APHRODISIAS 2014

A REPORT ON THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD SEASON

APHRODISIAS 2014
A REPORT ON THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD SEASON

The New York University team carried out a three-month program of conservation and
archaeological work at Aphrodisias this year (14 June to 26 August 2014). Conservation work
continues for a fourth month, until 30 September. Our team consisted of seventy local workers
and sixty archaeologists, architects, conservators, epigraphists, and numismatists, both senior
staff and graduate students. The government representatives were Resul bi from orum
Museum and Mustafa Kolaasolu from Samsun Museum. We are as ever most grateful to
the Ministry of Culture in Ankara for fundamental permissions for our work. There were four
large field projects, in the Hadrianic Baths, the Sebasteion, the South Agora Pool, and the
Tetrapylon Street, as well as research and publication projects.
1. CONSERVATION: HADRIANIC BATHS (Figs. 2-6)
The project in the Hadrianic Baths, begun in 2010, was pursued with conservation and
restoration work on the fabric of the complex, supervised by Thomas Kaefer, Gerhard Paul,
and Trevor Proudfoot. The project is funded by the World Monuments Fund, the Geyre Vakf,
and the Friends of Aphrodisias Trust in London. Detailed architectural documentation was at
the same time continued by Arzu ztrk and her team, and by PhD student Allyson McDavid
(Fig. 2).
The main conservation work was focused in Rooms 5 and 12, where the floors,
hypocausts, and walls were restored. In Room 12, the long painstaking work on the sensitive
marble covering of the circular hot pool and its hypocausts was brought to a close (Figs. 3-4).
In Room 5, the sloping collapse of the marble floor on the east side of the room was stabilised
and conserved for presentation (Figs. 5-6). The hypocaust on the east and north walls was
repaired. Structural repair was carried out on the west part of the north wall, and wall capping
was undertaken on top of the wall between Rooms 5 and 6. Three large information panels
(90 x 120 cm) are ready for installation in the arched south wall of Room 6. They describe
ancient bathing, the architecture of the Hadrianic Baths, and the recent conservation work. At
the end of the season, in September, four large, fully-restored chambers of the baths (the interconnecting Rooms 6, 7, 13, and 14) will be open to the public.
2. ANASTYLOSIS: PROPYLON OF SEBASTEION (Figs. 7-11)
Physical anastylosis of the Propylon at the Sebasteions west end was begun in 2012 and is
supervised by Gerhard Paul and Thomas Kaefer. The project is funded by the J.M. Kaplan
Fund. In 2013, work concentrated on the southern part of the building, in 2014 on the northern
part. The projecting podia were repaired, reinforced, and prepared for the columns that stood
on them (Fig. 8). The bases, drums, capitals, and architraves were conserved and repaired in
order for them to function again as load-bearing members. Missing parts were restored in
steel-reinforced artificial stone and then hand-carved (Figs. 9-11). Some elements that are
missing entirely (some column drums and capitals) were also cast in reinforced artificial
stone. The re-erecting of the first-storey columns over the northern part of the foundation will
take place in September.
3. EXCAVATION: SOUTH AGORA AND TETRAPYLON STREET (Figs. 12-26)
Excavation concentrated on two projects: (a) the South Agora, directed by Andrew Wilson,
and (b) the Tetrapylon Street, directed by Alexander Sokolicek. These two projects are
connected parts of a larger vision for making the centre of Aphrodisias and its major
monuments accessible the monuments that have been restored by our team in recent years
(Tetrapylon, Sebasteion, North Agora colonnades, and Hadrianic Baths). The two projects are
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designed to create a new, enhanced visitor route through the centre of the site, and they are
both of outstanding interest for the later history of Aphrodisias from the Roman to Ottoman
periods. Generous sponsorship has come from Mica and Ahmet Ertegn, Baron Lorne
Thyssen, the Headley Trust, the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation, and the Gilbert and
Ildiko Butler Family Foundation.
South Agora and pool (Figs. 12-20). The east and west ends of the South Agora pool were
excavated by Kenan Erim in the 1980s. After a detailed survey of the water system of the pool
in the South Agora in 2011 and test trenches in 2012, a five-year project to complete the
excavation of the pool and its surrounding basin construction was begun in 2013, funded in the
name of Mica and Ahmet Ertegn. Water was pumped from the pool through the year, from
October 2013 to May 2014, to keep it dry and clean, ready for renewed work this season.
Work in 2014 comprised the documentation of standing and re-erected architecture,
large-scale area excavation of much of the eastern half of the pool, and more limited excavation
