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Thursday, January 13, 2011

What's in Your Basement?

via HurriyetDailyNews.com
First of all, I wish I HAD a basement. Here in the south, we're on a crawlspace because the frostline isn't very deep. (I really miss the storage space.)

My old house had one. It was an 1875 Victorian gothic farmhouse and while we were restoring it, I was always on the lookout for neat old stuff left behind by previous owners. All I found was a small silver letter opener and a couple of rusty nails.

In Turkey, a basement can hide more interesting things....like wellheads attached to a network of secret underground cisterns, teaming with carp. Not unusual for Istanbul, but even cisterns don't take the top spot of amazing basement artifacts.

I was reading my Hurriyet Daily News the other day and I came across this:

"The Roman-era city of Germenicia was unearthed by chance during an illegal excavation in the basement of a house."

Double-take!!!

OK. So what they really mean is someone noticed mosaics in their basement and they wanted to see what the rest of the pretty pictures looked like. A few eminent domain rulings later, and Turkey has another historic site to visit.

Related Articles

Mosaics found in SE Turkey lead to unearthing of ancient Roman city (hurriyetdailynews.com)
Germanicia Found? (rogueclassicism.com)
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10 comments:

  1. LTMJanuary 13, 2011 at 10:30 AM

    yeah, we had a basement in Indy, and it was supercool for storing thing. No stolen mosaics, however... :D

    How cool re: the Victorian Gothic... oooo... :o) <3

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  2. amesababeJanuary 13, 2011 at 11:17 AM

    I have a fancy hot water heater. wow.

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  3. SouthpawJanuary 13, 2011 at 12:59 PM

    Wow. I mean wow. That tops anything I've very found.

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  4. Golden EagleJanuary 13, 2011 at 1:41 PM

    Rocks and two three fuel tanks.

    A whole lot less impressive than those mosaics!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Matthew MacNishJanuary 13, 2011 at 2:19 PM

    I so hear you on this! In Minnesota everyone has a basement, you have to. Not so much here in GA.

    ReplyDelete
  6. MTeacressJanuary 13, 2011 at 4:36 PM

    Oh, I wish I had such a neat basement. My mom in law has a neat barn, but that's about it. :)

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  7. Old KittyJanuary 13, 2011 at 4:54 PM

    Wow!! Oh now I wish I had a basement in Turkey!!! Wow!! That's amazing!!! I'm glad whoever dug these beautiful mosaics up did the right thing and tell the authorities!!! What a find!! Take care
    x

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  8. ChristopherJanuary 13, 2011 at 7:54 PM

    I don't have my own basement. My building does. There is a washer and dryer and some old bikes.

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  9. Carolyn V.January 13, 2011 at 10:54 PM

    Whoa! All I have in my basement is dirty laundry. It would be so cool to find something mysterious in my basement.=)

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  10. UnknownJanuary 31, 2011 at 1:24 PM

    there are some kids living in my basement, smelly lazy ones

    ReplyDelete

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