Explore Ancient Anatolia

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.

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.

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.

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... The figure personifies a Balkan warrior tribe, defeated by Tiberius in AD 6-8, before he became emperor. She wears classical dress, cloak, and helmet, and carries a small shield and probably once a spear. A builder's inscription, Pirouston, written above and to right of shield, ensured the relief was put on the correct base, inscribed ETHNOUS PIROUSTON. - Museum of Aphrodisias, Turkey.

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... The diademed youth stands with his horse and two hunting dogs. At the left, an oval (foreign) shield hangs from a leafless tree, against which leans a long thin club. The royal hero is probably a local founder - such as the Assyrian king Ninos, claimed as founder of their city by the Aphrodisians. - Museum of Aphrodisias.

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... A draped goddess is crowned by a female warrior figure. The goddess is probably Aphrodite, while the warrior has the bare-breasted Amazonian dress and equipment, spear, sword-strap, shield, worn by Roma or Andreia (Bravery). - Museum of Aphrodisias.

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... The emperor is a naked warrior and is crowned by a personification of the Roman People wearing a toga, the stately civilian dress of Roman citizens. The crown is an oak wreath, the corona civica or civic crown awarded for saving citizens' lives. The emperor is setting up a battlefield trophy beneath which kneels an anguished barbarian woman captive. - Museum of Aphrodisias.

Relief at Sebasteion: Ancient Aphrodisias School of Sculpture ... Nero, wearing only aloak and sword-strap, supports a slumped naked Armenia by her upper arms. She wears a soft eastern hat, and her bow and quiver are at left. The heroic composition likens them to Achilles and the Amazon queen Penthesilea . The inscription reads: Armenia - [Neron] Klaudios Drousos Kaisar Sebastos Germanikos. - Museum of Aphrodisias, Turkey.