ARCHAEOLOGY IN CILICIA IN THE ANCIENT TRAVELLERS’ NOTES (LEV. 1-5)

Abstract

ARCHAEOLOGY IN CILICIA IN THE ANCIENT TRAVELLERS’ NOTES (LEV. 1-5)

Abstract

“When we consider the great number of European and American travellers who annually visit the Levant, it is strange how seldom any of them extends his journey into Northern Syria, or the adjacent provinces of Turkey in Asia. [...] Northern Syria is almost a “terra incognita” [...] The adjacent territory of Karamania is almost equally unvisited, and only once perhaps in every thirty years does a European traveller painfully make his way through some portion of the province. The only other Europeans who care to visit it are a few buyers of walnut wood, or leech merchants, chiefly Greeks, whose one aim is to forward their trade interests, and on whom the wonderful antiquities and surpassing beauties of the country naturally make but little impression.” (Davis, E.J., Life in Asiatic Turkey, London 1879; Preface, Alexandria, November, 1878)