A demolition order for an abandoned farmhouse in the southwestern Turkish province of Burdur triggered an emergency operation by the Burdur Museum Directorate, which told village officials and the building’s owners that the masonry would be seized for preservation, reported TRT Haber. Guards were placed at the structure after experts saw that several blocks carried rare Imperial Roman inscriptions.
Earlier directives had already classified the stones as cultural heritage requiring state custody. The farmhouse, erected in the 1950s in Yarışlı village, was built with marble blocks hauled by cart from the nearby ancient city of Takina. Ten of those blocks contain Latin text from a letter sent by Emperor Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus—better known as Caracalla—who ruled from 198 to 217 CE.
Archaeologists first alerted the museum directorate in 1970. Recent decipherment showed that the stones form part of an imperial decree addressed to Takina about 1,800 years ago. The slabs likely belonged to a public monument such as a city gate or administrative building that once displayed the emperor’s message.
Takina, on Lake Salda in historical Pisidia, flourished during the Hellenistic and Roman periods with temples, civic complexes, and necropolises. Imperial edicts, rescripts, and proclamations were commonly engraved on marble in public spaces so distant cities could read Rome’s decisions, noted GEO France.
“These stones were brought by villagers from Asar Hill, and the house was built by my father-in-law,” said longtime resident Ferhat Ağıl, according to Haber7. Ağıl added, “Twenty-two years ago a letter came from the museum saying, ‘If the house is demolished, do not lose these stones; they are entrusted to you.’” He remembered that villagers hauled the marble by cart because only a few people owned tractors at the time.
The mud-brick house even withstood a 1971 earthquake, Yeni Şafak reported. No one lives there today, yet its walls still bear Caracalla’s words.
The Burdur Museum Directorate said it would continue to guard the site until the blocks are removed for study, according to Enikos. Archaeologists hope future excavations around Takina will uncover further inscriptions related to the emperor’s administration.
Written with the help of a news-analysis system.