The two communication giants Ericsson and Türkcell put their efforts together in order
to restore the Myndos Gate and the surrounding city walls. These walls which played an important role in the history
have been neglected for many years.
The Myndus gate is located by the old Gumbet road, near the Gumbet junction, next to the
Turkish cemetery at the western exit of the town. see phototour
Gümüslük is a place of dreams. Wearing my clogs I walk through a sea that
does not even reach to my knees. Ahead of me is a small island. I must be in my early twenties, Gümüslük
is a dream.
Have I been to Gümüslük? I remember treading on stones as I walk through the water. I even remember
a photograph in which I am wearing a hat bought from Bodrum, and a red skirt which I have pulled up to my calves
even though the water only comes up to my ankles, I laugh at the unnecessary precaution and groundless qualms.
And what am I wearing with the skirt? Now that I cannot remember. So long as I have a photograph as a witness the
vision of Gümüslük must be real, When you consider that my excitement about places I am going to
exceeds that for places I have come from, it must really be me looking at the island ahead and its silhouette,
Years later I learnt from a brightly coloured tourism brochure that the island to which 1 had walked through the
sea was Tavsan Adasi, Like my own early youth now left behind it seems far off and strange. Yet on the walk towards
Tavsan Adasi that day I was trailing my youth and my youthful dreams and other visions with me. So much so that
the embodiment of my Gümüslük adventure suddenly became that walk to the island.
A peaceful place where two bodies of water nearly meet (above). My childhood is hidden behind these rocks (top).
What has happened to the warmth and friends of that day? To the pleasure that accompanied the steam rising from
the ground to the heavens? When did 1 go to Gümüslük I was young, very young. Self?confident enough
to take no advice, perceptive enough to give none, But now look at me advisin you not to return from Gümüslük
without visiting Tavsan Adasi. Because, like all rare things and beautiful places, takes on meaning when seen from
the outside inwards, not from the inside outwards. The island affords you such a viewpoint.
At the same time it politely protects Gümüslük from the open sea. 'The courtesy of Rabbit Island'
would not be a misguided definition, because this island does not make itself felt as such, or as a barrier. What
it makes you feel is the horizon beyond and infinity. As it proudly salutes Gümüslük it seems to
say to those strolling upon it, '0 mortals! Do not sail out to sea without calling on me!' Yes, have 1 ever been
to Gümüslük? You walk to Rabbit Island through ater up to your knees. Before turning to look around
you see the distant past, In the skies of Gümüslük you will discern smoke from the houses of Myndos,
the Carian city which originally stood here. It was King Mausolos who in the 4th century BC founded the city
1 Waves beat rhythmically on the shore heedless of the passage of time (above). life is having fun, forgetting
and remembering again (top).
1 let dreams carry you away in Gümüslük (above). View over Gümüslük harbour (below).
1 Time seems to fade away in the twilight (above). Cool wet sea and dry hot sand (below). By night GUmUS1Uk is
festive and lively (bottom).
whose spirits now lie beneath the water that you see today, His stubbornness and creative imagination are concealed
in this history. Until Gümüslük Academy was founded by the novelist Latifle Tekin and a few friends,
no one else in the thousands of years since his time had the courage to create anything new in Gümüslük,
So my greetings to the academy.
Did I really go to Gümüslük As I was saying, you were walking through water up to your knees. Behind
was Gümüslük, 20 minutes' drive away from Bodrum. Approaching Gümüslük, just after
crossing the ridge at Peksimet with its old windmills, that spectacular vista was suddenly spread before you, A
valley of citrus gardens, and beyond the blue sea sprinkled with green islands. Blue, green and white, those ancient
colours, were exuberantly mingled, as were the scents which filled the air.
/ Tavsan Adasi, or Rabbit Island, stands guard over approaching (right).
(top). A cool tranquil evening is
Then the winding road carried you down to Gümüslük where the water was so clear that the history
which lay beneath it was visible just beneath the surface. You were very young. You did not think of taking off
your dark blue clogs. You pulled up your skirt and began to walk through the water to the island so that you could
look at Gümüslük from there. You looked, and what you saw was the past looking at the present. As
you walked towards Tavsan Adasi through the shallow water concealing ancient walls and breakwaters, you looked
out to sea to the horizon, your face turned to the summer breeze blowing from the Northwest. Now close your eyes.
The Gümüslük through which you plunged in your red skirt as a fresh young girl, like the game of
skimming stones across the surface of the water, is right there.
* Müge Iplicky is a short story writer.
