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Archaeology

Augusta in Cilicia – Rise up from the Floods

A positive effect of the negative climate change

by Andrea Schütze     |     Munich 09/12/2021

When in 1955 the Seyhan dam in Southern Turkey had been flooded – Augusta Augustopolis, founded by the Roman emperor Tiberius, had also been submerged in the water.

From then on Augusta had disappeared for centuries and millenia. Researchers of the 18th and 19th centuries had looked for it in vain.

The discovery of Augusta is related to the construction of the dam: Augusta was discovered in the 1950s by a civil engineer from the USA, who was working on this dam project.

He had informed British archaeologists, who had excavated nearby. In 1956 Michael Gough published his essay  on this subject “Augusta Ciliciae ” .

As a result, there followed a ten-day emergency excavation led by Mahmut Akok, that uncovered parts of the city and the theater above.

After this the knowledge had to give way to the progress and Augusta sank back under the floods of the Seyhan reservoir.

Meanwhile the water-level is falling due to the climate change and caused lack of water. At least during the low-water-period in autumn Augusta rises again from the floods – more precisely parts of the higher-positioned theatre and some of its rows of seats.

For further reading look at the article by Hürriyet Daily News …

Ancient city comes to light as water recedes

With the receding of water in the Seyhan Dam Lake in the southern province of Adana, some part of the ancient city of Augusta has come to light.

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