Hidden In The Sand Dunes:
A Roman Port at Küçük Burnaz, Turkey
By Jennifer Tobin

In 1986 while gathering sand for cement, a local company began bulldozing a series of large dunes that had collected on the seashore where the Küçük Burnaz stream empties into the Bay of Iskenderun on the south coast of Turkey. The dunes, however, proved not to be the expected piles of sand but instead formed a shallow mantle over the remains of an ancient settlement. In 1994 and 1995 a survey of the remains was conducted by a team from Bilkent University of Ankara, Turkey. The bulldozing had exposed at least 20 buildings laid out on a grid plan; among them were two baths, several cisterns and an aqueduct system. Study of the architecture and the finds collected from the site indicate that the remains date from the period of Roman occupation of the region, from the mid 1st century BC through the 7th c. AD. The site's location, on the sea and along a major roadway, along with the nature of the architecture indicate that it served as a way station, or mansio, for the army and other travelers, including those traveling by sea. The most intriguing aspect of the site at Küçük Burnaz is that because it was buried by sand sometime after the 14th century AD, it had been virtually lost and its existence had not even been suspected. Through examination of ancient texts, however, the site may be identified as the mansio of Catobolos. Mansiones, roughly equivalent to modern day motels, are well known from literature but have not been securely identified in the archaeological record in Turkey, thus the study of the remains at Küçük Burnaz is valuable for a better understanding of a little known facility of the Roman world. Join Jennifer and visit her site on Far Horizons' tour to eastern Turkey.