and sondages in the space between the pool and the north portico. Excavation was conducted by
Hazal Avc, Paige Chandler, Allison Kidd, and Amanda Sharp, and directed by Andrew
Wilson and Ben Russell.
S.Ag.14.1. The trench was laid out across nearly the entire area between last years
trench S.Ag.13.2 and a sondage of 1984 in the centre of the pool, leaving only a 10-m wide
strip at the western end for crane access. The trench measured 52.59 m east-west and 37.27 m
north-south, giving a surface of 1920 m2 (Figs. 12-14). This was excavated to an average
depth of a little over 0.5 m. About 1,000 m3 of earth were moved. Topsoil and the uppermost
level of field soils were removed across the whole trench; this exposed three post-medieval
walls in the southwest part and field walls covered with a layer of rubble. The rubble layer
probably represents the collapsed upper parts of walls, consolidated by field clearance into a
field boundary. Two fragmentary inscribed marble funerary epitaphs were found in topsoil,
and an inscribed marble fragment of an acclamation or epigram was discovered built into a
post-medieval wall in the southwest part of the trench.
S.Ag.14.2. The northern part of trench S.Ag.13.1 was extended 16.3 m to the east
across the space between north stoa and the line of fallen cornice blocks where the 1985
excavations finished. Work was confined to cleaning the damaged and truncated surface of
the ancient deposit which had raised the ground level in this area, in preparation for
excavation next year (Fig. 15). Particular care was taken to remove all intrusions, including
the fill of the ruts caused by modern vehicle passage.
S.Ag.14.3. A small sondage was dug across the north stoa (Portico of Tiberius),
adjacent and to the north of Trench 14.2, extending from the southern stylobate to the central
doorway between the North Agora and South Agora, to investigate the stoas construction
deposits and late antique repairs and renovations (Fig. 16). Excavation revealed construction
deposits of the imperial period, cut by later intrusions: water pipe trenches in the south and
centre of the trench, and a deep cut against the back (north) wall of the stoa. The late
intrusions may suggest that a stretch of the back wall was reconstructed in late antiquity
perhaps in conjunction with the rebuilding operations undertaken on the Agora Gate by
Ampelios and Dulcitius.
S.Ag.14.4. Immediately to the west of S.Ag.14.3, earlier excavations had uncovered
three marble thrones, decorated with wings, and a fourth marble seat, set against the
foundations of the north wall of the stoa, below the ancient floor level (Fig. 16). A small
trench was re-opened around these thrones, to record their context and to establish their
stratigraphic relationship to the stoa (Figs. 17-18). Excavation confirmed that they sit below
the late antique floor level and below a course of rough stones projecting from the base of the
ashlar wall. Their backs had been cut off to ensure they did not project above floor level. The
seats thus seem to have been buried against the north wall of the stoa, perhaps in a late antique
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(re-)construction trench for the north wall. They sit on a layer of clay which appears similar to
that seen in the bottom of the (re)construction cut in S.Ag.14.3. A preliminary hypothesis is
that the seats came from the Bouleuterion, perhaps at the time of its conversion into a
palaestra by the same Ampelios who was active in the South Agora (ALA 43).
Documentation. A composite north-south section through the South Agora was drawn
at 1:50, from the retaining wall of the Theatre, through the east end of the pool, to the north
stoa (Emily Davidson and Lindsey Wong). The elevation of the theatre retaining wall was
drawn at 1:50, from the southeast corner of the complex to the beginning of the vaulted
substructures on the Theatre hill (Lindsay Wong). A state plan of the colonnade of the north
stoa was drawn at 1:25; it includes gameboards, graffiti, and architectural and construction
details (Emily Davidson). A detailed state plan of the basin in front of the Agora Gate was
drawn by Harry Mark (Figs. 19-20).
Tetrapylon Street (Figs. 21-26). The Tetrapylon Street runs north-south from the Tetrapylon
to the Sebasteion. Its excavation, begun in 2008, is designed to open this part of the street for
visitors, and to bring new information about the history of the Byzantine, Seljuk, and Ottoman
history of Aphrodisias. The project is funded by Baron Lorne Thyssen, the Headley Trust, the
Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation, and the Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Family Foundation.
Excavation in 2014 continued immediately north of the Propylon of the Sebasteion, in one
large trench (NAve 14.1). The trench encompassed the areas of previous trenches that did not
reach the Roman-period paving of the Street. Excavation was conducted by Chelsea Blance,
