BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Istanbul Dig Yields Evidence of City’s Ancient Harbor

Bible and archaeology news

On the shores of Lake Kucukcekmece, 13 miles west of downtown Istanbul, archaeologists are uncovering evidence of one of the city’s primary—and perhaps earliest—ancient harbors. At the expansive harbor site of Bathonea, revealed in 2007 after a drought significantly lowered the lake’s water table, excavators have found a 2.5-mile-long sea wall, docks, jetties, massive cisterns, well-appointed houses and wide, stone-paved roads, all dating from the fourth–sixth centuries C.E. This is the period that saw Istanbul’s founding and the rise of Constantinople as the capital of the early Byzantine empire, though it is also a period that is poorly attested both archaeological and historically. “The discoveries made [at the site] are now shedding a completely new light to the wider urbanized area of Constantinopolis,” said Volker Heyd, an archaeologist who helped survey the Bathonea remains. “A fantastic story begins to unveil.”

On the shores of Lake Kucukcekmece, 13 miles west of downtown Istanbul, archaeologists are uncovering evidence of one of the city’s primary—and perhaps earliest—ancient harbors.