The city wall of ancient
Halikarnassos dates from 364 B.C. The 7 km long city wall surrounds the town from the west side
of the harbor to Goktepe. Castles at Salmakis to the west and Zephyrion to the east mark the junction of the city
wall and the harbor. Although no traces remain of Mylasa Gate, which opened to the east, large portions of Myndos
Gate survived intact. Myndos Gate was constructed of two monumental towers at either side
Built on the valley, the western part of the city wall was fortified with towers, these measuring approximately
7x8.5 me-ters at the base. One of the towers of the Myndus gate has come down to the present day in almost its
original height. The gate got its name from the antique city of Myndus, located on the extremity of the peninsula.
Today it is called Dikdiri.
Arrianus, who has given a detailed description of Alexander's siege of the town mentions that the gate was a Tripillion
(three-towered). Of the three towers, built with rectangular blocks of stones the one which once stood in the center
has corn-
pletely vanished. Arrianus also writes about the existence of a moat, 15 meters wide and 8 meters deep, in front
of gate. Alexander, arriving at Halicarnassus in the fall of 334 B.C., set up his headquarters at the spot called
Yoku~ba~i today. His first assault was upon the Mylasa gate of which no trace remains. The attack was repulsed
with difficulty by the satrap Oron-tobates and Memnon of Rhodes. A few days later Alexander, with part of his forc-es,
at~cked the Myndus gate but was again unsuccessful. He then constructed a wooden bridge over the moat and re-newed
the attack on the city. This time, the Macedonians made use of siege tow-ers. The Halicarnassians sallied out and
were able to burn down one of the towers and a hand to hand fight followed. The wooden bridge, unable to carry
the weight of the dead, collapsed, thus causing the death of still more soldiers from both sides. The fight turned
in favour of the Macedonians. The city panicked, and clos-ing the gates too early, caused the death of many of
their fellow men who got trapped outside. Having suffered heavy casualties, Orontobates and Memnon re-treated to
the two inner castles on the is-land and Salmacis, while sending some of their soldiers on ships to Cos. Alexander
ordered the city walls and the city itself to be torn down, with the exception of the palace and the Maussolleion.
Not waitin9 for the surrender of the two castles, he left a force of 3000 infantry and 200 cavalry under the command
of Ptolemaios, and
marched on to Phrygia.
Although being short of water, the Bodrum peninsula has been inhabited throughout the centruies. Houses of mountain
villages along the Bodrum- Turgut Reis highway look like pieces of the traditional Turkish white cheese. The white-washed
houses of Bodrum and the surroundings, rising side by side with their flat roofs and beautifully proportioned win-dows,
are reflections of the Mediterranean architecture. Garden walls facing narrow streets are decorated with flowers
in a multitude of colours.
The Musandira-type is the house built by those who cultivate the land. The en-trance to the house is on the long
fa§ade. The fireplace inside is built on the shod wall. This type of house has two sections:
The lower and the upper house. The liv-ing area, called "musandira" is reached wtih a ladder situated
next to the entrance of the lower floor, which is used for stor-age purposes. Also, in these houses an apron floor
is built inside the upper house.
Water cisterns (Kümbet), scattered all over the area, supply the water demand of the region. The cisterns
which look like on the whole, consist of two sections: The domed roof and the part where the rain water, entering
from the holes at the base of the dome, collects.
Strabo mentions the existence of eight Lelegian cities on the peninsula. These were: Syangela, Pedasa, Side, Madhasa,
Uranium, Telmissus, Termera and Myn-dus, Except for Myndus and Syangela, which were located on the opposite ex-tremities
of the peninsula, the inhabitants of the other cities were forced to live in
Halicamassus during the reign of Maussollos. The actual Lelegian city of Myndus which Strabo mentions is not GQmt1~lt1k,
but Bozdag, 3 kilometres southeast of this village.
towers, one can see the castle's curtain wall at certain places. Outside the wall, to the southwest of the city,
can be seen a few rows of stones, these being the only remains of the Athena temple.
Around the VI. and V. centuries B.C. Pedasa was one of the major cities of the region, but later lost all its importance.
Located on the west side of Bodrum, this is one of the two entrances of the ancient Halicarnassus. It was part
of the towns wall
The gate is named after Myndos because it is facing the old place Myndos (Now Gümüslük). The regional
name is now 'Diktiri' or 'Dikduru', which means standing straight or upright, because it has survived more than
2.500 years.
According to Arrianus, who was describing this gate and and the stage of siege of Alexander the Great in 334, this
gate had originally three towers (that's why it was described as 'Tripollion'). It was also mentioned that in front
of the gate was a ditch of 8 meters depth and 15 meters long. The middle part of the gate is destroyed now totally
but ruins from the two other parts are still existing and made from huge and heavy square stones.
Tombs were found here and opened by Newton in the last century. They dated back to Hellenistic and Roman times
and were made from burned clay.