Dou Coar, Hugh Jeffrey, and Alexandra Sterman, and directed by Alexander Sokolicek.
NAve 14.1. The single large trench (NAve 14.1, 34 x 12 m) was placed 2 m north of
the North Building of the Sebasteion and extended 34 m to the north and 12 m to the west
(Fig. 21). It included part of the street colonnade and the full width of the street itself. The
Geyre road that was exposed in the trenches NAve 13.2 and 13.3 was removed, except for a
stretch in front of an in situ Roman door frame (found already in 2013, NAve 13.2). Beneath
the Ottoman layers, belonging to a workshop with large, open pithoi (excavated in 2011,
removed in 2013) were earlier Byzantine walls and channels that run partly underneath the
workshop. The pottery finds now date construction of the Ottoman workshop to the early
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The workshop, built over the Byzantine walls, destroyed an
area of c. 8 x 9 m. The Byzantine walls north of the Ottoman workshop were part of a long
north-south structure, consisting of a sturdy wall made of spolia and smaller east-west
compartment walls. South of the Ottoman workshop a platform and a series of channels
emerged.
The structures north and south of the Ottoman workshop were associated with a thick,
hard, and concrete-like layer that contained hundreds of thumbnail-sized glass fragments of
glass slag, glass jewellery, and larger glass cups. The small fragments are mostly parts of
Roman and late antique glass vessels (mostly stem cups). The larger fragments (Fig. 22) have
parallels in mid-Byzantine glass bowls and cups, securely dated to the tenth and eleventh
centuries, from Amorium. The dating of this layer to the mid-Byzantine period is corroborated
by finds of coins, with obverse images of Christ, from the ninth to eleventh centuries. In all
likelihood, the compartment walls and the channels formed part of a large mid-Byzantine
industrial zone whose primary production was glass made from Roman and late antique
cullet. Two lead seals (Fig. 23) from the same layer are evidence of the importance of
Byzantine Aphrodisias. They join a series of twenty mid-Byzantine lead seals already known
from Aphrodisias: J. Nesbitt, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 37 (1983), 159-64. Pottery analysis by
Muradiye Oztakin also confirmed the dating of the post-antique structures.
The Byzantine workshop was preceded by earlier walls set directly into the burnt
destruction debris of the colonnade. These walls may have been built to organize the area
after the collapse of the colonnade. Finds from the destruction layer, especially the coins
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(analyzed by A. Tolga Tek), indicate that the colonnade burnt down in a major conflagration
not before the mid-seventh century AD. The last datable coin (C2009.206) is a 40-nummus
piece of Constans II (AD 655-57). The removal of this seventh-century debris layer revealed
the remains of the colonnade. Its south end was positioned c. 2 m from the North Building of
the Sebasteion, leaving probably an east-west access alley running behind the Sebasteion
here. (There was a similar alley on the Sebasteions south side.) The removal of the
destruction layer also revealed collapsed brick arches from the upper storey of the late antique
colonnade, collapsed onto the Roman paving. Piers from the nearby North Building of the
Sebasteion (collapsed in mid-fourth century) were found re-used here in the street colonnade.
Conservation. The tall masonry structure on the west side of the Tetrapylon Street was
repaired and stabilised (Figs. 25-26). The inscribed base for Myon Eusebes, found in 2013,
was restored to its original position in the central niche of this monument (Fig. 24). A copy of
the himation statue found nearby in 2011 will be placed on the base in 2015.
4. RESARCH & DOCUMENTATION (Figs. 27-36)
The goals of other research and documentation projects remain to record and study the finds
and building complexes already uncovered in the excavations directed by Kenan Erim (19611990) and to pursue a better understanding of the sculpture, buildings, street plan, and urban
development of Aphrodisias.
Architecture and surveying. Documentation and publication projects were pursued on
the following complexes: the Hadrianic Baths (Arzu ztrk, Allyson McDavid), Bouleuterion
(Ursula Quatember), the Tetrapylon Street (Alexander Sokolicek), Gaudins Fountain (Esen
), the archaic temenos of Aphrodite (Kenan Eren), the Roman and Byzantine phases of
the Temple of Aphrodite (James Coulton), the South Agora (Andrew Wilson and Benjamin
Russell), the Stadium (Katherine Welch and Andrew Leung), and the Civil Basilica (Phil
Stinson). A missing bulls head from the composite pier capital from the Basilicas South Hall
was identified by Hikmet Apaydn in a depot and re-attached to the pier (Figs. 27-29). A 3D
model of the terrain of the site was made from data collected by a remote-controlled drone
