5,500-Year-Old Artifacts in the Ancient City of Satala(Turkey) Started to Be Exhibited
The tools found during the excavations in the ancient city of Satala in Gümüşhane are on display for the first time.
Military tombstones bearing traces of the Seljuk Turks’ entry into Anatolia, as well as the Urartian, Medes, Persians and Hellenistic periods, reached during the excavations in the ancient city of Satala, where the Roman 15th Legion ruled for 600 years and used as a military headquarters in the Kelkit district of Gumushane, milestones, inscriptions and war equipment are exhibited for the first time.
Museum Director Serdar Okur said, “We are exhibiting works of all periods from 5,500 years ago.”
Gumushane City Museum, which was established in the city in 2006 and closed to visitors 4 years ago due to renovations, was reopened after the completed repair, display, arrangement and landscaping.
In the museum where approximately 1200 works, including coins minted in the city during the Ottoman period, are exhibited; Military tombstones and milestones bearing traces of the Seljuk Turks’ entry into Anatolia, as well as the Urartian, Medes, Persians and Hellenistic periods, reached during the excavations in the ancient city of Satala, where the Roman 15th Legion ruled for 600 years and used as a military headquarters in Kelkit district. , inscriptions and war equipment were also exhibited for the first time.
Some findings obtained in Satala, where the history was unearthed through archaeological excavations carried out on an area of 25 decares in the district, are also exhibited in the museum.
“THE REMAINS THAT 3,000 BC”
Gumushane Museum Director Serdar Okur stated that there are ruins in the museum that shed light on 3 thousand years before Christ and said, “After the old Turkish age, then the Urartian period, the Medes, the Persians, the Hellenistic period, the classical period Rome, especially because of its geographical border with Iran, Sassanid and Byzantium. Artifacts from the Seljuk Turks’ entry into Anatolia, the Ottomans and the Republican period are also on display,” he said.
ABOUT SATALA ANCIENT CITY
The ancient city, established on the eastern foot of the Mese İci Mountains in Sadak village, 26 kilometers southeast of Kelkit district, is also a police station city established to protect the Euphrates border. There are hardly any finds bearing the characteristics of the Roman period.
Visible on the surface are a few tomb steles, baths, aqueducts and castle walls; however, today’s settlement area has been placed on most of the main city.
The irregular rectangular settlement is surrounded by ramparts extending 200 meters to the east and 400 meters to the north.
Most of the walls remained under the present houses. There are aqueducts about 1.6 kilometers south of the village. Of the aqueducts, which are said to have 47 eyes, only 4 have remained until today.
