mosaics
The mosaics date to the third century B.C.E. Teos Archaeological Project
The ruins of ancient temples, roads, a harbor and a cistern for collecting rainwater lie near Turkey’s western coast. Some 2,000 years ago, these structures stood in the ancient city of Teos—a thriving metropolis across the sea from Athens.
Founded around the tenth century B.C.E., Teos grew into a populous “city of art” that “opened its doors to important philosophers and artists of antiquity,” according to Turkish Museums. The Greek historian Herodotus once called the city “the center of Ionia,” Greece’s territory in present-day Turkey.
Now, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have learned new details about the city’s bouleuterion, its city council building. As Marilyn Perkins writes in Omnia, the university’s arts and sciences alumni magazine, researchers studied the timeline of the bouleuterion’s multi-phase construction, pieced together its “monumental” inscription and unearthed detailed mosaics depicting animals and dueling cupids.
seating
Sloping stone seats in the ancient bouleuterion Teos Archaeological Project
“This is the best-preserved building in the city of Teos, and it seems to preserve for us the early history of Teos underneath it,” Mantha Zarmakoupi, a classical archaeologist and architectural historian at the University of Pennsylvania, tells Omnia.
Zarmakoupi has been working in Teos for about four years. The bouleuterion interested her because it had clearly been renovated over several centuries. The ruined structure resembles a Greek theater: Its walls are lined with rows of stone bench seating, which slope toward a low platform. Per Omnia, the building would have fit several hundred people.
Many ancient Greek cities had a bouleuterion, which hosted civic ceremonies and sometimes cultural performances. Teos’ bouleuterion would have been the city’s “center of democratic decision-making,” as All That’s Interesting’s Amber Morgan writes.
“This building is extremely important for understanding the ancient communities that were living here and their institutions,” Peter Satterthwaite, an historian at the university, tells Omnia.
block
The scattered architrave blocks appeared to bear a partially erased inscription. Teos Archaeological Project
During excavations, the researchers discovered that the bouleuterion was likely built around the late third century B.C.E. during the Hellenistic period. Several centuries later, workers added a portico and a stage structure, allowing it to be used for theater. Both of these additions date to Teos’ Roman period, after the empire had overtaken the region.
However, researchers made several significant discoveries predating Teos’ Roman occupation. They unearthed the remains of two ancient Greek mosaics dating to the third century B.C.E. that once covered the floors of two rooms. One of them depicts a pair of winged cupids, which are associated with Eros, the Greek god of love. In Greek mythology, Eros often appears aside Dionysus, the god of wine (and Teos’ “patron deity,” per Omnia). The city features a temple dedicated to Dionysus that was designed by Hermogenes, an architect of the Hellenistic period.
The researchers also studied a group of architrave blocks, which would have been positioned just above the columns of a building. They had been carved with letters measuring nearly a foot tall, which someone had later attempted to “erase.” Thankfully, surviving masonry markings allowed the researchers to piece the blocks together using 3D modeling.
YouTube Logo
After reconstructing the building’s façade, Zarmakoupi’s team was able to read part of the inscription spelled out by the blocks. It appears to be a dedication recognizing the funders who sponsored the bouleuterion’s construction.
“The inscription gives us a really valuable indication of the process by which the structures were built and who was involved,” Satterthwaite tells Omnia. “The fact that it’s erased is a clue to another chapter in the city’s history, in which they no longer wanted to commemorate that person or his involvement in the project.”
Part of the inscription is missing, and Zarmakoupi hopes to reconstruct it after conducting additional excavations.
“Every piece of this process has been revealing itself like an onion,” Zarmakoupi tells the magazine. “It peels off and another thing arrives.”
Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.
Email Powered by Salesforce Marketing Cloud (Privacy Notice / Terms & Conditions)
Sonja Anderson | READ MORE
Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in Chicago.
Filed Under: Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Archaeology, Architecture, Art, Artifacts, Arts, Cool Finds, Government, Greece, History, Kings, New Research, Roman Empire, Turkey