The Thracian harbour town of Ainos in Roman and Byzantine times
Development of a transport hub in a changing environment
View from the Byzantine castle of the silted-up shore zone and the Hebros estuary
© LEIZA / TH. Schmidts
The location of Ainos near the Turkish-Greek border
© Satellite image: Landsat 8, Graphics M. Seeliger
Map of the project area with calculated contour lines, surveyed drill points and geophysical prospection areas
© LEIZA / A. Cramer
View of the 3D point cloud of the Byzantine defence wall with its five towers, created with Structure from Motion technology
© LEIZA / A. Cramer
Excavation cut at the Byzantine fortification
© LEIZA / Th. SchmidtsIts favourable location allowed Ainos to develop into an important hub as early as the late seventh century BC. Already in archaic and classical times, numerous finds and the nationally important minting of coins bear witness to the city’s economic importance. In Late Antiquity, Ainos was the capital of the province of Rhodope and also the seat of a bishop. There is still considerable evidence of buildings, especially churches and fortifications, from the Middle and Late Byzantine periods.
Despite regular excavations by our cooperation partner from the University of Istanbul, the ancient geography of the settlement and the course and effects of the siltation process have remained unclear until now. These are now the main questions of the project.
Research objective
In Ainos, the environmental changes caused by the siltation process played a decisive role in the development of the port city. The central questions facing the research project are therefore:
- Localising and dating the harbour facilities, in particular clarification of the function of the fortifications below the Byzantine castle/acropolis as presumed harbour facilities.
- Determining of the spatio-temporal course of the silting-up process threatening the existence of the harbour city.
- Analysing of the changes in the topography of the settlement as a result of landscape change.
- Investigating of the connection of Ainos to the supra-regional transport network.
Methodology
The interdisciplinary project team covers the fields of archaeology, geoarchaeology, geophysics, geoinformatics and building research. The on-site investigations took place within the excavation campaigns conducted annually by a team from Istanbul University from 2012 to 2017, using the following methods:
Construction research: the lagoon-side fortifications were documented in detail and their construction phases determined.
Archaeology: based on the results of the geoscientific investigations and the construction research, small-format excavation sections were created in order to obtain dates or verify findings. In addition, classical and Byzantine marble architectural elements as well as fine ceramics from the late Hellenistic to the early Byzantine periods were documented.
Geophysics: large-scale geophysical investigations on land and in shallow water were carried out by cooperation partners. They were intended to provide information on previously unknown settlement structures.
Geoarchaeology: the reconstruction of the landscape development is based primarily on the extraction and evaluation of percussion core soundings, which were carried out by a cooperation partner. After analysis and dating, the sediments obtained in this way allow conclusions to be drawn about the environmental conditions at different periods of time.
Geoinformatics: in cooperation with the Mainz University of Applied Sciences, a geoinformation system (GIS) was set up, a terrain model was created and topographical data was visualised and analysed together with the specialised data obtained by the working groups.
- Copy link
- Print article
Contact
- PD Dr. Thomas Schmidts
- +49 6131 8885-322
- Kontakt
Team
- PD Dr. Thomas Schmidts
- Dr. Ronald Bockius
- Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Anja Cramer
- Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Guido Heinz
Project Period
- 11.2012 - 12.2018
Support
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)- Prof. Dr. Sait Başaran, İstanbul Üniversitesi, Edebiyat Fakültesi
- Prof. Dr. Helmut Brückner, Dipl. Geogr. Martin Seeliger, Universität zu Köln, Geographisches Institut
- Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Rabbel, Dr. Dennis Wilken, Dr. Tina Wunderlich, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Geowissenschaften, Abteilung Geophysik
- Prof. Dr. Hartmut Müller, Hochschule Mainz, Institut für Raumbezogene Informations- und Messtechnik - i3mainz
- Dr. Sirri Seren, Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG), Wien
- Th. Schmidts / S. Başaran / A. Bolten / H. Brückner / H. Bücherl / A. Cramer / A. Dan / M. Dennert / E. Erkul / G. Heinz / M. Koçak / A. Pint / M. Seeliger / I. Triantafillidis / D. Wilken / T. Wunderlich, Die thrakische Hafenstadt Ainos. Ergebnisse eines interdisziplinären Forschungsprojektes. Archäologischer Anzeiger 2020/2, § 1–133.
(https://doi.org/10.34780/aa.v0i2.1029) - M. Seeliger/A. Pint/P. Frenzel/P. K. Weisenseel/E. Erkul/D. Wilken/T. Wunderlich/S. Başaran/H. Bücherl/M. Herbrecht/W. Rabbel/Th. Schmidts/N. Szemkus/H. Brückner, Using a Multi-Proxy Approach to Detect and Date a Buried part of the Hellenistic City Wall of Ainos (NW Turkey). Geosciences 2018, 8(10), 357; doi:10.3390/geosciences8100357
- H. Brückner / Th. Schmidts / H. Bücherl / A. Pint / M. Seeliger, Zur Frage der Häfen von Ainos – eine Zwischenbilanz. In: Th. Schmidts / M. M. Vučetić (Hrsg.), Häfen im 1. Millennium AD: bauliche Konzepte, herrschaftliche und religiöse Einflüsse. Interdisziplinäre Forschungen zu Häfen von der Römischen Kaiserzeit bis zum Mittelalter 1. RGZM Tagungen 22 (Mainz 2015) 53-76.
- A. Lätzer-Lasar, Das römische Handelsnetz von Ainos: Ausgewählte Keramik vom Späthellenismus bis zur Spätantike. Rei Cretariae Romanae Favtorum Acta 44, 2016, 707-714.
The final evaluation work is underway. The first results have already been published. New findings have been obtained regarding the development of the city and the localisation of possible harbour sites. For the first time, the existence of an ancient city wall could be proved by geophysical means. In addition, it became clear that the Roman Imperial period in Ainos was not, as it was long assumed, an era of decline.