Martin Seeliger

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at ZGeoBw

Pergamum (modern: Bergama) was operating an important harbour used by military forces and merchants at the city of Elaia during Hellenistic and Roman Imperial times. Harbour-related facilities such as warehouses, breakwaters and wharfs document the importance of this harbour site not only for the Pergamenians. This paper focuses on the purpose and...

During Hellenistic and Roman times, Elaia, the harbour city of ancient Pergamum, was an important place of trading and traffic. Intense mercantile and military activities are documented by literary sources and archaeological evidences. Geomagnetic and geoelectric investigations detected building structures close to the ancient coastline, which are...

During Hellenistic and Roman times, Elaia, the harbour city of ancient Pergamon, was an important place of trade and traffic at the western coast of Asia Minor. Intense military and mercantile activities are documented by literary sources and archaeological evidences. This dissertation focuses on (I) the reconstruction of shoreline displacements; (...

Geomorphology generally aims to describe and investigate the processes that lead to the formation of landscapes, while geochronology is needed to detect their timing and duration. Due to restrictions on exporting geological samples from Egypt, modern geoscientific studies in the Nile Delta lack the possibility of dating the investigated sediments a...

Die geoarchäologische Forschung ist in starkem Maße vom jeweiligen Naturraum und seiner geomorphologischen und klimageographischen Ausstattung abhängig. Das Kapitel betrachtet zunächst fluviale Systeme in humiden und ariden Räumen, das heißt Flusslandschaften im Hinblick auf ihre Bedeutung für die menschliche Besiedelungsgeschichte und ihre Erforsc...

We combined biostratigraphical analyses, archaeological surveys, and Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) models to provide new insights into the relative sea-level evolution in the northeastern Aegean Sea (eastern Mediterranean). In this area, characterized by a very complex tectonic pattern, we produced a new typology of sea-level index point, base...

The current state of research about ancient settlements within the Nile Delta allows the hypothesizing of fluvial connections to ancient settlements all over the Nile Delta. Previous studies suggest a larger Nile branch close to Kom el-Gir, an ancient settlement hill in the northwestern Nile Delta. To contribute new knowledge to this little-known s...

This article summarizes the results of a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under the umbrella of the SPP 1630 from 2012 to 2018. During the field campaigns archaeological, architectural, geoarchaeological and geophysical investigations were carried out. The research focus was on the topographical and economic development of Ain...

Special Issue in Quaternary International - Deadline 30.08.2020

We apply seismic full waveform inversion (FWI) to SH and Love wave data for investigating the near‐surface lithology of an archaeological site. We evaluate the resolution of the applied FWI algorithm through ground truthing in form of an excavation and sediment cores. Thereby, we investigate the benefits of FWI in comparison to other established me...

Modern portable and handheld XRF devices (pXRF) allow quick measurement of large geochemical datasets without the necessity for laboratory facilities. Such facilities are rare in Egypt and modern dating techniques which are indispensable in Geoarchaeology to establish a robust chronology are not available, as sample transport is restricted and Egyp...

We present two examples of seismic full waveform inversion (FWI) on small scale archaeological canal structures and compare the results with coring and excavation data to evaluate the benefits coming from FWI concerning resolution and material contrast. In the first example, the applicability of a combined low- and bandpass filter FWI strategy for...

In the follow-up to our Session ”Using the “multi-proxy approach” to detect landscape and environmental changes” held at the INQUA meeting in Dublin we would like to organise a Special Issue in QI named “Multi-Proxy at the Seas and Coasts” To promote the „Coastal and Marine Processes (CMP)“ Commission of the INQUA to which our Session was associate...

This study presents the first results of the former fluvial landscape around the Kom el-Gir, which was settled between the 4th cent. BC and the 7th cent. AD. A Late Roman fort, the first from the interior of the Delta, was archaeologically verified recently. Based on a multi-proxy approach containing corings and ERT-profiles we aim to prove the ass...

Throughout human history, communication and trade have been key to society. Because maritime trade facilitated the rapid transportation of passengers and freight at relatively low cost, harbours became hubs for traffic, trade and exchange. This general statement holds true for the Pergamenian kingdom, which ruled wide parts of today's western Turke...

