Anemurium

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Anemurium, in modern Turkish Anamur, is a major city of the Roman province of Rough Cilicia, and Roman Catholic titular see in the former Roman province.

It was situated in Antiquity on a high bluff knob (Cape Anamur) that marks the southernmost point of Asia Minor, opposite Cyprus.

The ruins of its theatres, tombs and walls are still visible. Excavations directed by Professor Elizabeth Alfoldi, University of Toronto, and subsequently James Russell, University of British Columbia, have revealed extensive traces of the city's buildings, tombs and history from the first century after Christ until the city's abandonment around AD 650 when Arab attacks made the coast unsafe. Teams have uncovered a large theatre, a small covered theatre or odeon, several public baths decorated with mosaic floors, four early Christian churches (also with mosaic floors), a civil basilica (law court), and a number of minor structures. Work in the city's extensive necropolis of several hundred tombs built above ground has revealed and conserved wall paintings and more mosaic floors.

[edit] Source

• This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. [1]

University of British Columbia Archaeology Magazine