The Necropolis of Anamur

Year 1965, Volume: 29 Issue: 113, 25 - 48, 20.01.1965

Elisabeth Rosenbaum

Abstract

Anamur, the ancient Anemurium, is a town immediately north of Cape Anamur, the southernmost cape of the south coast of Asia Minor. Literary sources are practically non-existent: the town only appears in various lists of ancient geographers and historians, but apart from one event recorded by Tacitus (Annales XII, 55) barely anything is known from its history. The town minted coins, and specimens of these are known from the times of Antiochus IV of Commagene, who owned temporarily the entire coast of Western Cilicia, until Valerian in the third century A.D. 1. In spite of the reticence of literary sources, however, it may be possible to reconstruct something of the town's history, since a substantial part of its buildings has survived in a fair state of preservation to our day. The stretch of the Anatolian south coast on which Anamur is situated bas been visited by few archaeologists or dillettante travellers. In fact the best description is stili that of Captain Beaufort who carried out an Admiralty survey of this part of the Mediterranean early in the 19th century.

Keywords

Anamur, Anemurium, Necropolis, Asia Minor, Western Anatolia, Tomb Architecture, Archaeology, Anthropology