Eumeneia (modern Işıklı), an Attalid foundation of the 160s or 150s BC, served as the chief garrison-town of the Roman province of Asia from the Flavian period to at least the mid-third century AD. Situated at the foot of Sarıbaba Tepesi, at the mouth of the Kûfû Vadisi (the pass leading north-east to the Sandıklı ovası, the ancient Phrygian Pentapolis), it controlled a large stretch of territory in the middle Maeander valley. The site has produced a very large number of funerary monuments of the Roman and Late Roman periods, including a particularly rich and interesting collection of early Christian monuments.1
Most of the 39 monuments published here (8 of them previously known) were recorded by Calder in 1954 and by Ballance in 1955 and 1956. Eight monuments (MAMA XI 26, 35, 44, 51-55) were recorded in 1954 by the Near Eastern archaeologist Richard Barnett, Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum from 1955 to 1974.2 A further 202 Greek and Latin inscriptions are known from Eumeneia and its territory: see the separate List of Published Inscriptions. The territory of Eumeneia was naturally limited to the east by the massive Ak Dağ mountain range; to the south-east, her territory probably extended as far as the villages of Duman and Yeşilhöyük, in the marshy region south of the Düzbel pass over the Ak Dağ. To the north and north-west, her territory was probably limited by the ridge of hills separating the Maeander plain from the more elevated Banaz ovası. The extent of Eumeneian territory to the south-west is harder to judge. Two inscriptions from the village of Kavak, in the Maeander plain 25km south-west of Işıklı (Ramsay, Phrygia I 246, no. 86; MAMA XI 25), suggest that Kavak may have belonged to the koinon of the Hyrgaleis, a non-polis community located in the region of the Çal ovası, west of Kavak.3
2. Richard David Barnett (1909-1986): Anatolian Studies 33 (1983), 12-14; PBA 76 (1990), 321-47. Barnett’s squeezes and photographs were passed to Ballance at an uncertain date.
Eumeneia (modern Işıklı), an Attalid foundation of the 160s or 150s BC, served as the chief garrison-town of the Roman province of Asia from the Flavian period to at least the mid-third century AD. Situated at the foot of Sarıbaba Tepesi, at the mouth of the Kûfû Vadisi (the pass leading north-east to the Sandıklı ovası, the ancient Phrygian Pentapolis), it controlled a large stretch of territory in the middle Maeander valley. The site has produced a very large number of funerary monuments of the Roman and Late Roman periods, including a particularly rich and interesting collection of early Christian monuments.1
Most of the 39 monuments published here (8 of them previously known) were recorded by Calder in 1954 and by Ballance in 1955 and 1956. Eight monuments (MAMA XI 26, 35, 44, 51-55) were recorded in 1954 by the Near Eastern archaeologist Richard Barnett, Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum from 1955 to 1974.2 A further 202 Greek and Latin inscriptions are known from Eumeneia and its territory: see the separate List of Published Inscriptions. The territory of Eumeneia was naturally limited to the east by the massive Ak Dağ mountain range; to the south-east, her territory probably extended as far as the villages of Duman and Yeşilhöyük, in the marshy region south of the Düzbel pass over the Ak Dağ. To the north and north-west, her territory was probably limited by the ridge of hills separating the Maeander plain from the more elevated Banaz ovası. The extent of Eumeneian territory to the south-west is harder to judge. Two inscriptions from the village of Kavak, in the Maeander plain 25km south-west of Işıklı (Ramsay, Phrygia I 246, no. 86; MAMA XI 25), suggest that Kavak may have belonged to the koinon of the Hyrgaleis, a non-polis community located in the region of the Çal ovası, west of Kavak.3
List of monuments from Eumeneia
Notes
1. Ramsay, Phrygia II, 353-95, 514-33; Robert, Hellenica XI/XII, 398-439; Drew-Bear 1978: 53-114; Trebilco 2002; Thonemann 2011a: 130-77.
2. Richard David Barnett (1909-1986): Anatolian Studies 33 (1983), 12-14; PBA 76 (1990), 321-47. Barnett’s squeezes and photographs were passed to Ballance at an uncertain date.
3. Extent of territory to the south-east: Drew-Bear 1978: 104-6 (confusing the villages of Sundurlu and Süngüllü). Hyrgaleis: Habicht 1975: 82-3; Aulock 1980: 60-3; Jones 2009.