The garden architecture in west Anatolia at Hellenistic and Roman periods

The gardens of Hellenistic and Roman period which, in term of gardening, had high aesthetic value and rather than rich plant diversity are considered among the most important gardens of antiquity. Gardening, being one of the arts less lasting then any other art branches, such as paintings, sculpture and other architectures in general, (ephemeral) has always made it difficult for the gardens of ancient times and their traces to last until today. The garden paintings and related architectural data brought to light by archeological excavations during the last century have been increasing. These themes of the wall pictures and reliefs, do illustrate the truth about the gardens almost perfectly. By means of these descriptions, we now have more information about the landscape architecture of the ancient times. Again, as there has been a rapid increase during the last 40 years in the archaeobotanical studies, many of the plants of the ancient times are been described very easily by using pollen and carbon analyses in the soil samples taken during the excavations. The aim of this study, is to shed light on ancient landscape architecture through the catalogue consisting of important vase and wall paintings and reliefs emerged from the excavations of ancient Mediterranean civilizations; particularly of the ancient Greek and roman civilizations. Besides these, as well as modern literature on this matter, have all been studied and evaluated with great attention. Additionally, the materials obtained from garden studies and excavations have been evaluated in this catalogue. In the light of these studies, restitution experiments have been done in order to re-create the architectural structure of ancient gardens by taking the peristyl and atrium gardens of Ephesus Slope Houses as a model. Furthermore, by using computer systems, the three dimensional models of these gardens are also prepared. In this restitution study it is considered that the villa gardens of Hellenistic and Roman period were designed in an impressive way and with aesthetic concern. The reason why the gardens of this period were so excellent is that the garden artisans and agriculture engineers of this period were highly skilled in terms of gardening techniques. The diversity of plants used in landscape architecture shows that varieties of plants were known very well and they were highly utilized. The Romans gave considerable importance to the gardens of the impressive architectural structures which were aimed to show the power of their great empire. All these features shed light on this restitution study and an effort is made to prepare a project which includes all these data.