Location BIAA, 154 Atatürk Bulvarı, and online
Date and time
Tuesday 28 November 2023
16:00 - 17:30 (London GMT)
19:00 - 20:30 (Ankara UTC+3)
Speakers
Banu Özdilek
Hatay Mustafa Kemal University
The city of Issos-Epiphaneia is located in Cilicia Pedias, currently in the Erzin district, in the northernmost part of Hatay. The Issos Plain provides a convenient passage for both land and sea transportation between Anatolia and Syria-Mesopotamia. The region has been densely inhabited since Prehistoric times; it allows agriculture, maritime and trade activities. The region is referred to as Izziya in Bronze Age written sources, and it is known that Alexander the Great defeated the Persian King Darius III at Issos in 333 BC. Around the colonnaded street of the ancient city, there is a theatre, a bouleuterion–odeon, stoa porticos, a temple, a basilica-church, a prytaneion and the Western Bath; the Artemis Bath is located at the Eastern entrance of the city. The aqueducts are part of the system that carries water from the Amanos Mountains to the city. On the Burnaz coast, there is a port settlement associated with Issos. This talk will explain the architecture, artefacts, and mosaics from Issos–Epiphaneia, as well as the results of the recent multifaceted archaeological studies: Cultural Heritage Management, experimental archaeology, ethnoarchaeological research and conservation studies will be mentioned.
Banu Özdilek is an Associate Professor at Hatay Mustafa Kemal University, Department of Archaeology. She has been carrying out the excavations as the Scientific Advisor of Issos-Epiphaneia for two years. Her Master's was on the Neapolis Necropolis in Pisidia, and her PhD on the Theater of Rhodiapolis and Lykia Theatres, both obtained from Akdeniz University, Department of Archaeology where she also worked as an assistant. She conducted research at Michel Montaigne University in France as part of her doctorate. Since 2001, she has participated in excavations and surface surveys in the cities of the Lykia Region. She has a monograph titled “Rhodiapolis Theater” and many articles on the ancient architecture of the Lykia region and the Hellenistic-Roman Period ceramics of Andriake and the Letoon. She has edited a book and curated the permanent exhibition in the Archaeology Department of Hatay Mustafa Kemal University, both called “Hatay in the Journey of Archaeology”. Her research topics are ancient theatres, Hellenistic and Roman Period ceramics, cult and Roman mosaics.