Publications & Papers
ÇENGELKÖY BULUNTULARI
Summary
Çengelköy has known many names throughout its history. It is thought that the site was first settled by the Bithynians during their migration from Thrace to Anatolia. Amongst them were the Cicon tribes who gave their name to the settlement of Ciconion, located on the site of modern Çengelköy.
The Greek geographer Dionysius of Byzantium, who is thought to have lived in the 1st or 2nd century AD, refers to a settlement named Ciconion on the Anatolian shore of the Bosphorus. However, for many centuries afterwards, written sources made no mention of the area. In the mid-16th century, Petrus Gyllius, wrote a book entitled The Bosphorus Of Constantinople that was supposedly based on the classical-period sources. Gyllius describes the ruins of the so-called Sophiana palace in the area of modern Çengelköy, presumably that built by the eastern Roman Emperor Justin II [520 - 578 AD] for his wife Sophia in 568 AD.
In 2007, during restoration of the foundations of the Abdullah Ağa mansion by the ATGV organisation, four badly preserved column drums, one capital and ten building stones of various sizes were discovered approximately one metre below sea-level. Underneath, 1.75 metre-long wooden piles had been driven into the sea bed to create a solid foundation. Similar column fragments and building stones are known to have been discovered in this area of Çengelköy during construction activity at various times in the past.
This publication presents the results of the Abdullah Ağa mansion excavations, including photographs of the recovered architectural fragments.