environs, the former regions of northwestern Karia and southern Ionia. This article both outlines the charter myths that the immigrant Greeks and indigenous Karians created to sanction their land ownership, and investigates the lake as a geo-bio-archive for the evolution of the landscape over the past millennia. In sum, a comprehensive anthropogeography of the lower Maeander delta region at the foot of the Latmos Mountains is presented

Life cycle of estuarine islands - From the formation to the landlocking of former islands in the environs of Miletos and Ephesos in western Asia Minor (Turkey)

The focus of this article is to link historical accounts about former islands of the Anatolian gulfs of the Aegean Sea to geoarchaeological evidence. During the Holocene, prominent environmental and coastline changes have taken place in many tectonic grabens of western Asia Minor, today's Turkey. The Buyuk and the Kucuk Menderes fault systems are excellent examples for deciphering these changes. Sincemid-Holocene times, the eponymous rivers have advanced their deltas, silting up marine embayments which had once reached inland for tens of kilometres. To describe this terrestrial-marine-terrestrial evolution of estuarine islands we coin the term life cycle of estuarine islands. Besides other factors, such as natural erosion, sea-level changes, and tectonic activities, the delta progradation was mainly governed by riverine sediment load, which, in turn, was to a great extent dependent on human impact on the vegetation cover of the drainage basins. Based on historical accounts as well as modern geoarchaeological research it is possible to reconstruct the spatio-temporal evolution of the landscape. For Miletos and the Buyuk Menderes (Maiandros, Maeander) graben, remarkable transformations have been revealed: the metamorphosis of the marine gulf into residual lakes (Lake Azap, Lake Bafa), the landlocking of islands (Hybanda, Lade, Asteria, Nergiz Tepe), the transition of the Milesian archipelago to a peninsula and finally to a part of the floodplain. A dramatic effect of the ongoing accumulation of fine-grained sediments was the siltation of harbours - a major reason for the decline of the once flourishing coastal cities of Myous, Priene, Herakleia, and finally Miletos, today some 8 km inland. For Ephesos and the Kucuk Menderes (Kaystros) graben, the research focused on the former island of Syrie. Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia, c. CE 77) attributed the landlocking of Syrie to the Kaystros River - a scenario which has been verified by our geoarchaeological research and C-14-dated to the 5th century BC. The local foundation myth according to which an island, presumably Syrie, was the location of the first settlement of immigrants from the Greek mainland in the 11th century BCE can neither be proven nor disproven for lack of archaeological evidence. The delta advance was the main reason why the settlement sites and the harbours of Ephesos were relocated several times from the Early Iron Age to the Middle Ages. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd