 The Greco-Roman theatre in Oenoanda | |
  Shown within Turkey | |
| Alternative name | Oinoanda |
|---|---|
| Location | İncealiler, Muğla Province, Turkey |
| Region | Lycia |
| Type | Settlement |
| History | |
| Associated with | Diogenes |
Oenoanda or Oinoanda (Hittite: 𒃾𒅀𒉌𒌓𒉿𒀭𒁕 Wiyanawanda, Greek: τὰ Οἰνόανδα) was a Lycian city, in the upper valley of the River Xanthus. It is noted for the philosophical inscription by the Epicurean, Diogenes of Oenoanda.
The ruins of the city lie on a high isolated site west of the modern village İncealiler in the Fethiye district of Muğla Province, Turkey, which partly overlies the ancient site.
The place name suggests that it was known for viticulture.[1]
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A Gigantic Jigsaw Puzzle: The Epicurean Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda / Devasa Yapboz: Oino...
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Death is Nothing to Us: The Epicureans on Death
Transcription
This place is precious for us. The ancient city of Oinoanda has been protected by my family since 1973. When I showed the fragments of the inscription I found to Martin Ferguson Smith he used to give me a candy out of his pocket. He’d be happy. He is a person who devoted himself to this place. I eat the candy that Smith has given me. And I tie its wrapper to this tree. Oinoanda is a very high place. We are at about 1400 meters of height. Oinoanda is located on the northern edge of the Lycia region. The Oinoanda site differs from other archaeological sites in terms of these inscriptions. We know this inscription of Diogenes. It is something very interesting because it’s presumably the largest inscription of the ancient world. We estimate its height to be about 3 meters and 60 centimeters. I had met a Diogenes before, the one who bluntly said “Stand out of my sunlight, that’s the only favor I ask.” to Alexander the Great. I met another Diogenes in Oinoanda who poured his mind on a great big wall. I loved both those Diogeneses. This is a juniper tree. There are many of them in the ancient city, but none on the slopes of the hill. There are mostly kermes oaks on the slopes. The mistle thrush eats the seeds of the juniper and leaves its droppings on the ground. In the spring, when the soil starts to warm up the seeds grow into saplings on the surface. So, the mistle thrush cannot do without the juniper tree and the juniper cannot do without the bird. Oinoanda means setting out on the traces of a 2300-year-old past and making guesses on their lives, crossing over mountains and hills, breaking out in cold sweat in the shadow and getting scorched in the sun, staring at texts that we cannot make out and still understanding nothing, wondering about Diogenes and Epicurus, and walking among juniper trees. We like Martin Smith. He has been coming here for a long time, since my children were so little. He goes up to the hill when he comes. He comes early in the morning and leaves his sticks to me. He says thank you, that he enjoyed it. He brought me coasters, and a waist cloth for the front, sort of... We get happy when he comes. Even if you carve the truth on a gigantic rock mass in the end, there will be no one to understand it. It will eventually merge into the soil and keep waiting to be understood. As human beings occupy themselves with empty beliefs instead of searching for the truth, we should take it our destiny to ask curious and wailing questions wondering “what the truth was before it turned into ruins.” katýlýrdým. It’s a tradition in Anatolia to tie things on trees to make wishes come true. However, this is not a wish tree, because according to the Epicureans supernatural powers do not deal with daily life. But our wishes and desires are important from another standpoint. Here’s what Epicurus says: “Of desires some are natural others vain. The right understanding of these facts enables us to refer all choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the soul’s freedom from disturbance, since this is the aim of the life of blessedness.” An excavation house or a safe place to keep these finds was needed here. We discussed this with the current surface survey team. What we call the“excavation depot”, the metal storeroom was built with very good standards and conditions. It also serves as a shelter for our staff in charge under bad weather conditions. I want to shed a little more light on the relationship between architecture and the inscription. It’s not very easy to make an excavation there in terms of economy and transportation, due to its natural structure. But if an excavation is made… I believe that all the elements related to the city’s past are still there. An extensive excavation totally changes such a site. For example, all old trees should be cut down, and this untouched natural place would change a lot. Therefore, I have doubts. Maybe, small drills could give adequate results. We can say that for epigraphists it is a real Eldorado here, a very rich place. We have this Diogenes Inscription, we have also the Demostheneia Inscription and the third important inscription is the inscription of Licinnia Flavilla written on a mausoleum. Oinoanda gave me the chance to realize a nice building and gives me hope to find some persepectives for the future. “Mr. Martin, I found new pieces!” I see this red folder including the pieces of paper on the tree as a jigsaw puzzle. And I feel myself as a mistle thrush bird to transmit the codes on the juniper tree.