When Alexander the Great in the autumn of 334 BC came to Halikarnassos, he was having his headquater somewhere
around here. His first attack was towards the Milas gate, which is not more existing nowadays, but he could'nt
make it. On the Halicarnassus side were fighting the Persian generals Oronbates and Memnon from Rhodos. After a
couple of days he was trying it with the Myndos gate, again there was a lot of resistance. Then he was building
a wooden bridge over the 8 m. ditch, packed some of his Makedonian soldiers in wooden towers and carried them close
to the gate, but Halicarnassus people came out and tried to burn those towers and started fighting, but the bridge
collapsed after a while and there was a big panic on both side. Despite there were many of their own warriors outside
and killed, the gate was closed and Memnon and Oronbates went to the castle and the harbour and sailed to Kos.
Alexander the Great was conquering the town then and destroying the place all over, just the mausoleum he didn't
touch, after that he was going southwards to Phrygia.
Here is a wealth of information about http://www.ericsson.com.tr/ay
Bodrum selbst, im
Altertum Halikarnassos
genannt, ist eine der bekanntesten antiken Staedte in diesem Raum, es wurde bereits 11. Jhrhdrt. vChr. gegründet
worden. Unter dem karischen Herrscher Mausolos (377-353 v. Chr.) erlebte Halikarnassos seine Bütezeit, sein prachtvolles
Grab war eines der sieben Weltwunder. Im Mittelalter hatten die Johanniter von Rhodos hier einen Stützpunkt;
sie bauten das Kastell, benutzten dafür aber das Mausoleum als Steinbruch.
Sehenswert sind außerdem das Myndos Tor, (ebenfalls aus der Zeit der König Mausolos), jüngst freigelegt
von Ericsson und Türkcell, sowie das Amphi Theater, von dem man bei Sonnenuntergang den besten Blick auf Bodrum hat.
Die nachfolgenden Stätten auf der Bodrum-Halbinsel bergen ein immenses Maß an antiker Geschichte, wurden
aber bis heute noch nicht ausgegraben. Daher liegen nur spärliche Angaben über diese antiken Plätze
vor.
PEDASA (GÖKÇELER)
Pedasa war eine lelegische Siedlung im Norden von Bodrum, (von Konacik zu erwandern) und besaß im 6. - 5.
Jh. v. Chr. einige Bedeutung, einige Historiker gehen davon aus, daß Pedasa größer und ebenfalls
bedeutender war als Halikarnassos. Die Stadt befand sich im Inneren einer Festung, deren Mauern durch Türme
verstärkt waren. Der als religiöses Zentrum bedeutende Athenatempel, lag außerhalb der Befestigungsmauern.
Die Stadt war von Grabanlagen umgeben. Hier bestattet zu sein galt als Ehre bei den Bewohnern.
TELMESSOS/ TELMISSOS (GÜRECE)
Die hinter dem Dorf Gürece auf einem Hügel gelegene lelegische Siedlung, könnte das antike Telmissos
gewesen sein. Durch seinen Apollo Tempel und seine Weißsagungen berühmt geworden, galt es als wichtiges
religiöses Zentrum. Heute ziehen ein Turm auf dem Hügel und vereinzelte Gräber den Blick auf sich.
TERMERA (ASPAT-ÇIFT KALE)
Antiken Schriftstellern zufolge befand sich Termera gegenüber der Insel Kos. Auf der, als Asarlik Hügel
bekannten Erhebung, befinden sich ausser Siedlungsüberresten auch die Ruinen einer Burg. Die Bevölkerung
wurde unter Mausolos nach Halikarnassos zwangsumgesiedelt.
SYANGELA (ALA ZEYTIN)
Diese lelegische Siedlung ist von einer turmbestandenen Befestigungsmauer umgeben. Dort sind aus soliden Steinen
errichtete, für den Volksgebrauch bestimmte Gebäude, wie das Stadtrathaus, der Marktplatz und der Heroon-Tempel
zu sehen .
MYNDOS (GÜMÜSLÜK)
Ursprünglich befand sich die lelegische Siedlung Myndos auf dem Bozberg. Nach der Neugründung
durch Mausolos breitete sich das neue Myndos großflächig in Küstennähe aus. Die befestigte
Stadt besaß einen gutgeschützten Hafen. Die Ruine einer byzantinischen Kirche und die wellenumspülten
Reste eines Turmes sind noch sichtbar. 44 v.Chr. wurde Myndos von den Cäsarmördern Brutus und Cassius
als Stabsquartier benutzt.
