Euromos

Just off the main road and found only by a small road sign, it’s very easy to miss Euromos. In fact I did exactly that and had to turn around and go back up the road. Only the Sat Nav, which on this occasion did its job correctly, saved me from missing the site altogether. With four sites to visit on my last full day in Turkey, the race was on to fit them all in. If I’d have gone several miles further down the road, I would have opted not to turn back. So, for the first time in my life I saw that satellite navigation can be quite useful on occasions. Still, I don’t own one and never will. If I do get lost, which happens very rarely, I usually turn to a classic printed road map. However, when one is racing around in a foreign country, desperate to fit in as many sites as possible in two weeks, not understanding the road system, driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, driving a car you’re not used to, and all the other unusual things involved in hiring a car abroad, then a Sat Nav is a very useful tool indeed. Or at least it is when it doesn’t send you off-track and over mountains in heavy snow and appalling road conditions, like the journey from Pamukkale to Aphrodisias.

Anyway, Euromos…
Due to the time constraints mentioned above I only visited the temple at Euromos which, according to most articles and reports, is the only thing worth visiting. That comment, however, is usually the kind of thing general tourists might mention in their travel blogs. If you are like me and get excited by what is really nothing more than a pile of rubble but was once a theatre, then you would also object enormously to such reporting. It is certainly rather off-putting to people when they might be considering visiting an ancient city. Oh, the stories stones tell…

Next to the temple at Euromos a man sits in a booth and charges a relatively extortionate rate to see the temple which is already right in front of you. No doubt they require private funding for the continuing archaeological work occurring there.

On the site of the temple there was once a Carian temple dating to the 5th Century BC, but the temple seen today is Roman and it dates to the 2nd Century AD. It was probably erected during the reign of Hadrian. There may have been a third temple in ancient times, and the site may date back to the 6th Century BC.

The most remarkable, notable, and obvious thing about the Euromos temple is that it was never finished. It is clear that these were hard economic times at Euromos as several of the columns have dedicatory plaques carved into them, containing the names of those who most likely funded an individual column, but it seems the money dried up; the local wealthy individuals could not afford to pay for two columns to get the job finished, and the temple was simply left with unfluted column drums.

The unfinished temple may have been a disaster for the locals during the second century, but for us today it is an insight into ancient construction methods. So what can it tell us?

For me the most striking thing is that it is clear the makers of these temples used scaffolding to erect them. It is also most likely that the scaffolding of two thousand years ago is almost identical to the scaffolding used today, although it was almost certainly made from wood and not metal. This deduction is clear from the unfluted columns. The Greeks erected their columns first and then fluted them in situ, and that means the masons doing the work had to be elevated to carry out the process. The Romans clearly copied this method. Fluting is the method of creating a corrugated decoration on a column drum from its basic rounded form, and this requires accurate carving of the drum to create the effect. Any major errors could be disastrous, so those employed to make temples were most likely the best stone masons available, and they were very expensive to hire.

It’s apparent the entire temple at Euromos was erected before any decorating work began, thus giving another insight into ancient methods. It’s still a mystery how these ancient buildings were exactly erected, but it’s clear scaffolding was the most likely method of raising the huge blocks, at least with the smaller temples. Several possibilities have been put forward, such as ramps or pulleys, but no one knows for sure, mainly because larger temples like Didyma and cities like Tiryns used blocks so huge that even ancient writers like Homer and Strabo had no idea how they were built, hence the ‘myth’ of the Cyclops and many other stories. A clue may lie in ancient India, though, as they employed elephants which pulled ropes to raise massive blocks, but elephants were never, and still aren’t, roaming around Anatolia.

The column capitals on the temple are of the Corinthian order. The capitals were obviously carved before they were placed on the top of the columns. So why were the columns themselves only fluted in situ? The columns were erected in three sections, or drums, one on top of the other. If the columns are fluted in situ then it guarantees they will all be aligned and there will be no discrepancies in the carving. Another reason is that fluting causes the edges to have a more delicate surface and thus they could easily be damaged when transported over distances or moved around on site, so it is better to flute them in situ. Another feature of Euromos is that some columns were only semi-fluted. Again this was caused by a cessation of the work. It almost seems like a sudden recession hit the area and work was ceased immediately, or perhaps there was some other issue – maybe Euromos was attacked and the masons fled, never to return. I’m not sure we’ll ever know the reasons.

The semi-fluted columns are unfortunately all lying on the ground. The collapsed columns are only in that position due to earthquakes toppling them over, otherwise the temple would still be in a ‘completed’ state. On the contrary, however, the toppled columns allow the visitor to examine them more closely. There are many examples in the photos below of the semi-fluted columns and the non-fluted columns.

Euromos became part of the Delian League in the 5th Century BC. During the Fifth Syrian War (202 – 195 BC) Euromos was a Macedonian garrison but it later sided with King Antiochos III, the enemy of the Macedonians. Later, in 188 BC, Euromos was controlled by Rhodes, and continued so until 167 BC when a revolt in local Mylasa caused a split from Rhodian rule and the Mylassians took control of Euromos’ territory. Euromos then allied itself with Rome, Rhodes and Iasos and flourished for several centuries.

It’s not certain what economic crises were occurring during the 2nd Century for the temple not to be completed. Certainly Rome was under immense expansion and at its powerful height, so the evidence at Euromos is all the more important and intriguing. Euromos truly is a remarkable site, if only for the unfinished temple of Zeus.

My visit to Euromos was at lunchtime on the 23rd March, 2015. After exhaustion got the better of us we stayed in Marmaris for two nights and a full day, and I never touched the camera once on the previous day. The rest was much needed, but it did mean that we had to visit four sites on the last day to finish the itinerary, hence why Euromos was a very brief visit of about an hour, and that was after a two-hour drive from Marmaris to reach the site. So, would we reach the last three sites by sundown with just an afternoon left?

 

Refrences:

http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/go/Aegean/euromos/

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Euromos&object=site

http://www.livius.org/articles/place/euromos/

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ancient-throne-discovered-in-excavations-at-euromos.aspx?pageID=238&nID=70989&NewsCatID=375

http://www.messagetoeagle.com/euromosanccityexcav.php#.VwEaaGf2ZMs

http://www.artofmaking.ac.uk/explore/monuments/328/

https://www.stephenmaybury.co.uk/travelogue/ephesus/

http://www.ancient.eu/Rhodes/