The rise and fall of a Greek city
A surge in development associated with Black Sea tourism has provided numerous opportunities for excavations in the ancient Greek city of Apollonia Pontica. Matthew Symonds talked to Margarit Damyanov about how the results are revolutionising our knowledge of this major site.
It was a treacherous stretch of coast. The ancient Greek historian Xenophon, writing in the 4th century BC, describes the perils of the Black Sea shore in the region around Salmydessos, a town in ancient Thrace and modern Turkey. Xenophon records that the hazardous shoals had wrecked many an unfortunate ship. For the crews, though, the ignominy of running aground was often only the beginning of their ordeal. The local Thracians were well aware of the dangers posed to shipping, and the rich pickings that could be placed within their grasp. The desire to plunder wrecked vessels was so widespread that we are told boundary stones were erected to mark out specific stretches of shore as the preserve of particular Thracian groups. For crews that successfully ran the gauntlet of this region as they headed up the west Black Sea coast, the first glimpse of Apollonia Pontica must have come as a welcome relief. This town offered a point of safety at the southern end of Burgas Bay.
Tradition has it that Apollonia Pontica was founded by Greek colonists from Miletus in 610 BC. The settlement was situated on a fine, natural harbour, created by a rocky peninsula jutting into the Black Sea, and the small island – now known as St Kirik – that lay just offshore. The Greeks were not the first to appreciate its potential, as traces of occupation dating back to the Chalcolithic in the late 5th millennium BC have also been found at the site. Equally, there was more to Apollonia Pontica’s renown than its status as a maritime refuge. While this quality was emphasised on coins bearing an anchor that were minted in the city, it lay close to metal deposits in the Thracian hinterland, too. One expression of the wealth this created took the form of a colossal statue of Apollo Ietros (Apollo the Healer), which stood 13m high and dominated the main sanctuary at Apollonia Pontica. The discovery of temples associated with this complex is just one of the highlights from a wealth of activity undertaken by dozens of archaeologists over the last couple of decades at Apollonia Pontica. Cumulatively, the results force us to rethink some traditional views of the settlement, while also shedding compelling new light on the ebb and flow of the city’s fortunes.
Seeking the sanctuary
One crucial piece of information about Apollonia Pontica that was never lost is its location. Today, the modern town is known as Sozopol, and a Late Antique source notes the change of name from Apollonia Pontica – in honour of Apollo – to the Christian Sozopolis, or ‘city of salvation’. Thanks to this, people have been taking an interest in its antiquities since at least the 19th century. The first documented excavations were undertaken in 1904 by a French consul, Alexandre Degrand. He sought the famous sanctuary of Apollo, which the Roman-era geographer Strabo noted lay on an island. The strongest candidate for this was St Kirik, which at the time was a small, bare area of ground that was home to little more than the remains of a medieval chapel and some fishermen’s houses. Degrand duly opened a series of trenches, but any hopes he had of finding monumental architecture were dashed. Instead, he unearthed graves and material dating to the Archaic period, prompting him to conclude that the island was a necropolis and the famous sanctuary lay elsewhere.
If Degrand found the archaeology of St Kirik disappointing, the advantages that its position next to a natural harbour offered would soon come to the fore once more. In the 1920s, a maritime school was built, and, although an archaeologist was said to be monitoring the site, the results appear to have been singularly underwhelming. A brief published note reported little of interest, and illustrated just two fragments of pottery. The maritime school fared rather better, eventually growing into a naval academy, which in turn paved the way for the island to be transformed into a naval base. At that point, further archaeological excavations became impossible: when more buildings were added in the 1970s, it was under conditions of complete secrecy. The military only moved out in 2005, leaving the island empty once more. In 2009, rumours began to circulate of plans to develop it into a resort. This prompted the beginning of a new wave of excavations, spearheaded by Dr Krastina Panayotova from the National Archaeological Institute with Museum in Sofia.
