“The ancient city of Knidos is still a hidden jewel on the south-west coast of Turkey”, according to the archeologist Christine Bruns-Özgan. For Homer (809 – 724 BC), the “elevated city of Knidos” was even in its time one of the most significant ancient Greek cities, today, it is a three square kilometer area of ruins way off the usual tourist tracks, however, its definately worth mentioning. It lies under an acropolis, situated on numerous terraces cut out of never ending steep slopes and on the shores at the end of the Datça peninsula between the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas. Two naturally occurring harbours and their favourable position on the main trading route to the Orient definately contributed to the importance and flowering of this city.

Contact between Knidos (“The name itself is of indiginous origin and refers to an Anatolian native” B.-Ö.) and the culture of Mykonos, which had spread as far as Syria in the 14th and 13th centuries BC, is attested to by finds of Minoian pottery fragments and text. In the 12th century the people of Cnidos received and influx of people from Doria, from the environs of Sparta. Soon, other Dorian settlements were established in Kos, Rhodes, Nisyros, Halikarnassos (todays Bodrum) and Telos, whose most important cities joined together to form a Hexapolis – an alliance of six Dorian cities.

The central cultural and meeting place according to the Greek historian Herodot from Halikarnassos (482 – 429) was Triopion, a temple to Apollo on the Knidos peninsula, whose location is still being disputed by archaeologists today. Christine Bruns-Özgan assumed Triopion to be located on the terrace of the Apollo temple inside the immense city walls of Knidos. However, for her fellow archaeologists Numan Tuna and Dietrich Berges this Dorian national treasure was located some 50 kms to the east, below the present day village of Emecik which is not far from “Gebekum” (see Destruction and Rescue), where an Apollo temple was excavated in 1998. Undisputed is the fact that the whole Datça peninsula belonged to Knidos at that time

Knidos even participated in the founding of colonies in Egypt and Sicily in the 7th century. Then in the 6th and 5th centuries the wealthy people of Knidos donated a famous shrine to Delphi through the export of olive oil and wine, this was the first marble building on the Greek mainland, including a hall of pillars furnished with paintings by the painter Polynot, a real treasure house. The Knidos historian and doctor Ktesias (440 – 380) wrote several volumes on the history of the Near East. The Knidos mathematician and astronomer Eudoxos (408 – 355) calculated the spherical shape of the world, had his own observatory erected in Knidos and divided up the night sky according to the stars. The architect and builder Sostratos (340 – 260) designed the plan for the city of Alexandria for the Egyptian King Ptolemaeus and constructed the lighthouse of Pharos, which, because of its height of over 100 meters, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The doctor Euryphon and Herodikos developed new non-medicinal cures.

When the famous sculptor Praxiteles (403 – 335) offered for sale two statues of Aphrodite in Greece and the Hexapolis around 360 BC, the citizens of Kos decided to take the clothed statue as had always been the case but those of Knidos bought the naked Goddess. This statue, placed high over the harbours, became so famous that it, according to the Roman novelist Plinius, triggered off a real tourist wave from overseas. In early Christian times it is supposed to have been carried off to Constantinople where it was destroyed in a fire. Its appearance however has remained famous through images on coins minted when it was still in Knidos, as well as through numerous copies in Roman times, the most famous of which is the statue known as Venus by Milo.

For most archaeologists the original location of the Aphrodite statue was the most outstanding construction of Knidos, the great round temple above the city. Here one could see (as ancient writers described it) the famous Praxiteles artwork from all sides and the sea. Further attractions to be seen are the Dionysos temple, the Dorian temple (pink temple), the rather isolated Demeter sanctum , the sacred theatre, two amphitheatres, the Odaion (the music theatre) and the remains of christian churches, built with stones plundered from the Dorian buildings. The Stoa, a long row of mosaic decorated, marble covered chambers in the same style as the indoor money changing halls in Pergamon, Delos and the famous philosophy school in Athens, was probably built by Sostratos. It has been restored as much as possible by Ramazan and Christine Bruns-Özgan’s team since 2003.

Similiar artworks to Praxiteles Aphrodite have also been carried away from Knidos. The statue of fertility goddess Demeter was taken from its temple and brought to the British Museum in London as well as the statue of the Demeter priestess Nikokleia and an enormous Lion sculpture, which originally adorned a monument in the Nekropole (cemetery city) outside the city walls.

Literature:

Christine Bruns - Özgan: „Knidos – Ein Führer durch die Ruinen“, 2002, Selcuk Universität und „Ein neues archaisches Kopffragment aus Knidos“, in der Festschrift für Fahri Isik zum 60. Geburtstag, 2004
e-mail: coszgan@selcuk.edu.tr

Dietrich Berges: „Alt-Knidos und Neu-Knidos“, IstMitt.44, 1994, 5ff und „Knidos und „Das Bundesheiligtum der dorischen Hexapolis“, Nürnberger Blätter zur Archäologie 12, 1995/96

Arno Peters: Synchronoptische Weltgeschichte, 1970, 2001, bei ZWEITAUSENDEINS