A Race to Save Roman Splendors From DrowningA new lake is being formed as water from the Euphrates River backs up behind a new dam. Turkey is in the midst of a huge dam-building project that is to provide electric power for the country's booming economy and irrigation for parched farmland in southeastern provinces. The ruins here are those of Zeugma, an important Roman garrison town on the ancient Silk Road. Trade made many of its merchants wealthy, and they decorated the floors of their villas with elaborate mosaics... Although archaeologists have been working here sporadically for more than 20 years, they began intensive work only recently after realizing that the inundation was imminent. It quickly became clear that Zeugma was a far more bountiful site than most specialists had realized, but by then it was too late to stop the flooding... Directors of the Gaziantep archaeology museum, where artifacts dug up at Zeugma are piled high, scorned an American philanthropist, Shawn Estes, who appeared here two weeks ago and offered the museum a gift of $20,000... The authorities have, however, accepted a $5 million grant from a California-based foundation, the Packard Humanities Institute... It is still unclear, and may be for years, how much of Zeugma is being lost. Some specialists believe it may be less than 10 percent. Others say there is no way of being sure, since an unknown portion of the city is already under water and no one is certain how much remains buried beneath the adjacent hills.
by Stephen Kinzer
July 3, 2000
Looking at the really long term, whatever remains unexcavated under the reservoir is safe indefinitely.