Bathonea
Bathonea
Archaeological town site in Turkey
Bathonea (Ancient Greek: Βαθονεία) is the probable name of a local community division known as a hekatostys (ἑκατοστύς, meaning "Hundred") of Byzantion or Rhegion that has generated considerable archaeological interest after being erroneously promoted as a "lost" city.[1] It is located on the European shore of the sea of Marmara, 20 km west from Istanbul, Turkey in Küçükçekmece.[2][3]
Among the claims are that it was at some point home to some of the Varangian Guards, elite Norsemen guards & settlers in Constantinople.[4][5][6][7][8] The ruins found at the site, which have always remained visible, were studied extensively in 1930, specially during the Republican era by the Swiss archeologist Ernest Mamboury,[9] who firstly thought and identified the settlement as the town of Rhegion based on some ancient sources.[9]
In 2009 though, a new identification was proposed, as the Hellenistic-Roman city of Bathonea, which was taken as fact, generating considerable academic and public interest[2][3] At the present, excavations are conducted under the direction of Dr. Şengül Aydıngün, an associate Professor of the Kocaeli University, and it continues to be promoted as a "lost" city despite the presence of only scant archaeological remains and no such city ever being referenced by any known contemporary sources from the Classical or Byzantine periods.