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Researchers of the Institute for Archaeological Sciences at Ruhr University
in Germany have succeeded in achieving what many archaeologists can only
dream of - discovering a previously unlocated historic site mentioned by
ancient authors such as Herodotos and Diodorus. Late in 2004,
Professor Hans Lohmann and his colleagues, Dr. Georg Kalaitzoglu
and Dr. Gundula Lüdorf, announced the discovery of the common sanctuary
of the Ionian Confederacy, the so-called Panionion (figs.1,2), described
by these ancient writers.
The site was discovered
some 15 km north of the ancient town of Priene (fig.2) in the Mycale mountain
range of the west Turkish Dilek Daglari. On the highest slopes of the Mycale
mountains, at about 750 m elevation, the s cattered remains of a 7th century
BC fortified Karian settlement known as Melia (fig.2) was found along with
a 6th century BC archaic temple of the Ionians.
Fig.1: Location of the
Melia/ Panionion site in the Mycale Mountains (photo: Hans Lohmann,
Ruhr-University Bochum).
The Ionians, who
migrated from the Greek mainland to the coasts of Asia Minor after the 12th
century BC, there encountered the Karians, whom Homer in his Iliad describes
as a "barbaric" tribe. The 20th book of this epic (verse 403-404) mentions
the religious cult of the Karians, who worshiped Poseidon Helikonios, the
god of land and sea:
...He [Hippodamas] blew his life away, bellowing,
as when a bull bellows as he is dragged for Poseideon, lord of Helike, ...
In such bulls the earth shaker glories.
Young men would
drive bulls to the sanctuary in honor of Poseidon, who was ingratiated
by
the bulls bellowing. This cult was closely connected with the Karian
site
of Melia, whose extensive remains (fig.1) have now been discovered by
Lohmann's team. Founded in the early 7th century BC, it was surrounded
by a
triangular-shaped fortification pointing to the north, with walls up to
3
m thick.
In the mid 7th century,
Melia was destroyed by the Greek Ionians during the Melian War (Meliakos
Polemos), followed by a division of the Karian territories among the
Ionians.
The Ionian league, made up of twelve cities including Priene,
Chios, Ephesus, and Miletus (fig.2), was then created to meet the rising
threat of Persian invasions from the east. The still extant Karian cult of
Poseidon Helikonios at Melia provided a focus, about a hundred years
later, for the erection of a new temple known as the Panionion, where the
league's political and religious ceremonies were held each year.
Although the remains
of the Panionio n are scattered and damaged, with much of the remote site
disturbed by modern looters, researchers have determined a preliminary date
for the temple's erection at around 540 BC, based on several preserved pieces
of datable architecture. The actual duration of the Panionion temple, however,
was rather short. About forty years after its erection it seems to have burned
down, probably during the war of the Ionians with the Persians under Darius
I (521-486 BC), who destroyed Miletus in 494 BC. This led to the end of the
old Ionian League and the Panionion cult.
[Fig.2: Map showing the Panionion site
near Priene. The twelve cities of the Ionion league are listed on the map
(after Hans Lohmann, Ruhr- University Bochum)
Structural remains
from the temple cover an area about 38 m long by 18 m wide, indicating that
it could have been a temple of the hekatompedos type, usually 100
Greek feet in length. Architectural remains show that the columns of the
archaic temple measured about 52 cm in diameter, and were probably originally
6 m high. As with many Greek Archaic temples, the gutter of the roof was
decorated with painted brick antefixes showing reliefs of lion heads.
When, in the late
1960s, Professor Lohmann first visited the current site 15 km north of Priene,
he had his doubts that these relatively sparse remains could have once been
the center of the Ionian League. Formerly it was generally believed that
the Panionion lay in the northern Mycale mountains a few km northwest of
this site at Güzelçamli. In AD 1673 an inscription from the second
half of the 4th century BC was, however, discovered here, which mentioned
the name of the Panionion. In 1900, classical archaeologist Ulrich von
Wilamowitz-Moellendorf concluded, based on ancient literary sources, that
the Ionian Panionion most probably stood at the Karian site, Melia. Then,
in 1904, Theodor Wiegand (the first excavator of Miletus  and Priene) discovered
an altar and a semicircular stepped structure at Otomatik Tepe east of
Güzelçamli, which he believed represented the remains of the
legendary Ionian sanctuary. In the 1950s, a second investigation took place
under Gerhard Kleiner and Peter Hommel. Unable to find any Karian or Archaic
(7th-6th century BC) Ionian remains, they still believed that
Güzelçamli represented the Panionion site and
Melia. Fig.3: One of the three Late Archaic
antefixes from Ionia in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
(Metropolitan Museum; photo: Athena Review).
When Lohmann started
his recent investigation in 2001, he and his team soon realized that the
ruins at Güzelçamli actually stemmed from a group of structures
not erected until around 400 BC. This much later, unfinished group obviously
could not be identified with the archaic Panionion site. The 1st century
BC historian Diodorus, however, mentioned that the Ionians had wanted to
reinstall the cult of the Panionion long after the archaic sanctuary had
been destroyed. The Güzelçamli ruins probably represent the remains
of this younger, unfinished replacement sanctuary.
The team's survey
of the surrounding Mycale mountains finally led, in September 2004, to the
discovery of the actual remains of Melia and the Panionion (fig.2). Although
little information is provided by ancient sources about the site's geographical
location, they appear to correspond well with the cur rent findings. The
ancient Greek historian Herodotos of Halikarnassos (ca. 484-425 BC) described
in the first book of his Histories that the Panionion was a holy place "in
the Mycale, which stretched to the north," while Diodorus mentioned that
it was situated at a "lonely place."
The site's remote
location on the Mycale mountains makes its protection from looters nearly
impossible, and a rescue excavation has been planned for late 2005. Some
looted artifacts from the site may h ave already found their way into the
antiquities market. Resemblances have been noted by Professor Lohmann (pers.
comm.) between three terracotta antefixes (fig.3) donated in 1992 to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and two recently found at the Turkish
site by the University of Ruhr team. (fig.4). According to Professor Lohmann,
a particular antefix design was always produced exclusively for a specific
temple.
Fig.4: One of the two antefixes found
at the Panionion site (photo: Hans Lohmann, Ruhr-University
Bochum)].
Such lion-headed
tile antefixes, however, typical of 6th century BC temple roofs from Turkey
to Italy, were often mass-produced. As noted by Dr. Carlos A. Picon, Curator
of Greek and Roman Art at the Metropolitan Museum, this type of East Greek
antefix has been known for many decades, with other examples published in
1925 from the Temple of Athena at Kalbaktepe in Ionia (von Gerkan 1925).
References:
Lohmann, H. 2004. pers. comm; Picon, C.A.,
2005. pers. comm.; Wo der Stier brüllte. Press release of Ruhr-University
Bochum, 20 Oct. 2004; Forscher entdecken das Panionion. SPIEGEL online, 20
Oct. 2004; Die Ruinen der Macht. Die ZEIT, 21 Oct. 2004; "Melia, das Panionion
und der Kult des Poseidon Helikonios." In: Schwertheim E. and E. Winter (eds.)
Neue Forschungen zu Ionien. Kolloquium 01.03.-03.03.2004 Landhaus Rothenberge
/Münster. Asia Minor Studien (in press); Von Gerkan,
1925]
This article appears on pages 10-11 in Vol.4 No.2 of Athena
Review.
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