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Culture and Tourism Ministry grants 800,000 Turkish Liras for the restoration works of Nero's Lighthouse, believed to be the world's oldest.

In a previous version of this story, the Daily news incorrectly identified the location of Patara. It was corrected on Oct. 1, 2009.

The Turkish government has allocated a budget to restore an ancient lighthouse, believed to be the world's oldest. 

Culture and Tourism Minister Ertu?rul Günay said Wednesday that his ministry would grant 800,000 Turkish Liras for the restoration of Nero's Lighthouse, discovered four years ago in the ancient city of Patara, located near today’s Mediterranean town of Gelemi? in Antalya province.

Günay said restoration works would begin as soon as possible. “We have allocated the necessary funds for the restoration of the lighthouse, and more money will be sent if need be,” Günay told the Do?an news agency over the phone.

In the 2009 budget, the money allocated for excavation works in all ancient cities has increased 40 times, from 500,000 to 21 million liras, he said.

“The allocation will be at least 24 million liras for next year,” the minister said. “We want excavation works to speed up; there are works that have been going on for years. And the recently launched excavation work should be finished immediately and restoration should start.”

The lighthouse has been dated to around A.D. 60 because the name of Nero, the Roman emperor at the time, was found on significant remnants of the circular inscription that surrounded the structure.

Havva Isık, professor of the archaeology department of the faculty of arts and sciences at Akdeniz University, headed the team that discovered the lighthouse, and called on the authorities in late July to allocate money to save the lighthouse. She said the ancient building could be the new symbol of Antalya.

The team came across the ruins of the historical lighthouse, which stands 60 meters from the sea today, during excavation work done in Patara in 2005. “It was covered under an 11-meter high sand dune,” Isık told daily Milliyet at the time. “We had to remove approximately 3,000 truck loads of sand to uncover it.

But it should be restored, or we will lose it forever.”

The restoration plans for the lighthouse have been prepared, at an estimated cost of 800,000 liras. It was not possible to find the necessary funds until the subject was brought to public attention.

Antalya needs a symbol, said Isık, adding that it could not be oranges. “If we can restore the lighthouse, it can be the new symbol of Antalya. It will become a world-renowned brand. But first, we must restore the lighthouse and reintroduce it to the sea. If we can do this, it will mean a tourism boom.”

“The world's oldest lighthouse was known to be the one in Lacaruna, Spain,” Isık said. “The lighthouse we have found is 60 years older than the one in Spain. It has ancient Hellenistic features. The bronze inscriptions indicate that this was a monument of the roman period."

Isık said they believed the lighthouse was destroyed by a tsunami because a human skeleton was found among the ruins. The skeleton could have belonged to a lighthouse keeper who was trying to escape a tsunami but was crushed under the lighthouse's stone blocks, she said.

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TGIF

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