IOTAPE`S STONE ANCHORS

HAKAN ONIZ

(Technical Head of AASAM )

TRNC – May 2002

Mediterranean Underwater Archaeological Research Center (AASAM), which works for Turkish Ministry of Culture, started doing underwater archaeological research on the Turkish Mediterranean coast in 2002.

As for the first part of the research, the Alanya-Gazipasa shores of the Antalya city were chosen. This coast is in the region that is known as the Rough Cilicia, and there had not been an underwater archaeological research done here before. As a result of an archival research at the Antalya museum for 8 months, team dives started on March 1, 2002. The aim of this project was to make an inventory of the underwater archaeological objects.

Archaeologists and students of archaelogy from the Antalya museum, Mediterranean University, Eastern Mediterranean University, Anatolian University and Aegean University and members of ASAD (Underwater Archaeological Research Assocation – Istanbul) started their first dives in Gazipasa on 1 March 2002.

The scientific director is Metin Pehlivaner, the manager of the Antalya Museum and the technical director is Hakan Oniz, head of ASAD.

CAPE SELINTI

During the dives on Cape Selinti some architectural pieces were detected in the north-east coastal region of the cape. These are three architectural pieces (SL01,SL02,SL03) and 2 mill stones (SL04,SL05) made out of the stone of “conglamera” type.

As a result of the investigation in the Selinus antique city, which is situated 2 km. away from the bedrock, it’s predicted that two different kinds of conglamera were used in many buildings in the city. The dark colored conglamera could have been taken from this bedrock in the north-east of Cape Selinti that we detected. Based on the architectural pieces, it is predicted that the the stone that was taken from this bedrock was processed here partially, and loaded on the ships and sent away. The natural structure of the shore is suitable for the ships to load and unload in calm weather. 33 mill stones of the same size were found by INA on the Aegean coast, in the Byzantian shipwreck on the shores of Kızıl Burun. Analysis on the findings may shed light on the question whether there is any relationship between the two.

THE IOTAPE HARBOUR

Iotepe is inside the borders of the Alanya district, 33 km. away from the center of Alanya and 8 km. away from the Gazipasa district. It was named after Iotape, the wife of the 4^th Kommagane king Antiochus (A.C. 38-72).

The Ioatepe harbour is one of the few harbours between Alanya and Anamur that are closed to the winds blowing from the east, west and north.

Some of the team members have been appointed for drawing on land and in the sea in order to complete the plan of the harbour and the environs. During these studies three platforms with suitable depths and with connections to the main land that could be used as the pier for the loading and unloadings the ships were detected.

During the dives with scuba equipment, the 2 and 4 person teams combed the inner section of the harbour with 10 m. parallel lines. During these dives many findings made the team members happy. The Team 2 that consisted of Mine Yapicilar, Yasin Aygunduz, Unal Demirer and Hakan Oniz found the first stone anchor and the iron anchor that was near the stone anchor. As a result of the combings with the same method 8 stone anchors (ITP 01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08), 1 line weight (ITP 09) (1), 1 couple and 1 single lead cipo (ITP10,11) that belonged to wooden anchors, pieces or a whole of 5 iron anchors (ITP 12,13,14,15,16) and 2 fixed weights (ITP 17,18) were detected.

During these the position of the finding was kept and they were drawn and photographed where they were. Afterwards the position of the findings was marked by buoys and also marked on the plans. Buoys was also used to coordinate with GPS. The GPS that was used was a Garmin standard hand GPS. However, it is unlikely that it is perfectlty accurate on such findings that are very close to each other. During a rescue excavation or another research it will be safer to use the plan that shows that position of the findings.

Hakan Öniz – AASAM hakan.oniz@emu.edu.tr

IOTAPE FINDINGS – ITP 11 ( LEAD CIPO THAT BELONGED TO WOODEN ANCHORS )

GEORGE BASS`S TEKTAS CAPE FINDING ( 440 – 425 BCE ) (2)

(1) E.Galili, U.Dahari, J.Sharvit 1993 IJNA 22.1, S 61 - 77

(2) National Geoprahic – Türkiye, March 2002 S 161 – 164

(3) For Dating and lokalization: H.Öniz, Çapalar, Teknoloji ve Sınıflandırmaları, AASAM 2000