2,500-year-old Persian post office found in Turkey's Amasya

Too cool not to pay attention to! Archaeologists have discovered a 2,500-year-old post office from the Persian civilization during excavations at the Oluz Höyük settlement mound in the village of Toklucak in Turkey's Black Sea province of Amasya.

 

Professor Şevket Dönmez, who is an academic at Istanbul University's Archaeology Department and who leads the excavations said their excavations in the past four years focused on the Persian period layer of the mound.

"A monumental road leading to a sanctuary and a linked hall with pillars have been discovered in the excavations," Professor Dönmez said, noting that from a design perspective, the road marks the first time such a detailed design from the Iron Age Anatolia was unearthed.

Dönmez noted that the architecture centered on a fire temple, which means that the Persians replaced the religion of their predecessors—the Hellenes.

Zoroastrianism, one of the world's oldest extant religions, is believed to have originated from the prophet Zoroaster in what is now present-day Iran. The discovery of a temple for fire worship suggests the religion was present in Anatolia, as well.

The "pillared hall" became the center of this year's excavations, as archaeologists believe the structure, located just a meter away from the fire temple, served as a post office for the Persians.

"The Persians are the first civilization to bring the postal system to Anatolia. They had a vast empire stretching from Greece to Central Asia and Egypt and administered the empire through governors. They had to somehow make sure that they sent the right news and intelligence from the capital to the periphery and established various road systems throughout their borders."

Dönmez claimed the Persians designated specific locations to set up post offices, where they had well-rested horses and couriers to deliver important news across the empire, and the pillared hall unearthed during the excavations is one of these post offices.

Excavations at Oluz Höyük started in 2007, after the site was first discovered during surface research near Toklucak in 1999. Archaeologists have unearthed a total of 10 settlements in the mound in the excavations. Five academics from five different universities, three archaeologists and 15 archaeology and architectural restoration interns are taking part in the excavations that will continue until September.

• Sunday, August 25, 2019
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology current affairs Persia

On the monumental ancient naval bases discovered in Athens' Piraeus harbor

Philippe Bohstrom recently wrote a very interesting article featured on Haaretz about the appearently huge naval base found in Piraeus, the harbor city of Athens. The discoveries are part of the partially sunken port that played a pivotal role in the famous Battle of Salamis, against the Persian Empire, the naval conflict that saved Greece and the young democracy of Athens in 480 BCE.

After the Battle of Marathon ten years earlier, in 490 BCE, the Athenian statesman Themistocles outlined a military defensive program against the Persian invaders that was based entirely on sea power. As Plato put it:

"Themistocles robbed his fellow-citizens of spear and shield, and degraded the people of Athens to the rowing-pad and the oar."

Construction work in Piraeus had already begun in 493 BCE (also on Themistocles advice). Now, recent underwater excavations conducted by ZHP Project, which combines land and underwater archaeology of the ancient Zea and Mounichia harbors in Piraeus, have uncovered naval bases and huge fortifications that testify to the might of the Athenian Navy that once ruled the waves. Bjørn Lovén, director of the Zea Harbor Project, told Haaretz:

"We have identified, for the first time, the 5th century BC naval bases of Piraeus – the ship-sheds, the slipways and the harbor fortifications."
 

The discoveries place the naval bases of Piraeus at the historical and archaeological level of importance as the Acropolis and Parthenon, or the Athenian Agora, Lovén adds. Yet the monumental finds were the result of serendipity.

In 2010, an old fisherman guided the archaeologists to the naval bases dating to the time of the battle of Salamis. He knew of them: As a child, he used to sit and fish on an ancient column rising from the sea on the northern side of Mounichia in the Piraeus, on what was once part of the old harbor.

After the fisherman had guided the divers through a murky labyrinth of mooring chains, anchors and modern debris, where underwater visibility could be as little as 20 centimeters, the excavators stumbled upon their greatest find: The remains of an ancient monumental wall resting on the seabed, with large foundation blocks in three colonnades.

Soon six ship-sheds were discovered and excavated – ancient shelters constructed as roofed ramps that once housed the ancient warship, the triremes (named after its three levels of oar-banks). Triremes were at least one of the classes of ships that had partaken in the battle of Salamis in 480 BCE, in which the outnumbered Athenian alliance, led by Themistocles, defeated the Persians under Xerxes in a brilliant naval maneuver.

