Amissos

Amis­sos — Sam­sun, Turkey — Images by Kira Hagen

The Eng­lish Club vis­ited Amis­sos on a cool Novem­ber after­noon. The the win­try sun­light was fad­ing fast, and slid golden over the twin tumuli atop the hill above the old har­bor, slowly fad­ing to twi­light blues as it sank behind the coastal moun­tains. The air was cool, a faint breeze blow­ing in from the sea. Sit­u­ated  to give panoramic views of the West­wards from Sam­sun, the city seemed, for once, tran­quil in the Black Sea dusk.

Amis­sos is the name of the ancient set­tle­ment which pre­ceded mod­ern Sam­sun. It was a trad­ing port in Hel­lenis­tic times, and famed as belong­ing to the home­land of the Ama­zons. Samsun’s mod­ern cit­i­zens use the name mainly to mean the site of two tombs and a mod­ern cafe some­what East of the city, and also to denote the oth­er­wise invis­i­ble his­toric fore­bear of the ram­shackle mod­ern town.

The tumuli are named Kalka­nca and Baruthane, accord­ing to the Direc­torate of Cul­ture and Tourism’s Sam­sun hand­book, and may have been used as light­houses; from a cer­tain angle the two mounds align and only one is vis­i­ble, appar­ently indi­cat­ing an ancient har­bor entrance. Claims have been made that the hills were used as tem­ple spots for Roman dieties as well.

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