Allianoi. A submerged ancient Roman city in western Turkey

By Ulaş Can Çakan

What is this story about?

Allianoi was an important ancient Roman city in western Turkey fully submerged by the Yortanlı Dam from 2010. The rescue archaeological excavations conducted between 1998 and 2005, provided significant discoveries, revealing extended well-preserved bath complexes. These important findings led local NGOs together with international organizations to ask for the protection of the site. However, the local authorities final decision eventually brought to its complete loss in February 2011. 

Bits of history

Location of Allianoi in Turkey

People lived in Allianoi for more than 5.000 years. The earliest settlers occupied the western part of the city as early as the Bronze Age. Over the centuries the small settlement became a major centre of western Anatolia reaching its maximum extension and splendour under the Roman empire. It was in fact from the 2^nd century AD that emperor Hadrian promoted large public works in the city and the region which would have significantly transformed the city.

Thanks to the presence of hot water springs and the nearby healing temple dedicated to the god Asclepius, thermal complexes, temples, a nympheum and other monumental buildings flourished throughout the city. The architectural beauty of Allianoi and its relevance as a healing place were exalted by numerous famous persons of that time including Galen of Pergamon (129-210 AD) and the orator Aelius Aristeides (117-180 AD). People kept on visiting the city to benefit from its healing virtues for several centuries and still during the Byzantine time (5th century AD) most of the thermal complex remained in use.

As mentioned by the ancient authors, its 45-47°C healing waters and baths and its thermal structure had been used in psychotherapeutic and hydrotherapeutic treatments.  

An ancient Roman building discovered
during the excavations at Allianoi.

After having been abandoned for almost 1000 years, Allianoi was newly occupied, on a smaller scale, during the Ottoman period. Despite the long abandonment, the area remained well known for the presence of hot water spring and their healing effects. For this reason, Ottoman people rename the place Paşa Ilıcası (The thermal baths of the Pasha). Given the cultural and medical importance of the site, at the beginning of the 20th century, local authorities promoted a renovation of the thermal complex back and part of the big pool was refurbished. 

The Yortanlı Dam project and the rush to rescue Allianoi

The history of the loss of Allianoi starts in 1970 when the Bakırçay Left Coastline Irrigation Project, including the construction of the Yortanlı Dam, was prepared. In 1985, Yortanlı Dam planning report was completed and it was tendered for construction on 16 September 1993. To save the heritage threatened by the dam, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the General Directorate for State Hydraulic Works (DSI) signed a “Protocol on the Salvage of Artifacts in the Yortanlı Dam Area in İzmir-Bergama”. As a result, from 1994 a team from the Bergama Museum financially supported by the DSI, started excavation works in the dam embankment. 

In the same period, in the rush for saving Allianoi the Governorate of İzmir Special Provincial Administration and the Regional Directorate of Highways restored some parts of the Paşa Ilıcası and the Roman bridge. However, most of these activities were carried out using heavy construction equipment and engineering vehicles which severely damaged numerous structures. Moreover, it was reported that ancient artefacts recovered were not properly documented, and many were ravaged in the process of levelling and probing. Yet, renovation activities did not respect in most cases the original plan and decoration of the buildings.

A nymph statue from Allianoi,
which became a symbol of the protests
against the flooding of the site.

As the archaeological discoveries increased, the relevance of the ancient Roman city became grew. This outstanding value led, on 29 March 2001, the Council of Cultural and Natural Heritage of İzmir to declare Allianoi, “as a Grade 1 Archaeological Site” also asking to “remove the ancient settlement outside of the lake area, to be protected from the floods of the dam are to carry out scientific and technical surveys”. However, after this important decision, both the DSI and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism started to pressure the Council to cover the site with silty sand and begin the filling of the dam. The Council then formed a High Committee of Protection to survey the area, prepare a report, and decide what action to take. According to the committee, Allianoi had to be protected indisputably, and this protection was a “national and an international responsibility”.

Despite the huge effort of the archaeologists and the Council support, in 2005, the funding from the DSI stopped and in 2007, the excavation permit was not granted for the team. The excavation stopped. With a decision dated 25 September 2009 the Council of Cultural and Natural Heritage of İzmir decided that the site was to be covered with brickdust mortar, hoping it would retain water and prevent any damage during the dam lifetime. After a long dispute, the flooding of Allianoi started on 31 December 2010.  

National and International reactions

As the funding for the project stopped, and decisions and debates were changing hands between the İzmir Council, Museum of Bergama, State Hydraulic Works, and Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) sent a letter to the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to halt the project and seek another, a better solution in a letter dated 2 September 2005:

ICOMOS… advises UNESCO regarding the World Cultural Heritage and publishes a World Report on Heritage at Risk every year… Whilst in our report 2001/2002 we already protested against a dam project destroying the archaeological site of Zeugma with its famous mosaics, I am sending you an urgent request today on behalf of ICOMOS to prevent the destruction of the archaeological site of Allianoi in the vicinity of Bergama (Pergamon) by another fill dam project. Allianoi is a unique Roman archaeological site with thermal baths.... According to a recent documentary on the television channel 3 SAT („Kulturreport“ of 19 August 2005) construction work on this dam is soon to begin, while our archaeological colleagues are still busy making emergency excavations. A comparatively minor modification of these ruthless plans, i.e. erecting the dam wall at a different position, could prevent one more devastating loss of archaeological heritage in Turkey.