With an additional nine found in Zea Harbor, the underwater excavations have unearthed the remains of 15 ships-sheds. Based on pottery and carbon-14 dating from a worked piece of wood found inside the foundations of a colonnade, the team dated the ship-sheds to around 520-480 BCE, or shortly thereafter. Lovén:

"These ship-sheds were built in the years of the young Athenian democracy. It is an enticing thought that some of the Athenian triremes that fought against the Persians at Salamis in 480 BC were most probably housed in these ship-sheds. Keep in mind that all social classes rowed and fought aboard triremes in the Battle of Salamis. I strongly believe that this very important battle in the Salamis Strait, just west of Piraeus – a turning point in world history – created an immensely strong bond among most of the citizens. That is how the Athenian navy was to develop into the backbone of the world’s first democracy during the 5th century BC. What we’ve been excavating, in essence, are the material remains of that extraordinary historical development."

The naval victory in the Battle of Salamis liberated the Greeks from the Persian yoke. With the Persian ships gone from the Aegean, the nature of the allied Greek states headed by Athens, called the Delian League, gradually changed from defensive to expansive. Athens was freed to deploy large fleets throughout the Mediterranean, which it used to carve out the great Greek empire. Note that a few states in the area were forced to join the league against their will.

To preserve its empire and secure its wealth, which stemmed from maritime trade and levying tax from subject states, Athens also maintained a large war fleet. At its peak, Piraeus hosted about 400 triremes requiring crews of 80,000 sailors and soldiers.

At the height of Athens' power, 150 island and coastal cities were within her domain.  Athenian triremes patrolled the Black Sea in the North, the Israelite coast in the east, and the Nile delta of Egypt in the south. Now the Zea Harbour Project excavation has uncovered part of this juggernaut of a war machine.

New evidence found after the Zea Harbor Project include extensive underwater walls and along the Zea coastline, and a previously unknown phase of building. Mads Møller Nielsen, one of the researchers involved in the project, who studied the harbors fortifications noted:

"It became clear that the harbor was a so-called Limen Kleistos, a ‘closed harbor’, like most naval harbors of the time. This means that the harbor was fortified on the sea-side with massive fortified moles, and had a large central entry gate through which all ships had to pass to get inside."

Ancient Hellenic sources tell how the harbor could be sealed with the help of a chain hauled between two large square towers on each side of the harbor entrance. Not only would enemy ships have had to vanquish both towers at the entrance: they'd have to do so under constant barrage from fortifications along the coast. It would have been an almost impregnable harbor. and indeed, Piraeus was never taken by an enemy from the sea-side, because of its excellent system of coastal and harbor fortifications.

The port at Piraeus may have been impregnable, but Athens was not.  By 431 BCE its dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean brought it into conflict with Hellas' major land power, Sparta, and its allies. It was a long and bitter war but finally, Athens lay defeated in 404/3 BCE and the Spartans tore down the Piraeus naval bases and fortifications, leaving the home of the mighty Athenian fleet in ruins.

The Zea Harbour Project operates under the auspices of the Danish Institute at Athens and is directed by Dr. Bjørn Lovén. The project is supervised mainly by the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, and have conducted some investigations on land under the Ephorate of Antiquities of West Attica, Piraeus and Islands. The Carlsberg Foundation has been the project’s principal sponsor since 2004.

Please visit the original article for some amazing images of the under water excavations!

• Saturday, June 11, 2016
  ancient Hellenic culture archeology Athens current affairs modern Greece Persia Plato

A woman to know: Gorgo of Sparta

The ancient Hellenic writers were dedicated historians, but they often neglected to mention the achievements of ancient Hellenic women. Now it so happens that I am a woman and I quite like having a few female heroes to look up to, so I want to introduce you to them. Today: Gorgo, queen of Sparta.


I think pretty much all of you know who Gorgo was. In 2007, she was famously represented by Lena Headey (of Game of Thrones fame) in the Frank Miller classic '300'. Headey reprised her role in the 2014 sequel, '300: Rise of an Empire'. Needless to say, the movie got a few details incorrect.

