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Gerga in Caria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

G. E. Bean
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Extract

The interesting village-site of Gerga was first described by G. Cousin in BCH XXIV (1900), 28–31. He was followed in 1933 by A. Laumonier, who published two articles in BCH LVIII (1934), 304–7 and LX (1936), 286–97; cf. Les Cultes Indigènes en Carie 446–51. The ruins, now known as Gâvurdamları or Gâvurpazarı, lie in the wild mountain country some 6 km. east-south-east of Eski Çine, above the valley of the Marsyas river. The nearest city is Alabanda 12 or 13 km. to the northwest. Both of the French scholars approached the site in what was then the natural way, from the west and north; but the fine new tarmac road from Çine to Yatağan has now made the approach from the south much easier, and on 6th October, 1968, I visited Gerga from this direction, crossing the Marsyas near the fine old Turkish bridge at Incekemer. The site proves to be a good deal more extensive than had previously been realised. It extends over two hills, which I call the eastern and western, though north-eastern and south-western would perhaps be more accurate. The principal centre, with the very handsome “funerary temple”, the strange statue, the curious pyramidal stelae and other features, is on the south slope of the higher eastern hill, and neither Cousin nor Laumonier seems to have penetrated much, if at all, beyond this.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 19 , December 1969 , pp. 179 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1969

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References

1 The country is confused, and the two hills are not very sharply defined, nor are the ruins on the summit. It is not easy, among the rocks and hillsides, to pinpoint the position of any one monument.

2 There are undoubtedly more; one or two cases mentioned by the French scholars were not shown to me.

3 If it should be that we have a case of final nu dropped as in modern Greek, some other explanation of the word must presumably be found.

4 A drawing is given by Laumonier in BCH loc. cit., and repeated in Les Cultes Indigènes, Pl. VIII.

5 Les Cultes Indigènes, 449.

6 This spring was in October, when I was there, the only running water on the site; the flow was feeble in the extreme.

7 This particular building was not seen by Laumonier.

8 Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum III, 673Google Scholar.

9 Ibid. 674: “der Delphin versinnbildlicht das Element Wasser schlechthin”—though especially, of course, the sea.

10 The question of the concealed inscription remains. Laumonier considered the obvious explanation that the building had at some time needed repair and was strengthened with an outer facing of masonry, but it did not seem to him that this was the case. On this I can offer no opinion, as I did not see the building.