Aydıncık, Mersin

Infobox Settlement

settlement_type = Town
subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_name = TUR
timezone=EET
utc_offset=+2
map_caption =Location of PAGENAME within Turkey.
timezone_DST=EEST
utc_offset_DST=+3

official_name = Aydıncık

---

subdivision_type1=Region
subdivision_name1 = Mediterranean
subdivision_type2=Province
subdivision_name2 = Mersin| population_total = 11647
population_footnotes=
population_as_of =| 2007
population_density_km2 = 28|area_total_km2 = 410|elevation_m = |pushpin_

pushpin_label_position =
pushpin_map_caption =Location of Aydıncık, Mersin
pushpin_mapsize =
latd = 36
latm = 10
latNS = N
longd = 33
longm = 21
longEW = E
postal_code_type=Postal code
postal_code = 33713
area_code = (0090)+ 324
leader_name = Ahmet Bahar
blank_info = 33|blank_name=Licence plate
website = [http://www.aydincik.gov.tr/ www.aydincik.gov.tr]

Aydıncık is a town and district of Mersin Province on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, convert|173|km|mi|0|abbr=on from Mersin and convert|325|km|mi|0|abbr=on from Antalya.

Aydıncık has also been called "Celenderis", "Gilindire", "Kelenderis".

This remote coastline is mostly unspoilt and 38 kilometers long, including some sandy beach, and the town of Aydıncık is spread along the coast near a small point, Sancak Burnu.

History

Aydıncık is the site of ancient Celenderis, a port and fortress in Isauria, founded by the Phoenicians or, according to legend, by Sandacos, son of Astynoös and grandson of Phaethon. It was one of the best harbours of this coast in ancient times. Artemidorus, with other geographers, considered this place, as the commencement of Cilicia. There must have been earlier settlement going back to the Hittites and Assyrians but so far no evidence has been uncovered.

Excavations carried out since 1986 revealed findings going back to the 8th century B.C. when Ionians from Samos moving eastwards established a port and market here. The city thrived during the 4th and 5th centuries BC as the easternmost member of the Delian league , which was established under the leadership of the Athenians against the Persians, and silver coinage was minted here. This lasted until the arrival of the armies of Alexander the Great.

During the Hellenistic era (1st century BC) Celenderis was in a political coalition with the kingdom of the Ptolemys of Egypt, and faced severe difficulties from piracy. This problem persisted until Ancient Rome took military actions against the pirates, and Celenderis enjoyed a second period of wealth as the Romans secured the Mediterranean trade routes. They built a city around the port with villas, palaces, waterworks, and baths. During the Middle Ages, the grandeur persisted as the city was controlled by Byzantium, and in the 11th century the Armenians.

In 1228 Celenderis castle was captured from the Armenians by the Karamanoğlu and the coast was settled by Turkish peoples. The town's name mutated to "Gilindere" and it continued to be an important port between Anatolia and Cyprus until the beginning of the twentieth century. It was renamed Aydıncık in 1965.

Celenderis Coins

The town gave name to a region called Celenderitis (Plin. v. 27), and coined those silver tetradrachms, which supply some of the earliest and finest specimens of the numismatic art. (Leake, Asia Minor, &c. p. 116.) There are also coins of the Syrian kings, and of the later Roman emperors.

Places of interest

The remains of ancient Celenderis are very few and the ruins today are mostly overlaid by the expanding modern Aydıncık. Fortifications may still be detected around the modern lighthouse on the small promontory which forms and commands the harbor.There is a landlocked bay with its famous spring 1.6 km to the west at Soguksu. Here there are ancient ruins, notably a bath at the head of the bay and archaeological debris on the peninsula at its mouth. There are handsome but much destroyed rock-cut tombs at Duruhan 9.6 km to the North.

In 2002, remains of a 2400 year-old harbor was discovered underwater around the island "Yılanlı Ada".

The Port Bath

It was most probably built during fourth or fifth centuries AD. The castle on the point and the theater apparently belong to the Roman era. * [http://www.supermersin.com About Aydıncık]

Tombs

In the graveyards of the city, rock graves, vaulted graves and pyramid-roofed monumental graves can be seen spanning a period from the sixth millennium B.C. up to the fourth century. The majority of the items displayed at the museum are from these graves.

Floor Mosaic

The mosaic discovered near the port in 1992 is an exceptional example in depicting the panorama of the city as it stood in the fifth century.

The Dortayak Cenotaph

There is a large Roman cenotaph with four columns from the 2nd century. It was marked as a CENOTAPH(a monument erected as a memorial to a dead person or dead people buried elsewhere, especially people killed fighting a war) on the map of Chelindreh harbor prepared by Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort.This is a tetrapylon made of well-cutted limestones with a rectangular burial room on the lower part, four pylons erected on this and a pyrammidal roof carried by the arches of the four pylons. This type is a common one in the Roma period and may be dated to the second half of the the second or early third century AD.

Gilindire Cave

The cave of Gilindere is about an hour's ride along the coast by small boat, and is 555m of attractive stone and crystal formations.

References

*The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites (eds. Richard Stillwell, William L. MacDonald, Marian Holland McAllister)Princeton University Press, 1976.
*"Günaydın, Kelenderis", Mustafa Yalçıner, 2004.
*Reference article in Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)] (12.66)Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)
*Reference article in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD)] (11.91)
*Reference Article written by S. Pétridès. Transcribed by Gerald M. Knight. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III. Published 1908. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
*Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD)
*Karamania, Sir Francis Beaufort

External links

* [http://www.aydincik.gov.tr/ District governor's official website] tr icon
* [http://www.aydincik.com/ Local information website]
* [http://www.supermersin.com Aydıncık]
* [http://www.mersinuniversitesi.net University]
* [http://www.fallingrain.com/world/TU/32/Aydincik.html Aydıncık, Mersin page]
* [http://www.turkish-media.com/y_h/bhtml/d_4_3.htm Map of Aydıncık and its environs]
* [http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/spring03articles/applications-of-mapping.html Investigating the Past Beneath Aydıncık, Mersin]
*

L. Zoroğlu, Kelenderis I, Kaynaklar, Kalıntılar, Buluntular, (Kelenderis I, Sources, Remains and Finds), Ankara 1994.