(Alexey Gribovsky, Alexandre Habersaat, Christian Kurtze).
Sculpture and epigraphy. The study of different categories of marble sculpture
discovered at the site during earlier excavations was pursued with database recording and
photography of the objects in the depots. The main publication projects were on the following
groups of material: Bouleuterion statues (Christopher Hallett), columnar sarcophagi (Esen
), and late antique statues and inscribed bases (Julia Lenaghan and Roland Smith). A
further series of drawings of late antique bases and statues in context were made for this last
project (Ulrike Outschar and Harry Mark), and further trial assemblies of different parts of
bases were made at the Hadrianic Baths and at the Museum (Julia Lenaghan). Separate
components of bases for Eupeithios and Rhodopaios from the Hadrianic Baths were
assembled and tested (Figs. 30-31). New reconstruction drawings were made of the two Boxer
statues from the Theatre (Fig. 32). New lightly engraved Christian XMG inscriptions were
found on four late antique portrait heads in Museum Depot 1 (XMG was an abbreviation for
Christ was born to Mary). Several possible elements of the colossal three-metre female
statue from the Basilica were identified in the depots (hand, hair, and head fragments).
The inscriptions and graffiti found in 2013 and 2014 were recorded by Angelos
Chaniotis. Among the most important finds of 2014 are a grave altar found in the praefurnium
of the Hadrianic Baths, recording public burial for a man called Atalos son of Atalos (I 1410), and a new fragment of Diocletians Currency Edict of 301 found in the west stoa of the
South Agora (I 14-13) (Figs. 33-34).
Coins and ceramics. The initiative to catalogue all the excavation coins from recent
years, begun in 2013, was pursued by Ahmet Tolga Tek. Work on Roman and Late Roman
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ceramics was supervised by Ulrike Outschar, and the project on Seljuk and Ottoman ceramics
begun in 2013 was continued by Muradiye ztakn. Old pottery finds from the excavations
of Kenan Erim were sorted and removed from the upper floor of the Eski Ev depot, to allow
restoration of its roof (Fig. 36). The coins and small finds were conserved by Brian Castriota,
Val Munday, and Bermet Nishanova with Federica Divita.
Seminars. Research results of senior team members were presented and discussed at
weekly seminars, on the Sebasteion, sarcophagi, the Blue Horse, the Tetrapylon Street, the
Bouleuterion, the Archive Wall in the Theatre, the South Agora, and the Temple of Aphrodite
(Fig. 35).
STAFF 2014 (Fig. 37)
Archaeologists: Hazal Avc, Chelsea Blance, Paige Chandler, Dou Coar, James Coulton,
Peter de Staebler, Kenan Eren, Christopher Hallett, Hugh Jeffery, Rebecca Kasmin, Allison
Kidd, Julia Lenaghan, Andrew Leung, Durmu Okten, Ulrike Outschar, Esen , Muradiye
ztakn, Ursula Quatember, Christopher Ratt, Erica Rowan, Benjamin Russell, Roland Smith,
Alexander Sokolicek, Alexandra Sterman, Philip Stinson, Katherine Welch, Andrew Wilson.
Anastylosis architects: Thomas Kaefer, Gerhard Paul. Architects: Emily Davidson, Seth Dugger,
mer Kvan Baak, dil Malgil, Harry Mark, Allyson McDavid, Arzu ztrk, Lindsay Wong.
Conservators: Brian Castriota, Federica Divita, Valerie Munday, Bermet Nishanova.
Epigraphists: Angelos Chaniotis, Takashi Fujii. Marble conservators: Nicholas Barnfield, Mark
Lillwhite, Trevor Proudfoot, Joanna Skwiercz, James Wheeler. Minors & interns: Gordon Barad,
Niamh McDonnell, Giovanni Placidi, Victor Smith, Allegra Wilson, Claudia Wilson.
Numismatist: Ahmet Tolga Tek. Photographer: Ian Cartwright. Static engineer: Rudolph Spiel.
Surveyors: Alexey Gribovsky, Alexandre Habersaat, Christian Kurtze.
SPONSORS 2014
The Aphrodisias Excavations are sponsored by New York University and the Institute of Fine
Arts with invaluable support from foundations, private individuals, and the following groups of
friends of the project: the Geyre Vakf in Istanbul (President, mer M. Ko), the Friends of
Aphrodisias in New York (President, Nina Kprl); the Friends of Aphrodisias Trust in London
(President, Lady Patricia Daunt); and the Aphrodisias Sevenler Dernei in Izmir (President, Lise
Sur). The J.M. Kaplan Foundation and the World Monuments Fund Robert W. Wilson
Challenge to Conserve Our Heritage are major sponsors of the building restoration and
conservation work. The 1984 Foundation sponsors the student architects. The Kress Foundation
sponsors the archaeological conservators. The Levy Foundation and Oxford Universitys Craven
Fund sponsors the student archaeologists. And the following are sponsors of the major projects
in the South Agora and the Tetrapylon Street: Mica and Ahmet Ertegn, Baron Lorne von
Thyssen, the Headley Trust, the Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation, and the Gilbert and Ildiko
Butler Family Foundation. We are grateful to all these supporters for their outstanding
generosity.
R. R.R. Smith, 10 September 2014