And another, “Joint International Appeal to the Turkish Government” dated 20 March 2007, was made with no success:

We deplore the fact that in November 2006, the Regional Commission for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage in Izmir accepted the proposal made by the Turkish State Water Works to halt further excavations at the site and to proceed with the flooding of the area. In deciding so, the above regional body did not give due consideration to the recommendations made by the Special Scientific Committee, set up last year by the Turkish Minister of Culture. These recommendations included a series of alternative conservation measures which could be undertaken before the possible flooding of the area, such as the protection of the site by the construction of an earth wall or by the relocation of some of the most important structures of this archaeological site...

However, there was no more time. A similar proposal had already been made by the High Committee for Protection in 2002, but the State Hydraulic Works dismissed the option as it was “too costly both for technical and financial reasons” (TBMM, 19 September 2005, 267).  

Also, with the participation from different NGOs and the Allianoi Initiative, many protests have been made in order to stop the filling of the dam (Europa Nostra, 20 Mart 2012). The most interesting event in the reactions for the dam came from a “polemic” between the famous Turkish pop singer Tarkan, who had visited the site and shared the pictures of Allianoi in his Facebook page in 2010, “Do not let Allianoi remain in these pictures, do not let it disappear!” and the Minister of Environment and Forestry from AKP (the ruling party), Veysel Eroğlu, who reacted to Tarkan as:

The artist should mind his art, everybody has a profession. It is wrong to snoop your nose into matters that one does not know… That place is not Allianoi. A place called Allianoi is made up by that person (Dr. Ahmet Yaraş). I proved it. They manipulated TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Association), they further (even) prepared a documentary about it. I looked it up myself. There is a Paşa Ilıcası over there, a thermal spring. Only one artefact known as the Nymph and one pillar was discovered. Because of a group of ignorant, malevolent people, we could not water the area down, and the farmers became victimized. We cannot tolerate it any longer… Tarkan better deals with songs. I am sending my kindest regards to Tarkan. But we would appreciate it if he were informed by us first. He should stop firing blanks.

Dr. Ahmet Yaraş also reacted harshly to the minister’s statements:

I do not know where to start to engage and to reply to these statements. He is not an archaeologist. These statements are products of a fool’s errand. Allianoi is the most preserved warm spring in the World. 11 thousand coins, around 400 metal, 400 bone, 800 ceramic, and 400 glass artefacts have been found on the site. He can go and see the Museum of Bergama what we have discovered. We have the sculptures of the Healing-God Asclepios, with more than 400 medicinal and surgical pieces, it is one of the most significant if not the best archaeological centre of surgical tools in the World. It is a centre of medicine. This alone is enough for its protection. If they still say, “there is nothing on this site”, I assume it is because of ignorance.  

There are two records of mention for Allianoi in the Turkish Parliament. The first is Kemal Anadol’s, the Republican People’s Party ([CHP] main opposition party) group deputy chairman, press statement issued from the Assembly dating September 7, 2005. In this statement Anadol makes a plea to the government:

This issue should be resolved without turning into an international problem. Committees are seen to have come from Europe to examine the historical place... The government is going to do it submitting to foreign pressures. This will stain Turkey’s honour. Without giving in to those types of pressures, we urge the government to take necessary precautionary measures to protect the Archaeological Site of Allianoi before it is drowned beneath the dam (TBMM, 07 September 2005). 

When we search if any debate was aroused on the topic in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, we encounter only one minute of proceedings dating to 19 September 2005. In the report, the parliamentary question which had been delivered to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism by the CHP İzmir Member of the Parliament Hakkı Ülkü was documented with answers. According to this, Hakkı Ülkü asked whether the Ministry had been working towards protecting the site and if the protective measures had been properly applied for Allianoi. Then, the Ministry lays out all the history of the decisions regarding the site year by year, explaining, regarding 2005, DSİ had already planned to fill the dam in the same year. The Ministry, interestingly, explains further in the report that the excavation permit was to be issued to the archaeological team, and excavations were supposed to start again on 17 June 2005, confirming the case orally from the Directorate of Bergama Museum. Despite this official claim, the next year the DSİ stopped the salvage programme funding and started the filling process of the reservoir.

Remains of buildings excavated before
the opening of the Yortanlı Dam

It can be seen, that the reactions fell on a stony ground in Allianoi, with nobody to pick them up and thus, nobody being able to change the mind of the officials of the political party in the government. From 2005, we see court verdicts and pleas keeping the site away from being submerged, but since with the refusal for granting an excavation licence by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, we see top executives siding against the protection of the site completely, and the ancient site falling prey to political decisions.

 

What is remained and what is gone

Allianoi was one of the most important health centres of the ancient world, that managed to endure and bring the past to the present. In the struggle to protect it, originally top-down state authorities such as DSI, and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism are seen to have been working in collaboration, informing the regional directorates, and engaging the local mechanisms of carrying out conservation procedures. However, starting from 2002, we observe a gradual national change, with the country socio-political character, and institutes shifting their perspectives and approaches. In this respect, court verdicts and decisions, and international calls, not surprisingly, could not avail to save the ancient city. Until the time the dam completes its lifetime in the following five or six decades, as envisaged, the Allianoi will be further covered under 12-17 meters of alluvial deposits. In which time, it is uncertain how much protection the silty sand will provide, and the scientific community is unsure and unhopeful whether Allianoi can be seen again.