Explore Ancient Anatolia

Juliopolis was a titular see in the province of Bithynia Secunda, suffragan of Nicaea. The city was founded under the Emperor Augustus by a robber chieftain named Cleon, who was a native of the region; previously it had been called Gordoucome. Its ruins are about six miles SSE of Çayırhan, and about three miles north of the Sangarius River (Sakarya) near Ankara. According to ancient authors (Herodotus, Xenophon, Strabo, etc.), the Bithynians were an immigrant Thracian tribe. The existence of a tribe called Thyni in Thrace is well established, and the two cognate tribes of the Thyni and Bithyni appear to have settled simultaneously in the adjoining parts of Asia, where they expelled or subdued the Mysians, Caucones and other minor tribes, the Mariandyni maintaining themselves in the northeast. Herodotus mentions that the tribe Thyni and Bithyni as existing side by side; but ultimately the latter must have become the more important, as they gave their name to the country. They were inc...

Sacred Tree of Life at late Hittite fortress and open air museum in Osmaniye Province in southern Turkey. The concept of a tree of life has been used in science, religion, philosophy, and mythology. A tree of life is a common motif in various world theologies, mythologies, and philosophies. It alludes to the interconnection of all life on our planet and serves as a metaphor for common descent in the evolutionary sense. The term tree of life may also be used as a synonym for sacred tree.

Hunting Scene Detail of Alexander Sarcophagus at Istanbul showing Alexander and the Macedonians on horses hunting lions together with Abdalonymus and the Persians.

Portrait relief at ancient city Aphrodisias, Sebasteion School of Sculpture . More...

In the Burdur Museum

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and sexuality. Her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus. Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte (Ishtar) in Phoenicia. This Aphrodite figurine of 3rd century B.C., a burial gift found in the necropolis of Dardania on Mount Ida. It has the symbol of Asklepios, the god of medicine and healing in ancient Greek religion, snakes entwined around her left arm and left leg, symbolizing life and death.

Hittite relief showing a figure holding an animal follows another figure that a bard plays a guitar-like instrument with a tassle. The left part is unfinished. This is the earliest relief of guitar, andesit orthostat of imperial Hittite period, ca. 1430–1180 BC, found at Alaca, Çorum. Exhibited in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations at Ankara. Alacahöyük was inhabited since the Chalcolithic Age. Excavations show there were four layers of cultures of Chalcolithic, Old Bronze, Hittite and Phrygian ages. More on Hittites ... More on ancient music and cithara.

  Figurines of ancient musicians, Assos of Troas, 4th century B.C. Behramkale, Turkey. These figurines were burial gifts found in the sarcophagi excavated in Assos cemetery dating to the Classical Period. They can be related to the cult of Dionysus. Several of these figurines are depicted as playing musical instruments such as flute, lyre, kithara and drum, while some are depicted as singing and dancing. Canakkale Museum of Archaeology, Turkey.

Faces of head sculptures on a marble Roman tomb of ancient Dardanelles at Canakkale Museum of Archaeology, Turkey.

Lion hunting scene, sculpture on the Sarcophagus of Antakya, sidemara tomb in Archaeological Museum of Antakya, ancient Antioch, Turkey.

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... Achilles supporting the slumping figure of the Amazon queen Penthesilea whom he has mortally wounded. Her double headed axe slips from her hand. The queen had come to fight in the Trojan War against the invading Greeks. Between her being wounded and dying in his arms, the time presented here, Achilles fell in love with her. - Museum of Aphrodisias. Amazons: Ancient Myth or Reality? The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Classical antiquity and Greek mythology. Were they just a romantic ancient myth or reality?

Ancient Roman doors to afterlife at Kütahya Museum of Archaeology, Turkey.

Phrygian votive Stelae at Kütahya Museum of Archaeology, from the village of Kurudere, near Afyon, Emirdag; and village of Pinarcik (Abia) in Kütahya, Altintas.

Statue of flute playing satyr with a panther skin tied around his body, found situated before a column in the northeast hall of Macellum building at Aizanoi, currently on display in the Archaeological Museum of Kütahya, Turkey. In Greek mythology, satyrs are a troop of male companions of Pan and Dionysus that roamed the woods and mountains. In myths they are often associated with pipe-playing.

Iolis: Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... ΙΟΛΙΣ - Museum of Aphrodisias, Turkey.

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... A heavily wrapped baby Dionysos is handed from one nymph to another for suckling. A bearded Silenos gestures excitedly with his arms and taps his foot as though singing or about to dance. The scene is set at nearby Nysa in the Meander valley, where Zeus had his gifted child Dionysos, born to him by Semele, brought up in the wilds out of view of his wife Hera. - Museum of Aphrodisias, Turkey.

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... A prancing woodland nymph leads drunken Dionysos who supports himself languidly on a small satyr. This is an image of Dionysian enjoyment and pleasure, hellenistic in style and fluently designed. - Museum of Aphrodisias, Turkey.

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... Charites, the Three Graces stand in their familiar hellenistic composition. They were handmaids of Aphrodite and appeared in this form on the decoration of her cult statue at Aphrodisias. Their names evoked their character: Euphrosyne (Joy), Aglaia (Splendour), and Thaleia (Bloom). - Museum of Aphrodisias, Turkey. More about Charites, the Three Graces...

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... Heracles is preparing to wrestle the Libyan giant Antaios. Herakles (left) is taking off his bow-case to hang it on a rustic pillar-statue. Antaios (right) is binding up his head with ear-protectors; next to him stands an oil basin as used in the wresting ground, palaistra. Antaios was a famous wrestler and challenged and killed all visitors to his country, until defeated by Herakles. - Museum of Aphrodisias, Turkey.

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... The Trojan shepherd Anchises gazes at the seated Aphrodite, his lover for one night on Mount Ida. She holds a small Eros on her lap: this is an erotic encounter. The head of Selene (Moon) appears above the mountain rocks: she indicates night-time. It was from this union that Aineas, featured in the next panel , was born. - Museum of Aphrodisias.