U.S. archeologists find ruins of four ancient castles in Turkey

The group including 16 students from the universities of Boston, Pennsylvania and Brown led by Assistant Professor of Archaeology Christopher H. Roosevelt has been searching for ancient ruins in Golmarmara town of the western province of Manisa upon permission of the Turkish Ministry of Culture & Tourism.

In an interview with the A.A on Monday, Roosevelt said that he had directed an archaeological project across central Lydian landscapes for the past five years.

"Our findings indicate that the castle could belong to the Arzawan kingdoms of Seha River Land. We believe that the castles constituted a settlement network. One of them could be the biggest castle built in western Anatolia during the period. The castle is four times bigger than the Troy castle. We may have discovered the capital of the Seha River Land," he said.

Roosevelt said that they were planning to apply to the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism to get permission for archaeological excavations at the site.

As a specialist in the archaeology of western Anatolia (Turkey), specifically that of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, Roosevelt has directed the Central Lydia Archaeological Survey (CLAS), a project that investigates cultural and environmental dynamics across central Lydian landscapes since 2005. He published "The Archaeology of Lydia, From Gyges to Alexander" providing the first overview of the regional archaeology of Lydia in western Turkey. The book includes much previously unpublished evidence and a fresh synthesis of the archaeology of Sardis, the ancient capital of the region.


/World Bulletin/