Termessos: Ancient Site Untouched Since the Fall of Rome | Pisidia Series 03

Описание: Termessos: Ancient Site Untouched Since the Fall of Rome | Pisidia Series 03
Hidden deep within the Taurus Mountains near Antalya, Turkey, more than a thousand meters above sea level, lies Termessos one of the most extraordinary and least disturbed ancient cities in the world. Unlike many classical sites, Termessos was never systematically excavated, restored, or rebuilt. For centuries, no one moved its stones. What remains is not a reconstruction, but a city left almost exactly as it was.

Chapters:
00:00 Where Once Stood This Hidden Ancient Mountain City?
01:07 Why Did Alexander Turn Back Here?
06:37 How Did the Gymnasium Shape an Ancient Civilization?
08:53 How Did This Lost City Survive Without Water?
12:02 What Made This Theater One of the Most Dramatic in the Ancient World?
13:21 Who Was Alketas and Why Does He Still Matter?
17:26 Why Do These Ruins Still Speak in Silence?

This video explores Termessos as a living silence a mountain city shaped by geography, resilience, and choice. Founded by the Pisidians, a Luwian-rooted Anatolian people who called themselves the Solymians, Termessos was never a Greek colony, despite the Greek inscriptions found on its stones. Those inscriptions reflect the administrative language of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, not the city’s ethnic origin.

In 333 BC, Alexander the Great marched across Anatolia, defeating armies and capturing cities thought to be impregnable. Termessos was different. Surrounded by sheer cliffs and narrow mountain passes, the city was deemed impossible to besiege. According to ancient historians, Alexander turned back. Termessos survived without a battle.

The film follows the city’s layout from its Roman-period gate and northeast necropolis to its gymnasium, cistern system, agora, and dramatically placed theater overlooking the Gulf of Antalya. With no natural springs, Termessos depended entirely on rainwater collection, sustaining itself through an intricate network of cisterns and channels a remarkable feat of long-term planning and engineering.

More than 1,200 inscriptions have been identified on the surface alone, most dealing with burial law, civic honor, education, and public benefaction. These texts reveal a society deeply concerned with integrity, memory, and belonging. Tombs remain intact, sarcophagi stand where they were placed, and personal stories of soldiers, students, artists, and travelers still speak quietly through stone.

The city underwent major rebuilding during the Roman Imperial period, particularly after destructive earthquakes. Temples, bath complexes, and public buildings reflect Roman engineering, while local traditions and identity endured. Termessos adopted Roman forms, but never lost its local character.

Sometime around the early 5th century AD, the city was gradually abandoned. No substantial early Byzantine reconstruction followed. Whether due to earthquakes, water system failure, disease, or a combination of factors, life at the summit slowly became unsustainable. The city did not fall it dissolved. Family by family, door by door.

What remains today is not ruin, but presence. Wind, birds, shifting light and a silence that is anything but empty. Termessos is not merely a site to be seen; it is a place that reshapes how we think about time, memory, and what it means for a city to endure without being conquered, rebuilt, or erased.

#lostcivilizations #ancienthistory #ancientcivilizations

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