Genoese Walls- Bithynia

Department Archive
Collection Byzantine Research Fund
Reference No. BRF/02/02/03/015
Level Item
Place Foca
Dates ca. 1913
Donor/Creator Hasluck, Dr Frederick William
Scope and Content Photograph of Genoese Walls. "Phocaea, Genoese Wall, FW Hasluck, Bithynia" is written in pencil of the back and "Neg. no. 6235" which probably to a Hellenic Society negative number.
Further information Phocaea, the ancient Ionian city, is located at the northern entrance to the Bay of Smyrna. The city remained independent until the middle of the sixth century when it fell into the hands of the Lydians, the Persians and, during the Hellenistic period, the Seleucids and the Attalids. In Byzantine times it belonged to the Thrakesion theme and prospered particularly after the end of the thirteenth. (New Phocaea was erected sometime between 1286-1296 to the north of the Old Town, Palaia Phocaea). After a brief period under Genoese control (1307-1308), it returned temporarily to Byzantine hands to fall finally to the Genoese. It remained a Genoese colony until it was conquered by the Turks in 1455.
Related records [BSA SPHS 01/2324.6235], Marmara (Island): Hellenic wall above Marmara village, 1907