The catastrophic storm surge of tropical cyclone Nargis in May 2008 demonstrated Myanmar's exposure to coastal flooding. The investigation of sediments left by tropical cyclone Nargis and its predecessors is an important contribution to prepare for the impact of future tropical cyclones and tsunamis in the region, because they may extend the databa...

We (Anna Pint, University of Cologne and Martin Seeliger, Goethe-University Frankfurt) organise a session entitled ‘Using the “multi-proxy approach” to detect landscape and environmental changes’ at this Congress. Please find the session abstract attached. Although it is placed in the INQUA Commission: Coastal and Marine Processes, we are open to s...

Throughout mankind’s history, the need to secure and protect the home settlement was an essential one. This holds especially true for the city of Ainos (modern Enez) in Turkish Thrace. Due to its continuous settlement history since the 7th/6th century BC, several different types of city walls were built—sometimes even on top of each other—several o...

Gangstarap-images recently have become an important part of the German everyday entertainment culture. Underlying a mode of construction shaped by a current discourse about migrant masculinities and juvenile delinquency, these images derive from references to the speakers ethnic and class-background and their enactment of certain body norms. By app...

The ancient city of Kane, situated at the NW corner of the Kane Peninsula (NW Anatolia, Turkey), is known from ancient literary sources as a local harbour place in the area of the Pergamenian kingdom, which hosted a Roman fleet in winter 191/190 BC. Its precise location could not be determined so far. In search of evidences of the ancient Kane harb...

LAC is a biennial series of conferences coordinated by the International Association of Landscape Archaeology-(IALA). The founding conference took place in Amsterdam in 2010, and subsequent conferences have been held in Berlin (2012), Rome (2014) and Uppsala (2016). With each conference, LAC's geographical range and interdisciplinary span expands....

The Shirasuka lowlands, located on the Enshu-nada coast of central Japan, record evidence for numerous extreme wave events. Here we test the applicability of using the luminescence signal from feldspars to date these young (< 1000 a) extreme wave event deposits. The signal used for dating is the IRSL signal (measured at 50?C) as part of a post-IR I...

In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC the kingdom of Pergamon was an important regional power in the eastern Mediterranean and governed most of the western part of modern Turkey in its heyday. Their stronghold was situated inland and thus they were in need of a harbour (fig. 1). Access to the sea was provided through the acquisition of nearby Elaia, situ...

Presentation of recent results dealing with ”SH full waveform inversion: application to synthetic and near-surface field data” at the Bergen-Kiel Seismology Workshop

The absence of common sea-level indicators in the study area of Elaia, Pergamon's harbour city in Hellenistic and Roman times, forced to establish a new reliable indicator, which was found in the foraminifera associations in connection with the transgressive contact. The strength of this indicator is the exclusion of post-depositional compaction. A...

Die in römischer und byzantinischer Zeit bedeutende thrakische Hafenstadt Ainos lässt sich im Mündungsbereich des Flusses Hebros an der griechisch-türkischen Grenze lokalisieren. Heutzutage befindet sich auf dem ehemaligen Siedlungsgebiet die Kleinstadt Enez. Die Stadt Ainos bildete als Schnittstelle zwischen Binnenland und Meer einen wichtigen wir...

The prehistoric site of Ifri n'Ammar is situated in the easternmost part of the Rif Mountains in Morocco. It is a key location in unravelling the history of anatomically modern humans (AMH) in northern Africa as it reveals Middle and Late Palaeolithic occupation phases since ∼170 ka. Whilst the archaeological sequence within the rock shelter has be...

During Hellenistic times, when the Pergamenian kingdom was prospering, Pergamum was operating an important harbour, used by merchants and military at the city of Elaia. This paper focuses on the development, utilisation and decay of the closed harbour of Elaia, which is discussed in the context of the landscape evolution of the environs of the anci...

Considerable landscape changes took place at the coasts of western Turkey during the Holocene. This is exemplified with three famous ancient harbour cities: Miletus, Ephesos and Elaia, the harbour city of Pergamon. In this context new scenarios are presented for the progradation of the Büyük Menderes and the Küçük Menderes deltas, supplemented by f...