THIANGELA
Thiangela ist eine, von Befestigungsmauern umgebene lelegische Stadt. Unter Mausolos wurde die Bevölkerung
der umliegenden Siedlungen hier zwangsangesiedelt, die Stadt erhielt einen neuen rechteckigen, geordneten Stadtplan
und wurde ausgebaut.
MADNASA
Madnasa ist eine zwischen Türkbükü und Gölköy gelegene befestigte lelegische Siedlung.
URANIUM (BURGAZKALE)
Hier sind Befestigungsmauern und zwei Türme vorhanden.
Myndus, Gümüslük in my mind
From Aegean Sun
On a sweltering hot day in July 1990, I spent the last day of my holiday house-hunting around Bodrum and watching
the entire male population of a small village (old, young, firm, and infirm) lift our car back onto the road as
we teetered over an abyss. We stopped to settle our nerves and thirst at the western tip of the peninsula. One
glance around the waterfront was enough... 'Why', I asked outloud, 'haven't we been staying here the last week?'
Paradise, as I have written on postcards home every year since, is a place called Giimii~liik.
It isn't the restaurants (although there are more good ones here than you can shake a fish at). It isn't the beaches
(despite Blue Flag flying, I still loathe sand) nor is it the discos (because there aren't any...bliss!). It isn't
'Captain' Fevzi's daily boat trips around peaceful offshore islands (though I've been on over 40 such trips in
10 years). It's not even the prevailing winds which make Giimii~liik 5-10 degrees cooler than Bodrum. What makes
it so special, then?
It's partly the people. Their warmth, generosity, and cheery hellos turn mundane tasks like shopping into a daily
reminder of what community spirit is supposed to mean. (This explains why I grin idiotically at the sullen Co-op
cashier when I return horne...in the vain hope that Giimti~liik friendliness might be infectious.) Above all, it's
the place itself Despite the encroach-ing housing estates on the hills and valleys behind it, Giimii~liik remains
the last unblemished resort on the peninsula. Look at the postcards.. .they haven't changed in 10, maybe 20 years...because
they don't have to, and that's be-cause the village is built on the remains of the ancient town of Myndos and thus
is protected from development.
Myndos was never more than a small footnote in ancient history, but this adds, rather than detracts from its charm.
Although known as the 'sunken city', don't expect an underwater Pompeii. The sea level has risen (or, more accurately,
the eastern Mediterranean coast has sunk) probably as much as 7-8 feet since Greco-Roman times, so there are ruins
to see around the mar-gins of Giiimii~liik's several bays. And these are the key to what Gtimii~liik has to offer
not just archaeology-mad folk like me, but any visitor - the space and time to dream.
Walk over the headland to find the vestiges of the city walls and imagine what Myndos looked like in the 4th century
BC, in the time of Mausolos or Alexander the Great.
Wade over to Rabbit Island (which divides Giimfi~lfik's two main bays. ..and does have rabbits on it!) or snorkel
over the remains of the ancient harbour wall (7 layers deep) at the tip of the headland, and imagine what the city
looked like when two Roman senators (Brutus and Cassius) arrived here in 44 BC, hiding out from Octavian after
having killed Julius Caesar.
Then wander over to the knoll on the isthmus between the headland and mainland and see the private baths in the
bay to your left and the mosaic floor at your feet - all that remains of what must have been an imposing villa
- and imagine, as I do, a rich, surely rotund and turban-topped Byzantine exporter barking out orders to his minions
as they break more amphora than they load onto ships in the bay below.
Or look out to sea and find a small pancake-like island (Yassi Ada) in the distance and see if you can spot the
walls remaining from Peter Throckmorton and George Bass's encampments in the early 1960s, and imag-ine their adventures
as they define how underwater archaeology should be done amongst the remnants of some seven ships dating back to
Roman times wrecked on its hidden reef (one of which is reconstructed in the Bodrum Castle Museum), all of them
joined in 1994 by a Lebanese tanker.
Or further north you might make out the two rocks (the Kardak 'islands') over which the Greeks and Turks almost
came to blows in the socalled Aegean War of 1996, and imagine the old men lining up their chairs on the water-front
for a front-row seat, the TV camera crews haggling with boat owners for trips to the 'war zone', and me sifting
on my balcony as the thunderous sound of fighter jets skimming the sea reverberates around the bay.
Or dream your own dream: for that's what Giimii~liik is about - a place to fuel your imagination and nourish your
soul. And if you're standing at the bottom of the stairs next to the Giimii~cafe on what is known by a few of us
as 'The Cross-Eyed Cat Who Catches Fish' Street, say hello to Botan, Rengin and Mehmet and wave up to me on my
balcony.. .and if I wave back, you'll know Giirnii~liik has worked its magic...for, sadly, I'm no longer there.
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