Maps of ancient city in Turkey now available online

IZMIR, Turkey

Maps of the 2,300-year-old city of Pergamon in Turkey’s Izmir province are now accessible digitally.

Archaeological work is being carried out in the ancient city by the German Archaeological Institute with the permission of Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry and it mapped a 12.5- square-kilometer area on a digital platform.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, the director of the institute, Felix Pirson, said the new studies serve as a geographic information system.

He said there are deficiencies in the data about the region from work in the 1970s, noting they felt the need to update maps visualizing Pergamon in the 3rd century B.C.

Pointing out that they collaborated with Bergama Municipality and Bergama Museum as part of the research, Pirson said architects, engineers, archaeologists and IT specialists have been working together on the digital maps.

"It is possible to see many ancient sites on the maps. New data can also be integrated. We have added the work of the last 30 years. Archaeologists and tourists only look at the Acropolis. However, Pergamon does not only consist of the Acropolis. It is a city," he said.

Pirson noted that the city was built on a hill in the Hellenistic period, but in the Roman era, it reached much wider borders.

Regarding the digital mapping work on Pergamon, he said: “The new maps have also been surprising to me. They contain a lot of information and links. It gives us much more accurate information.”

“We shared the ancient features of Bergama with the whole world. We want this information to reach a large number of people,“ he added.

Pergamon has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 2014.

It was an ancient Greek city 16 miles from the Aegean Sea and is now surrounded by the modern Turkish city of Bergama.