Friday 28 December 2018

New Museum in Milas

The BacktoBodrum.com site is up and running but I still haven't managed to switch my mailing list over so I will continue to put some of the more important posts on Blogger. 
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Do watch the video below - an audacious tomb raid the thieves felt so comfortable executing that they make a home movie. 
A new museum has quietly opened in Milas. If there has been a grand inauguration, I’ve missed it.  This low key start belies the exciting archaeological find in the centre of Milas, the discovery of which would make a great Hollywood blockbuster – I can already see George Clooney as the lead.
In 2010, a daring tomb raid was discovered. The thieves rented a house in the dilapidated centre of Milas,  drilled a wide tunnel down  several metres and then across until they bored through  marble and discovered a sarcophagus surrounded by elegant wall paintings.   All this went on without the authorities getting wind of it. Travelling back from Istanbul one time we met a chap whose mother lived in an old house very close to this escapade. She constantly complained to her family that she could here strange noises and they just told her that she had tinnitus. So confident were these thieves/treasure hunters that they then made a video of their discovery and it’s on YouTube for us all to see.      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWSKwMkAWPg

Who organised this raid is still unknown (or unpublished). Through all my time organising tours to the area, this part of Ancient Mylasa was referred to as a temple so it was news to many of us that there was a burial chamber here and the excavations started after the raid was discovered have pretty much proved that this is was a mausoleum dedicated to Hekatomnus, father of Mausolus  ( So should we now call all mausoleums – hekotomneums?).

2 comments:

  1. with a video of what was nicked have they managed to recover any of the swag?

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  2. Wonderful post and great story! It reads like something out of a thriller, albeit a slow one with stops for tea, visits from teyze and so on.

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