The Halicarnassus Peninsula

Abstract

The base of the peninsula, from the Karaova to Halicarnassus and the Karadağ, is of limestone and singularly devoid of water. It rises to heights of five and six hundred metres in the Kaplan Daği (Mt. Lide) and Karadağ, with steep slopes on the north side and little valleys opening southwards. The western part of the peninsula is said to be of volcanic formation with fundamental gneiss; the hills here are fearfully denuded and sometimes fantastically gnarled, but there are pockets of fertile land in the central valleys and a number of distinct little coastal plains. The peninsula from Halicarnassus westward belongs to the Aegean world and is capable of supporting a normal Aegean economy. The present population of the kaza of Bodrum, which extends on the east beyond Mumcular, is 24,000, of whom about 11,000 live in Bodrum itself on the site of the ancient Halicarnassus.The sketch map Fig. 1 is based on the Turkish 1: 200,000 survey, but with some modifications. The field exploration which forms the basis of this article occupied about six weeks. We were throughout guided by the map and description of the peninsula published by Paton and Myres after their joint exploration sixty years ago, which laid secure foundations for the study of the geography of Western Caria and the antiquities of the Lelegian country; no subsequent work in this region can compare with theirs in thoroughness or acuteness of observation. We have at points been able to supplement or correct their descriptions, and in places we have judged differently of the evidence on the ground (particularly the chronological testimonies offered by the ancient potsherds), but always with a sense of our own fallibility in work of such a sort where the majority of observations are in fact unverified assumptions.