Greek city of Kelenderis in Cilicia
Bronze 12mm (1.55 grams) Struck 2nd-1st Centuries B.C
Reference: SNG Levante 31; SNG France 118; SNG von Aulock 5644; BMC 39; W. 7530
Facing gorgoneion.
KE, Goat kneeling right, head left; star to right.

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In Ancient Greece, the Gorgoneion was originally a horror-creating apotropaic pendant showing the Gorgon’s head. It was assimilated by the Olympian deities Zeus and Athena: both are said to have worn it as a protective pendant. It was assumed, among other godlike attributes, as a royal aegis, by rulers of the Hellenistic age, as shown, for instance, on the Alexander Mosaic and the Gonzaga Cameo.

Homer refers to the Gorgon on four occasions, each time alluding to the head alone, as if the creature had no body. Jane Ellen Harrison notes that "Medusa is a head and nothing more…a mask with a body later appended". Up to the 5th century BC, the head was depicted as particularly ugly, with a protruding tongue, boar tusks, puffy cheeks, her eyeballs staring fixedly on the viewer and the snakes twisting all around her.

The direct frontal stare, "seemingly looking out from its own iconographical context and directly challenging the viewer", was highly unusual in ancient Greek art. In some instances a beard (probably standing for streaks of blood) was appended to her chin, making her appear as an orgiastic deity akin to Dionysus.

Gorgoneia that decorate the shields of warriors on mid-5th century Greek vases are considerably less grotesque and menacing. By that time, the Gorgon had lost her tusks and the snakes were rather stylized. The Hellenistic marble known as the Medusa Rondanini illustrates the Gorgon’s eventual transformation into a beautiful woman.

Aydıncık is a town and district of Mersin Province on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, 173 km (107 mi) from Mersin and 325 km (202 mi) from Antalya.Aydıncık has also been called Celenderis, Gilindire, Kelenderis.

This remote coastline is mostly unspoilt and 38 kilometers long, including some sandy beach, and the town of Aydıncık is spread along the coast near a small point, Sancak Burnu.

 History

Aydıncık is the site of ancient Celenderis, a port and fortress in Isauria. It was one of the best harbours of this coast in ancient times and also a very strong defensive position. Artemidorus, with other geographers, considered this place, as the commencement of Cilicia. There must have been earlier settlement going back to the Hittites and Assyrians but so far no evidence has been uncovered.

According to legend the city was founded by Sandocus, a grandson of Phaethon, who emigrated here from Syria. He married Pharnace, the princess of Hyria. Their son Cinyras founded Paphos. Historians reported that the city was indeed a Phoenician settlement, later expanded by an Ionian colony from Samos. Excavations carried out since 1986 have revealed findings going back to the 8th century B.C. when the Samians arrived.

The city thrived during the 4th and 5th centuries BC. It was a stop on the shipping lanes between the Aegean Sea to the west, Cyprus to the south, and Syria to the east. In the 450s B.C. the fleets of Athens passed by on their way to support rebellions against the Achaemenid Empire in Cyprus and Egypt. During this period Celenderis became the easternmost city to pay tribute to the Athenian-led Delian league. Payments were only made from 460 B.C. to 454 B.C. before Athens abandoned both campaigns and accepted a peace agreement which left Celenderis in the Achaemenid-allied Kingdom of Cilicia.

During the Hellenistic era (1st century BC) Celenderis was in a political coalition with the kingdom of the Ptolemys of Egypt, and faced severe difficulties from piracy. This problem persisted until Ancient Rome took military actions against the pirates, and Celenderis enjoyed a second period of wealth as the Romans secured the Mediterranean trade routes. They built a city around the port with villas, palaces, waterworks, and baths. During the Middle Ages, the grandeur persisted as the city was controlled by Byzantium, and in the 11th century the Armenians.

In 1228 Celenderis castle was captured from the Armenians by the Karamanoğlu and the coast was settled by Turkish peoples. The town’s name mutated to Gilindere and it continued to be an important port between Anatolia and Cyprus until the beginning of the twentieth century. It was renamed Aydıncık in 1965.

 Celenderis Coins

The town gave name to a region called Celenderitis, and coined those silver tetradrachms, which supply some of the earliest and finest specimens of the numismatic art. There are also coins of the Syrian kings, and of the later Roman emperors.

 Places of interest

The remains of ancient Celenderis are very few and the ruins today are mostly overlaid by the expanding modern Aydıncık. Fortifications may still be detected around the modern lighthouse on the small promontory which forms and commands the harbor. There is a landlocked bay with its famous spring 1.6 km to the west at Soguksu. Here there are ancient ruins, notably a bath at the head of the bay and archaeological debris on the peninsula at its mouth. There are handsome but much destroyed rock-cut tombs at Duruhan 9.6 km to the North.

In 2002, remains of a 2400 year-old harbor was discovered underwater around the island Yılanlı Ada.

 The Port Bath

It was most probably built during fourth or fifth centuries AD. The castle on the point and the theater apparently belong to the Roman era. * About Aydıncık

 Tombs

In the graveyards of the city, rock graves, vaulted graves and pyramid-roofed monumental graves can be seen spanning a period from the sixth millennium B.C. up to the fourth century. The majority of the items displayed at the museum are from these graves.

 Floor Mosaic

The mosaic discovered near the port in 1992 is an exceptional example in depicting the panorama of the city as it stood in the fifth century.

 The Dortayak Cenotaph

There is a large Roman Cenotaph with four columns from the 2nd century. It was marked as a CENOTAPH (a monument erected as a memorial to a dead person or dead people buried elsewhere, especially people killed fighting a war) on the map of Chelindreh harbor prepared by Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort. This is a tetrapylon made of well-cut limestones with a rectangular burial room on the lower part, four pylons erected on this and a pyramidal roof carried by the arches of the four pylons. This type is a common one in the Roma period and may be dated to the second half of the second or early third century AD.

 Gilindire Cave

The cave of Gilindere is about an hour’s ride along the coast by small boat, and is 555m of attractive stone and crystal formations.