The North Bastion on the Tepecik Acropolis at Patara: Dating “Early Hellenistic” Fortification Walls in Southwestern Anatolia

by Erkan Dündar and Nicholas K. Rauh

Hesperia, Volume 86, Issue 3
Page(s): 509-581
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2972/hesperia.86.3.0509
Year: 2017
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ABSTRACT:

The Turkish excavations of the North Bastion complex on the Tepecik acropolis at Patara furnish important new evidence for the dating of fortifications throughout southwestern Anatolia. Our analysis indicates that the Tepecik Bastion was constructed in the mid-4th century B.C. by the Hekatomnids and that it succumbed to an assault by the forces of Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. Our analysis suggests that freestanding bastions preexisted Geländemauer throughout this region. Most importantly, the Bastion's Phase IVa destruction level, which contained a sling bullet inscribed “Alexander, son of Philip,” furnishes a new and important datum point for the fine wares and terracottas found at that level.