APHRODISIAS 2014: ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 1: Aphrodisias. City centre, state plan, with areas of work in 2014.

Fig. 2: Plan of Hadrianic Baths, with findspots of inscriptions (A.McDavid 2014)

Figs. 3-4: Hadrianic Baths, Room 12: work on shattered marble floor of circular hot pool (2014).

Figs. 5-6: Hadrianic Baths, Room 5, conservation of collapsing marble floor and hypocaust (2014).

Fig. 7: Sebasteion Propylon, anastylosis, columns and architrave-friezes (2014).

Fig. 8: Sebasteion Propylon, securing foundation of northern aedicula (2014).

Figs. 9-11: Sebasteion Propylon, repairing columns and piers in conservation workshop (2014).

Fig. 12: South Agora and pool, Trench 14.1, from east (2014).

Fig. 13: Theatre hill, retaining wall, South Agora, and pool (2014).

Fig. 14: South Agora and pool, Trench 14.1, from northwest (2014).

Fig. 15: South Agora, Trench 14.2, between pool and north stoa, from west (2014).

Fig. 16: South Agora, Trenches 14.3 and 14.4, across north stoa and against stoa back wall (2014).

Figs. 17-18: South Agora, Trench 14.4, thrones buried below floor level
against stoa back wall, from west (2014).

Figs. 19-20: South Agora, late antique basin in front of Agora Gate, aerial view and state plan (2014)

Fig. 21: Tetrapylon Street, view of excavation in Trench 14.1, from south (2014).

Fig. 22: Tetrapylon Street, fragmentary glass late antique stem cup from Trench 14.1 (2014).

Fig. 23: Tetrapylon Street, byzantine lead seal with image of Christ, from Trench 14.1 (2014).

Fig. 24: Tetrapylon Street, masonry structure, with inscribed

base for Myon Eusebes, found in 2013, fitted into niche (2014).

Figs. 25-26: Tetrapylon Street, masonry structure with statue niche, before and after restoration (2014).

Fig. 27-29: Civil Basilica, composite pier capital from South Hall
with newly identified and restored bulls head from depot (2014).

Fig. 30: Composite base made of re-used elements for statue

of Eupeithios, fourth century AD, Hadrianic Baths (2014).

Figs. 31-32: LEFT, composite base for statue of Rhodopaios, sixth century AD, from Hadrianic Baths, and RIGHT
reconstruction drawing of statue of champion boxer Piseas, fourth century AD, from south analemma wall of Theatre (2014).

Fig. 33: Inscribed grave altar for Atalos (I-14-10), first-second century AD,
found in praefurnium of Hadrianic Baths (2014).

Fig. 34: Fragment of Diocletians Currency Edict (I-14-13).

of AD 301, found in west stoa of South Agora (2014).

Fig. 35: Seminar in South Agora, at Trench 14.3 (2014).

Fig. 36: Sorting of pottery finds of old excavations (1961-1990), from Old Village House depot (2014).

Fig. 37: Aphrodisias Team, 2014.