Roman Military Harbor Discovered in Ancient Port City of Parion, Turkey

In the ancient world, the port city of Parion was a vital trading point for goods traveling from ancient Greece and the Aegean to the city of Istanbul, and all points beyond. While the city no longer exists, excavations in northwestern Turkey’s Canakkale province near the village of Kemer have uncovered many ruins and artifacts from Parion, including the remains of harbor facilities found in the southern section of the site. During the most recent excavation season, archaeologists were excited to discover a second port farther to the north, one that apparently served an entirely different function than its southern counterpart. 

While excavations have been going on at the site of ancient Parion for two decades, the latest explorations took on a whole new dimension, as they took place off the coastline and under the water. It was here that the ruins of the second port were found, showing that Parion was an even more active port than had been imagined.  

The ongoing archaeological explorations have been sponsored by Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and have been led by Dr. Vedat Keleş, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ondokuz Mavis University in Samsun, Turkey. 

In an interview with the Hurriyet Daily News, Dr. Keles links this newly discovered harbor to the Romans, who took possession of the city of Parion in 133 BC and held onto it for several hundred years. 

“This harbor, compared to the southern harbor, which served as a commercial port, is slightly smaller and filled with alluvium deposited by the river running through the city,” he stated. “Parion was a legion colony, so there is a possibility that this harbor could have been a military port.” 

As the newly launched underwater excavations continue, Dr. Keles and his team hope to find evidence that will reveal for certain how the newly discovered port facilities were used, so they can verify if indeed it was reserved for the movement of soldiers and military supplies. 

The city of Parion was founded in 709 BC along the northwestern coast of modern-day Turkey. From the beginning it was recognized as a vital and strategically located Aegean Sea port city, its safe and sheltered harbor ideal for incoming and outgoing ships of all sizes. Naturally its attractive location made it a desirable possession for many of the Aegean region’s states or empires, and it was controlled at different times by many of the area’s powers.  

In 546 BC, Parion became a Greek city, and it was one of many city-states in the region that eventually joined the Athens-led Delian League. Formed in 478 BC, this confederacy of between 150 and 300 Greek settlements were aligned against the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which in the late sixth century BC had actually seized and ruled Parion.   

When Alexander the Great invaded Asia Minor in 334 BC, he quickly took possession of Parion, recognizing its strategic value to his burgeoning empire. After Alexander died in 323 BC, Parion was passed on to one of his favorite generals, Lysimachus. But in the third century BC it was incorporated into the Greek Kingdom of Pergamon, where it was ruled as a possession of that kingdom’s Attalid dynasty. 

While the city never completely lost its Greek identity, a major change in its fortunes took place in 133 BC. It was in this year that the Attalids ceded Parion to the Romans, who ultimately absorbed it as a colony in its province of Asia.  

During the Roman Empire period, Parion reached its peak as an active port city, and it was the Romans who built its second port at that time. The discovery of the northern port facilities during the latest underwater explorations has confirmed this last fact, highlighting just how busy Parion must have been during its eventful Roman period. Commercial activity there was at an all-time high, and it would have made sense for the Romans to build a military-oriented port to make it the city and the surrounding region easier to defend.