Selge (Zerk)

SELGE (Zerk), ancient Psidia / Asia Minor, modern Turkey.

COORDINATES: 37º13'45.39" N // 31º07'39.91" E
TIPOLOGY : Roman Asia Minor style theatre. Sub-urban.

DATE: Mid- II A.D.

CAPACITY: 9.000 spectators.

CAVEA: Facing south-east.  Exceeds semicircle. 104 m. diameter. Maenianum: Ima cavea, 30 rows of seats in 11 cunei; Summa cavea: 15 rows of seats in 22 cunei.

ORCHESTRA: 22,5 m.diameter.

STAGE BUILDING: It´s collapsed, although it seems that all the remains are scattered in the place.  The scaenae frons was rectiliner.

LOCATION: Ancient Selge, modern Zerk is located on the slopes of Toros mountains, 85 klm. north-east of Antalya. The theatre is close to the stadium.

MY BEDSIDE TABLE: Yilmaz, Yasar; “Anadolu Antik Tiyatrolari”. Istanbul, Yem Yanin, 2010. // Sear, Frank; “Roman theatres: an architectural study”. Oxford University Press, 2006. // Ciancio Rossetto, Paola; Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio (eds); “Teatri Greci e Romani: alle origini del linguaggio rappresentato”. Rome: SEAT, 1995. // Bean, George; “Turkey´s southern shore”. London, Ernest Benn Limited, 1968. // Freely, John; “The eastern mediterranean coast of Turkey”. Istanbul, Matbaacilik ve Yayincilik A.S., 1998.

OUT OF PRINT: Selge is one of those special theatres, unique. It´s teh only one I have felt a real sense of vertigo, the cavea´s angle of decline is spectacular and the two times I have been there I had to sat in the stone seats. Not only the vertigo is something unique in that theatre, although the color of the stone seats, with a gray color that unifies all the blocks of stone in one. There are more things that make Selge´s a marvellous place... the modern village, a very small village with a traditional rural life is inside the ancient ruins, it seems  like a joke, that gigantic theatre, largely intact, which hosted an audience of 9.000 people, in a a major city in ancient times, now a an inert shadow in a little village of 100 people. Selge theatre is not a space to see a play... is a huge eye that looks the village of Zerk... since inmemorial time.