Pre-Historical Submerged Settlements in the Sea of Marmara Coasts

Abstract

Parallel to the development of underwater archeology, sunken cities have been discovered in many parts of the world. These discovered settlements provide us not only with many archaeological data, but also many scientific data such as geological, geomorphological, climatological, oceanography. Thanks to these data, besides the information about past lives, changes in sea and lake levels have shed light on many unknowns such as the reasons for these changes, floods, drought, earthquakes and volcanic activities in the past. In this context, the archaeological artifacts and structures obtained from the Marmara Sea and its surroundings, Istanbul-Selimpaşa Mound, Istanbul-Fenerbahçe Bay, Çanakkale-Işıldak Tepealtı Mound, Marmaray / Yenikapı Excavations, Avşa Island Archeological Underwater Studies were examined. In addition to this examination, the geographical locations of the artifacts in these settlements and the geoarchaeological characteristics of the area where they are located are also examined. In this way, not only the geoarchaeological features of the study area were revealed, but also the environmental conditions and sea level changes were tried to shed light. The settlements mentioned in our study provided important data on sea level changes. In the light of archaeological, geoarchaeological and climatological data, a new evaluation has been made by taking into account the other views on current sea level changes.

The Impact of the Industrialization and Urbanization on the Quantity and Diversity of Amphorae in the Museums: The Case of İzmit Gulf

“…The Gulf of İzmit was also part of an important maritime route following the shoreline in the southern Marmara between the Aegean and Black Sea routes particularly during the classical antiquity, if not earlier (Gökaşan, et al, 2001;Gazioğlu, 2017). For instance, most commercial ship entering into the Sea of Marmara through the Hellespontos when the wind conditions allowed safe passage there visited the harbors of the Gulf of İzmit before reaching to the sea of Black Sea through the Strait of Istanbul (Bosphorus) (Figure 1), (Ulugün, 2009;Dönmez and Kaya;2020). Among 52 amphorae from Kocaeli Archaeology Museum, the provenance of 24 could easily be identified on the basis of their typological characteristics.…”