In 2021, a diver stumbled upon a round pole while diving off the coast of the city of Dikili in western Turkey. It took archaeologists more than a year to establish the origins of the artifacts.
Turkish engineer Denem Orhun accidentally discovered an underwater port of the ancient city while diving in the Aegean Sea off the coast of the Turkish district of Dikili during his summer vacation a year ago, according to Hurriyet.
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The 39-year-old engineer, who works in the United States, then passed on his photographs of the artifacts to a team working on excavations in the ancient city of Pergamum. It took researchers a year to establish that the columns discovered by Orhun were part of a port that belonged to the ancient city of Atarne, dating back to about the 4th century BC.
Atarney was the reign of the tyrant Hermias, a friend of the famous ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. The city was abandoned in the I century BC, probably after the outbreak of an unknown epidemic.
As for Otun, he can now obviously be proud of his discovery, as the area where he discovered the ancient port has already been declared a first-degree object, and the port itself is called an “architectural find”.