From Pirate Base to Roman City: The Excavations of Antiochia Ad Cragum in Rough Cilicia: An Interim Report

Synthetic study of the results of 15 years of survey and excavation at a major, but little known, provincial city of Roman Cicilia, Turkey.

This volume reports on nearly two decades of excavation at the site of Antiochia ad Cragum in western Rough Cilicia, part of the larger Roman province of Cilicia that corresponds to the eastern half of the south coast of modern Turkey. Antiochia was eponymously named by Antiochus IV of Commagene, who founded the city around the middle of the 1st century CE while a client king of Rome. The city flourished in the high Roman empire of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, after which it gradually diminished until sputtering to an end maybe in the 12th century.

No systematic excavation at the site occurred until the Antiochia ad Cragum Archaeological Research Project (ACARP) began work in 2005. Since then, excavation by a joint Turkish and American team has discovered a wide array of buildings, features, and small finds, all of which are reported on in the chapters that comprise this comprehensive interim report.

Project director Michael Hoff provides an introduction to the site, including an overview of its history. Several chapters on various structures follow. Two are devoted to the Northeast Temple. Other chapters cover the odeion/bouleuterion, great bath, small bath, latrine, colonnaded street, acropolis, peristyle, tri-conch church, and fountain. In separate chapters, D. Murphy discusses the city’s water supply and H. Öniz addresses the results of the underwater survey of the harbor. There follow chapters on various features and finds: mosaics, inscriptions, ceramics and ceramic production, human remains, agricultural production, and animal bones.

The contributions within this volume highlight the site’s history and its material remains, that together provide a snapshot of our current knowledge of this remarkable city, perched on the cliffs, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.