Gorgo (Γοργώ) was the daughter and the only known child of Cleomenes I, King of Sparta (520 – 490 BC) during the 6th and 5th centuries BC. She was the wife of King Leonidas I, Cleomenes' half-brother, who fought and died in the Battle of Thermopylae. Gorgo is noted as one of the few female historical figures actually named by Herodotus, and was known for her political judgement and wisdom. She is notable for being the daughter of a king of Sparta, the wife of another, and the mother of a third. Her birth date is uncertain, but is most likely to have been between 518 and 508 BC, based on Herodotus' dating in his 'Histories' (5.51).

As a Spartan girl of nobility, Gorgo would have been brought up at court trained in singing, dancing, literature, and, especially, physical education. According to Herodotus's Histories, at about the age of eight to nine years old, she advised her father Cleomenes not to trust Aristagoras of Miletus, a foreign diplomat trying to induce Cleomenes to support an Ionian revolt against Persians. Cleomenes followed her advice. Interestingly, Herodotus reports, Gorgo was present in the room with her father when Aristagoras arrived and, when Aristagoras asked the king to send the child away so they could talk privately, Cleomenes refused and told him to speak freely in front of her.

Scholars have suggested that Herodotus intentionally reduced Gorgo's age at the time of this incident to make her father look particularly foolish. More likely, Herodotus underestimated her age simply because in other Hellenic cities girls were married at age twelve or thirteen and so rarely in their father's household as teenagers or adults. It is more probable, that Gorgo was closer to eighteen or nineteen at the time of this incident.

In no other Hellenic city but Sparta would a female of any age have been allowed to be present, much less heard and heeded, at a meeting between heads of state. Gorgo's advice was all the more remarkable because it was good. It was Athenian aid for the Ionian revolt that brought the wrath of Persia down on mainland Greece, leading some people to quip that it was easier to bamboozle thirty thousand Athenian men than one Spartan girl.

In 490 BC, Cleomenes died and left no male heir to the throne. His half-brother Leonidas became king. Leonidas and Gorgo were already married by that time and so she became the queen of Sparta. It is during this period that Herodotus' other tale concerning her takes place (and which was the foundation of the movie 300). The Persians, under King Darius I, tried to invade Hellas in retaliation for Athens' aid to the Ionian Greeks in 490 BCE but were defeated at the Battle of Marathon.

When Darius died, his son Xerxes the Great swore to complete the work his father had begun and assembled the largest army ever put into the field up to that time. When Xerxes was preparing his war machine, a man named Demartus was living in the Persian city of Susa. Demartus had been co-ruler with Cleomenes until 491 BCE when Cleomenes had forced him into exile after a political dispute. Demartus became aware of Xerxes' plans for the military campaign to Hellas and wanted to warn the Spartans, but he did not know how. Susa was deep in the Persian Empire and any message being sent toward Hellas would most likely be apprehended by Persian officials before it reached the border. The only way he could find to get the message to them was to take a folding writing-tablet, scrape off the wax, and write about the king's decision on the bare wood of the tablet. Then he covered the message up again with melted wax so that during its journey the tablet would not arouse the suspicions of the guards on the route.

When the tablet reached Sparta and was brought to the king, no one knew what to do with it. While they were puzzling over why Demartus would have sent them a blank writing tablet and what it could possibly mean, Gorgo deduced that it was probably a message sent encoded. She suggested that they scrape off the wax and, when they did, they found his message about the Persian invasion. They then sent word to Athens and the other city-states, which enabled the Hellenes to prepare for war. It is also to Leonidas' credit, and that of the Spartan court, that they were not foolish enough to ignore a suggestion simply because it came from a woman.

When Leonidas marched out to die at Thermopylae (like in the movie), Gorgo asked him for instructions. His answer was a final compliment to her. He said: 'Marry a good man and have good children'. Not sons, children. Leonidas wanted Gorgo not to mourn him but to be happy, and he valued daughters as much as sons--hopefully because he had learned from Gorgo the importance of clever and loyal women.
We are not sure what happened to Gorgo after the battle at Thermopylae. She had at least one son by Leonidas I, Pleistarchus, co-King of Sparta from 480 BC to his death in 458 BC. Her son was a minor at his father's death so his uncle Cleombrotus (died 480 BC) and then his first cousin and heir Pausanias (480-479 BC) acted as his regent. Pleistarchus ruled with the other king of Sparta, Leotychidas II (and then his grandson Archidamus) until his death 459/458 BC.

• Monday, March 28, 2016
  a woman to know series ancient Hellenic culture Persia Sparta warfare