Zeugma

In the Region of South East Anatolia which is know as the upper Mesopotamia the place which is known as “Belkis Ruins” which is located at 10 km to north of Nizip Township affiliated to Gaziantep province is called ZEUGMA.

In B.C. 300 years SELEVKOZ had been established as two small city at two banks of the most beautiful place of the Euphrates by NIKATOR-I. He had given his name SELEUKEIA to West side of the river and his wife’s name the queen APA as APAMIA to East side of the river.

A bridge which connects the said two small cities had been built. The bridge had been named as ZEUGMA which meant the head of bridge. A second feature of this bridge was that since the Silk Road leading from ANTAKYA to CHINA passed through these cities they began  to  be  beautiful  and  to  develop.  With  the Kingdom of KOMAGENE’s getting powerful in B.C. ZEUGMA had been annexed to territories of the ROMAN EMPIRE. ZEUGMA had lived its golden era in 1st and 2nd Centuries.

In B.C. 252 ZEUGMA had been attacked by SASSANIDS and the city was destroyed and burned and suffered great damage. It had been conquered in 5th Century and raided by Arabians in 7th Century.

The first scientific excavation at ZEUGMA has been commenced at the Metropol at east south of Belkis Hill in 1987 by the Department of Gaziantep Museum and this excavation has been continued until 1997. Special housing areas and a lot of villas have been found at the excavation area. At the base sections of these villa remnants some events of the time were depicted in the form of mosaic figures. At the same excavation area great number of statues like MARS statue have been found and Around 85 thousand pieces of seal print belonging to bronze age and bronze coins, candlesticks and  oil  lamps have been  found.   These valuable historical work pieces have been exhibited at Gaziantep Museum.

While the remaining historical work pieces which could not be obtained however were just about to disappear
under water of Birecik Dam included in GAP Project , multinational O.A.U. Team caused to be started excavation works to rescue ZEUGMA in June 2000 by national and international Archaeologists. The USA based PACKARD HUMANITIES INSTITUTE PHI PACKARD has undertaken to assume financial burden of the HUMANITY SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTEARCHAEOLOGY EXCAVATION          RESCUE MOVEMENT and have worked together with GAP-BKI and MINISTRY OF CULTURE for completion of the project. Six delegations from Turkish Universities, Ankara-Istanbul-Mersin-Selguk-Cukurova and  Yildir Universities,   involved   in   Zeugma   rescue   Team consisting   of   around    one    hundred   of   expert Archaeologists from U.K., France and Italy and 250 workers. 250   workers   coming   from   11   countries   helped Archaeologists in digging out thousands of findings.

We Recommend:

Zeugma Museum Hattusas and Yazilikaya Hasankeyf Demre

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