History
The early history of the settlement is obscure, in spite of an exploratory survey carried out, with permission of the Turkish authorities, by the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA) in 1974–76.[2]
The city was known as Wiyanawanda by the Hittites.[3] It means "rich in vines/wine" or semantically "land of the wine".[4] During the Bronze Age it was a part of the Lukka lands which corresponds to Lycia from classical antiquity.
It seems that Oenoanda became a colony of Termessos about 200-190 BC and was also called Termessos Minor[5] (or Termessos i pros Oinoanda). Oenoanda was the most southerly of the Kibyran Tetrapolis, formed in the 2nd c. BC (Hellenistic Period), with Bubon, Balbura, and Kibyra which was dissolved by L. Licinius Murena in 84 BC, whereupon Oenoanda became part of the Lycian League,[6] as its inscriptions abundantly demonstrate.
Diogenes, a rich and influential citizen of Oenoanda, had a summary of the philosophy of Epicurus carved onto a portico wall of the stoa showing the inhabitants the road to happiness. The inscription is one of the most important sources for the philosophical school of Epicurus and sets out his teachings on physics, epistemology, and ethics. It was originally about 25,000 words and 80 m long and filled 260 m2 of wall space. The inscription has been assigned on epigraphic grounds to the Hadrianic period, 117–138.[7] The stoa was dismantled in the second half of the third century to extend the defensive wall.[8]
It was occupied into the Byzantine period when a fortress and churches were built.
Oenoanda is a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church.[9]
The Site
The site was first noted by Richard Hoskyn and Edward Forbes, in 1841, and published in 1842.[10] The extensive philosophical inscriptions of Diogenes of Oenoanda were identified later from scattered fragments, apparently from the stoa.[11]
The city walls are well preserved and stand to 10m in places. The Hellenistic city wall is over 65m long and is a superb example of polygonal masonry with small stones on the interior faces while large ashlars were used for the imposing exterior faces.[12]
Part of an aqueduct can be seen in terms of stone pipe sections from a siphon.
Evidence for an ancient Roman Bridge at Oinoanda surfaced in the 1990s.[13]
Official excavations at the site started only in 1997.[14] New archaeological work was started in 2009 by the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut.[15]
By 2012 over 300 fragments of Diogenes' stoa had been identified, varying in size from a few letters to passages of several sentences covering more than one block.[16]
Remains of a screw wine press were also discovered in a house which could prove that the activity suggested in the place name continued to be practised into the late history of the city.
Notable people
- Lucius Septimius Flavianus Flavillianus (3rd century AD), Roman army member
References
- ^ "The Oinoanda campaign of 2012 Archived 2013-07-01 at the Wayback Machine", German Archaeological Institute (DAI) website (accessed 27 June 2014)
- ^ Alan Hall, "The Oenoanda Survey: 1974-76", Anatolian Studies 26 (1976:191-197).
- ^ Özdemir, Bilsen Şerife (2016). Tlos Tanrıları ve Kültleri (PhD) (in Turkish). Akdeniz Üniversitesi. p. 13.
- ^ Gander, Max (2014). "Tlos, Oinoanda and the Hittite Invasion of the Lukka lands. Some Thoughts on the History of North-Western Lycia in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages". Klio. 96 (2): 378. doi:10.1515/klio-2014-0039. S2CID 162386681.
- ^ Rousset D., De Lycie en Cabalide, fouilles de Xanthos X, Droz, Genève 2010
- ^ Strabo, xiii.4.17.
- ^ Smith, Martin Ferguson (1996), The philosophical inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, pp. 43–8, ISBN 3-7001-2596-8
- ^ Hall 1976:196.
- ^ Catholic Hierarchy
- ^ Hoskyn, Rd. (1842). "Narrative of a Survey of Part of the South Coast of Asia Minor; And of a Tour into the Interior of Lycia in 1840-1; Accompunied by a Map". Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London. 12: 143–161. doi:10.2307/1797993. ISSN 0266-6235. JSTOR 1797993.
- ^ C.W. Chilton, Diogenes of Oenoanda: The Fragments (1971); Hall 1976:196 note 23.
- ^ "Oinoanda". Archived from the original on 2009-02-21. Retrieved 2009-06-29.
- ^ N. P. Milner: "A Roman Bridge at Oinoanda", Anatolian Studies, 48 (1998), pp.117–123
- ^ Excavations at Oinoanda 1997: The New Epicurean Texts, Martin Ferguson Smith, Anatolian Studies, Vol. 48 (1998), pp. 125-170, British Institute at Ankara, Cambridge University Press
- ^ "Oinoanda". Archived from the original on 2009-02-21. Retrieved 2009-06-29.
- ^ "The Oinoanda campaign of 2012 Archived 2013-07-01 at the Wayback Machine", German Archaeological Institute (DAI) website (accessed 27 June 2014)
External links
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36°48′33″N 29°32′59″E / 36.80917°N 29.54972°E
This page was last edited on 14 March 2024, at 21:12