Patara Lighthouse to be revived with original stones

Located in the 6,000-year-old ancient city of Patara in the southern province of Antalya's Kaş district, the Patara Lighthouse, which was built by Roman Emperor Nero and completely destroyed in a tsunami in 1481, is now being revived within the scope of a project for its reconstruction.

Some 2,500 stones that have been unearthed in the excavations were analyzed in the stone hospital, and their original locations were determined one by one using artificial intelligence technologies. The reconstruction of the 26.5-meter-high lighthouse, which is 2,000 years old, with possibly 80 percent of its original stones, is considered a first in the world.

Hundreds of historical artifacts have been unearthed in Patara so far during the excavations that were initiated by the Akdeniz University Professor Fahri Işık and his wife Havva İşkan Işık 32 years ago.

One of the most important of these artifacts is the lighthouse, built by the Roman Emperor Nero in 64 B.C. There are 2,500 original stones belonging to the lighthouse unearthed by Havva İşkan Işık, who became the head of the excavations in 2000.

The ancient city had been the capital of the Lycian Union for many years. The year 2020 was declared as the "Year of Patara" by the Culture and Tourism Ministry. In this context, the lighthouse, which is believed to have completely collapsed during the earthquake and tsunami in 1481, is being built on a completed six-meter podium.

A technical report was prepared by Cenk Üstündağ, an academic from the Istanbul Technical University, for the reconstruction of the lighthouse, which is thought to have been destroyed due to the Rhodes earthquake in the 15th century and a tsunami that occurred in the Mediterranean.

The lighthouse's 2,500 stones,...