TRABZON İÇ KALE KAZISI

Abstract

Historically, the city of Trabzon consisted of three separate sections, namely the Lower Fortress, the Middle Fortress and the Upper Fortress (Inner Fortress) sections. Considering its strategic location and its status fit for an administrative center, it is highly probable that the first walled city construction was made in the Inner Fortress (Upper Fortress) section. The structural features of the walls both at the north-western and north-eastern parts of the Inner Fortress (Upper Fortress) section and the first archaeological findings confirmed this view. The first observer to mention the existence of Trabzon as Trapezus in ancient written sources was Xenophon, who returned to Greece with “tens of thousands” of soldiers in 400 BC from Persia. Based on this source Trabzon was a city intact around 400 BC, and therefore its known history dates back to 2500 years. However, the German historian Jakob Fallmerayer Pausanias, known for his work “History of the Empire of Trabzon”, argued that the core inhabited area of Trapezus was Trabzon, which still exists today, and that its foundation dated back 4500 years ago. Considering that the transition to a sedentary agricultural life was during the Neolithic period around 2000 BC, this view is likely to be accurate. Until February and August 2021, no scientific archaeological excavation or drilling work had been carried out either inside or outside the city walls of old Trabzon, which has been inhabited since ancient times. With the permission of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, in 2021 archaeological drilling was carried out for a month in the northeastern part of the Lower Hisar in Trabzon for the first time in history, and important architectural remains from the Roman Period were found in addition to minor Hellenistic finds. Following this significant discovery, at the end of August of the same year, long-term, planned and systematic archaeological excavations were initiated at the Inner Fortress section under the presidency of Trabzon Museum and under the coordination and academic supervision of Prof. Mehmet Yavuz from Karadeniz Technical University. The third phase of these archaeological studies was carried out at the bottom of the city wall behind the Women’s Groceries Market in the Lower Hisar section, and the works that began in December 2021 continued until the end of July 2022. During the rescue excavations, the ancient harbor structure uncovered during the excavation of the construction foundation was fully unearthed. The first archaeological excavations in these three different places yielded a large number of ceramic artifacts, coins, glass, metal and bone artifacts belonging to the Roman, Byzantine, Komnenos and Ottoman Periods, starting from the Hellenistic Period. For more detailed information, please refer to the Extended Abstract at the end of the text