Baptiste Vergnaud – Labraunda surları: Klasik ve Helenistik Karya’da askeri mimari ve günlük yaşam – 31.05.2017

The sanctuary of Labraunda located in Inner Caria, North of the city of Mylasa was protected by 5 towers and fortresses built between the Hekatomnid and the Hellenistic Periods. Research conducted by the French-Swedish team since 2004 provided us with a precise chronology of the defensive network which developped in 2 phases. The first started under the reign of Maussollos (377-353) and the second one goes back to the last decades of the 3rd c. BC. The study of these fortifications showed that they were both military constructions and daily life places.

The presentation will focus on several points. After discussing the new chronological data, we will try to evaluate the place of the labraunda fortifications in the evolution of the defensive practice in Caria and Asia Minor. This will allow us to relate the different construction and occupation phases of the fortification netwrok to the political and military context of Classical and Hellenistic Caria. Finally, as the excavations have shown that these towers and fortresses were occupied permanently and were used for artisanal activities, we will present some observations about the life in and around these buildings leaving aside the purely architectural and strategic considerations. Before the final publication, this presentation aims at presenting the results from one of the rare archaeological project focusing on defensive systems.