‘By the end of the 2009 season, it was completely clear that the site was an exceptional one’, says Margarit Damyanov, associate professor in the Department of Thracian Archaeology at the Institute, and deputy director of the investigations. ‘The excavations uncovered a large Late Antique basilica, dating to the 5th or 6th century AD. Right next to it were two much earlier temples from the Greek period. One belonged to the late Archaic period and dated to the late 6th century, around 500 BC. The other was slightly later, and had its origins in the first half of the 5th century BC. Jumping ahead to last year’s season, we nearly completed the excavation of a third temple, which lies right next to the other two and was also built in the first half of the 5th century BC. This is exactly the period when we are told that the Apollonians invited the noted Greek sculptor Calamis to erect the monumental statue of Apollo. So we have this apparently public space, with temples aligned in a row and the foundations of a stone altar in front of the earliest one.’
‘The temples were comparatively small buildings, only about 11-12m long, and probably with two columns at the front. For the most part, only their foundations survive. We can imagine that most of the marble superstructure ended up going into the lime kilns, probably to make mortar for the Late Antique basilica. A few nice fragments of architectural features do survive, though, and in 2023 we found one hand from a statue in a 6th-century layer. There are also parts of a very fine ceramic frieze depicting a battle between Greek hoplites and non-Greek cavalry. The first fragments were discovered by Degrand, and we have now found several more, resulting in about 23 pieces in total. Most display the same scene, meaning that we have several copies of the same mould-made plaque. It shows hoplites marching, with one blowing a horn, and behind them is a galloping horseman above a fallen hoplite, who is apparently dead. By style and composition, the frieze belongs to the late 6th century BC. The general inspiration probably came from monuments like the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi, which dates to 525 BC, and is the first instance of a frieze depicting a multifigure battle scene. One interesting question about our example is the identity of the non-Greek horseman. Sadly, the only surviving image of this rider is badly preserved, but he is brandishing a spear, and has a cloak and pelta. This type of shield is traditionally associated with Thracians, so it is tempting to consider the possibility that the frieze shows a clash between the Greeks and Thracians.’
‘We also have explicit evidence that this was the main sanctuary at Apollonia Pontica. A lot of graffiti has been found at the site, and this normally consists of two letters, the I and the H, which could represent the beginning of Ietros: the healer. But, in 2013, an almost complete Archaic-era cup from the first half of the 6th century BC was found in a votive pit. It bears an inscription that was dedicated to Apollo Ietros. Although the name of the dedicator is missing, it mentions that they were from the city of Knidos, which is some 1,000km away, on the Mediterranean coast of present-day Turkey. While the cup itself is quite ordinary in the wider context of Greek pottery, it is interesting because this particular type is rare in Apollonia. Indeed, until last year it was the only one known from the site. Because of this, it is quite plausible that the cup was not something that the dedicator simply bought at a market in Apollonia to dedicate to Apollo Ietros; instead, they may well have brought it from home to make the offering.’
The excavations are revealing important new information about the foundation of Apollonia Pontica, too. It forms part of a group of settlements on the Black Sea created by colonists from Miletus, with other sites including the island of Berezan, off the coast of Ukraine, and Histria, in Romania. According to the written sources, both of these cities were founded around the mid-600s BC, placing them a few decades before Apollonia Pontica. Both Berezan and Histria have been explored by archaeologists and produced plenty of Archaic material, with the pottery indicating occupation from roughly 630 BC. For the first time, the excavations on St Kirik have yielded a comparable corpus of Archaic material from Apollonia Pontica. Analysis of the pottery shows similar types and overall proportions of early vessels to those known from Berezan and Histria. This indicates that Apollonia Pontica was established at an earlier date than previously appreciated, and was roughly contemporary with the other two Milesian cities. Such a discovery makes perfect sense, given the status of Apollonia Pontica as a vital port of call for anyone sailing up the west coast of the Black Sea.
The results of the St Kirik excavations also provide a flavour of how this key area developed. A house dating to the first half of the 6th century was demolished to make way for the large altar set outside one of the temples, while layers dating back to the 7th century were found sealed under the temple foundations. This shows that it was only a century or so after the foundation of the city that the Apollonians had apparently amassed enough wealth to expand their sacred area and start monumentalising it.
This is an extract of an article that appeared in CWA 131. Read on in the magazine (Click here to subscribe) or on our website, The Past, which offers all of the magazine’s content digitally. At The Past you will be able to read each article in full as well as the content of our other magazines, Current Archaeology, Ancient Egypt, and Military History Matters.
