A Hellenistic statue base in the Upper Agora at Oinoanda

Abstract

In Autumn 1997 a small team led by the Director of Fethiye Museum İbrahim Malkoç and Professor Martin F. Smith began excavations in the Upper Agora of Oinoanda. This area, long known as the ‘Esplanade’, following Cousin (1892: 56–58), is shown below to have been the Hellenistic and early Imperial agora of the city. A sondage was opened on the west side of the Upper Agora, and in so doing soil was removed around the lower half of a circular base which had appeared to be in situ (figs 1,2, and fig 3 where the base has the inventory number YÇ 1200). A previously unsuspected inscription was discovered upside down and located towards the present bottom of the base, from which it is apparent that the base had been re-used upside down, perhaps already in Antiquity.