Listed 1 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "DASCUSA Ancient city TURKEY".
The town was located by Ptolemy (Geog. 5.7) on the W bank of the Euphrates,
N of Melitene and S of Zimara, as Dascusa in Armenia Minor or as Dagusa in strategia
Melitene of Cappadocia. It is listed again in the Antonine Itinerary on the route
from Satala to Samosata along the bank of the Euphrates 60 Roman miles from Zimara
and from Melitene. Pliny (HN 5.83) gives distances by river, Zimara to Dascusa
75 miles and thence to Melitene 74 miles. The consonance of these distances with
modern topography make it reasonably certain that the archaeological site at Agin
described below is Dascusa, though as yet (1971) no relevant epigraphic testimony
has been found. Dascusa does not figure in history. An inscription attests the
presence of a cohort in A.D. 82, a tombstone the settlement of a legionary veteran
of Helvetian origin. The Notitia Dignitatum (or. 38.22) places the Ala Auriana
in garrison there in the 4th c.
Agin lies 5 km W of the Euphrates on a tributary, the Agin Cay. In
the valley below the town on the steep S bank is a mound called Kalecik of which
the lower levels date from the Late Bronze Age. There was a walled settlement
here in the Roman period and the top level was a small Byzantine fortress. On
the N side, at Hosrik, nearer Agin, a church of the 6th c. and a granary of the
3d c. A.D. have been excavated. Also to be associated with the Roman settlement
is a cemetery near the village of Pagnik at the mouth of the valley of which the
use, dated by coins, ranges from Trajan to Commodus. To the NE of Agin on the
Euphrates bank, lies the hill called Kilise Yazisi Tepe. This was surrounded with
a fortification wall a meter thick, strengthened with small internal rectangular
towers. Coins and pottery found during the excavation indicated an occupation
in the 2d-3d c. A.D. Opposite this site, on the E bank, again on a natural promontory,
stands the castle called Kalaycik Tepe. This was occupied from the 3d millennium
B.C. onwards. The slight occupation during the Roman period was destroyed by fire.
A vigorous mediaeval settlement seems to have lasted until the 12th
c. About 3 km S of Kilise Yazlsl Tepe, over very rough terrain, and 1 km N of
Pagnik village stands the fort of Pagnik Oreni, again on a defensible promontory
overlooking a summer ford of the Euphrates. A curtain wall 2 in thick encloses
a subtriangular area of ca. 0.9 ha. It is punctuated with 11 semicircular or horseshoe-shaped
towers, ranging in size from large on the landward side to small on the steep
riverbank, and with four gateways, one 4 in wide, the others small posterns. This
enceinte may be related to the general strengthening of E defenses under Constantius
(Singara and Amida are similar, if on differing scales). The construction and
first brief occupation is dated archaeologically to the mid 4th c. At the end
of the century the fort was repaired shoddily and most of the surviving internal
buildings erected. The latest coin is of A.D. 402. On the Arapkir Cay, a large
tributary of the Euphrates, S of Agin, stands the fine Karamagara Koprusu, a bridge
with a Christian Greek inscription which has been dated to the 6th c. A.D. on
stylistic grounds. All the sites here described will be flooded by the lake of
the Keban Dam during the 1970s. The Roman signal station on the eminence of Mineyik
Tepe, S of the Arapkir Cay, will remain above water. Finds from the Keban Project
Excavations are housed in the Elazig Museum.
R. P. Harper, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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