Pile Foundation in the Anatolian Mountains – Wrong Technique at the Wrong Place?

Building bridges, houses and temples on foundations consisting of wooden piles is not at all unusual in Roman times. Historical and archaeological evidence of roman pile foundations however is regionally restricted – mainly to the marshy plains of northern Italy and to the Northern provinces along the rivers Rhine and Danube. Recent excavations brought to light an example of a pile foundation at a place where it would never have been expected: on a hilltop in the Anatolian mountains. In this paper I will present the archaeological evidence and then discuss why and how this particularly ‘western' technique could have found its way to Anatolia. The pile foundation in Aizanoi appears not only to be the earliest example of this technique known up to now from archaeological excavations. It can also be seen as one of the rare traces of the presence of Roman troops in Asia Minor between the late 2nd and the first half of the 1st century BC.