“Secrets of the Colosseum’s Forgotten Rival: Ancient Gladiator Arena Revealed in Turkey”
With a record budget of one million Turkish Liras, the university’s archaeology department has spent the last 14 months on these excavations. Gülsen said the ancient city housing this site was the largest settlement in Anatolia — churches, rock tombs, aqueducts, mosaics, a theater, castle, and the arch once comprised the city.
“Even the 22.5-meter-long (74 feet) and 10.5-meter-high (35 feet) triumphal arch, which was built in the 3rd century in memory of the Roman Empire’s victory against the Persians, looks magnificent,” said Gülsen.
“Anavarza,” which means “invincible” in Farsi, was once home to another historically unique attraction: the biggest double road of the ancient era.
Wikimedia CommonsThe Castle of Anavarza
Gülsen explained that works like the aforementioned infrastructures and buildings in the city of Anavarza were built to last. Now, 2,000 years later, well-funded excavations have managed to reveal them to us after millennia of standing firm.
According to Ancient Origins, the triumphal arch discovered in 2015 originally had three arches, but only two have remained standing. Restoration experts have since begun using laser scanners to assess where which blocks of stone would go in order to restore the structure to its original state.
“It is a huge and unique structure decorated with Corinthian heads, columns, pilasters [rectangular columns] and niches,” said Gülsen. “Because of these features, it is the only one in the region that we call Çukurova today, and one of the few monumental city gates within the borders of Turkey.”
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