Enough artifacts have been unearthed in the ancient city of Stratonikeia in the past 50 years to facilitate the opening of Stratonikeia Hall within the body of the Muğla Museum.
This year’s excavations in the city in the Aegean province of Muğla’s Yatağan district lasted for six months, said head of Stratonikeia Ancient City excavations Bilal Söğüt, who is a member of the archaeology department at the Pamukkale University.
“We have plans to open a Stratonikeia Hall in the Muğla Museum because we have unearthed lots of artifacts during 50 years of excavations,” Söğüt said. “We have uncovered seven graves in this year’s excavations. They are from the middle Byzantine period. There are not many ornaments in these graves; this shows us that they belonged to poor people.”
Söğüt said after they found a chariot race scene last month in excavations, they accelerated works hoping to find other chariot race figures.
“We were right and unearthed a new figure that is stronger than the others. Now the number of these figures is four.”
He said they found important details about the existence of gladiators in the ancient city, adding that their graves were also there.
Source: Hurriyet Daily News [September 26, 2011]
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| Excavations in Stratonekieia have been carried out by students and academics [Credit: Hurriyet] |
“We have plans to open a Stratonikeia Hall in the Muğla Museum because we have unearthed lots of artifacts during 50 years of excavations,” Söğüt said. “We have uncovered seven graves in this year’s excavations. They are from the middle Byzantine period. There are not many ornaments in these graves; this shows us that they belonged to poor people.”
Söğüt said after they found a chariot race scene last month in excavations, they accelerated works hoping to find other chariot race figures.
“We were right and unearthed a new figure that is stronger than the others. Now the number of these figures is four.”
He said they found important details about the existence of gladiators in the ancient city, adding that their graves were also there.
Source: Hurriyet Daily News [September 26, 2011]