DETERMINATION OF SHORELINE CHANGES OF ANCIENT CITIES AND PORTS ON AEGEAN AND MEDITERRANEAN COASTS OF TURKEY USING DRILLING METHODS
Project no. 23869 · Status: Kapanmış (Yayın bekleniyor) · 2022
Summary
<p>Although Turkey's Aegean and Mediterranean coasts have geological and geomorphological differences, many ancient city centers have been located along these coasts since the beginning of the first settlements. Although some of these are located inland from the coastline today, they served as port cities in the past. These port cities, which were located on the coast when they were first established, were gradually left inland as a result of the coastline moving towards the front of coast due to the alluvial accumulations, especially in the last 6-7 thousand years (in the Middle and Late Holocene), and accordingly, they lost their importance and are now in the form of ruins. They have become ruins. In some of them, cities in nowadays have developed despite the displacement of their port locations.</p><p>Our Aegean coasts are quite indented due to the structural extensions perpendicular to the shore; On the other hand, our Mediterranean coasts have relatively flat, high and steep coasts due to the structural units being parallel to the coast. The depressions, which developed especially depending on the structural-geomorphological characteristics of our Aegean coasts, are also depressions extending inland, and large rivers have settled inside them. The port cities at the points where these rivers reach to the coast have become more developed with the advantages of having fertile plains, proximity to freshwater resources and easier connections to the inland. On our Aegean coasts, Troia, Yenibademli, Yeldeğirmeni, Myrina, Panaztepe-Limankent, Bayraklı, Smyrna, Limantepe, Bağlararası, Teos, Efes, Kadıkalesi, Milet, Pilavtepe-Damlıboğaz are examples of these ancient cities and ports.</p><p>Our Mediterranean coasts are straighter and higher than the Aegean coasts due to their structural features and are not as indented or protruding. On these coasts, ancient ports were developed mostly at points where the connection between the coast and the interior was relatively easy and where large river valleys reached the sea. Even though they are on the shores of tectonic pits, those in the area where alluvial plains and wide valleys lie behind the ancient ports have shown more development. Ancient ports such as Patara, Andriake, Finike, Anemurium, Perge, Aspendos, Rhegma, Burnaz, Seleucia Pieria are examples of these.</p><p>Coastline changes in the areas where all these ancient cities and ports are located sometimes had a positive impact on their development, but mostly had a negative impact. Since the cause of coastline changes here is alluvial accumulation (alluvial drowning), these changes can be revealed by examining the internal features of these alluviums with drilling. The aim of this project is to reveal the coastal changes in selected sample regions with alluvial core drillings that we have made and will carry out with our Eijkelkamp hand auger and Cobra gasoline engine driven compressor equipment. As a result of drillings and granulometric and paleontological analyzes of the sediments taken from these drillings, changing environmental conditions and old coastlines will be determined, cross-sections and paleogeographic maps will be drawn, and the effects of these changes on selected ancient cities and ports will be interpreted from a geoarchaeological perspective.</p>