Hidirlik Tower, Antalya · Wikimedia Commons

Hidirlik Tower

Turris Attaleiae

MonumentLycia et Pamphylia · Kaleiçi, Antalya, TurkeyBuilt 150 CE

Not standing in 117 CE

About

Builders raised this stone tower where Antalya's old walls meet the sea cliffs, starting on a square Roman base later rebuilt into the cylindrical form still standing today. Historians debate whether Rome built it as a tomb, a harbor watchtower, or both, since Roman-era graves have turned up nearby. Byzantine engineers later topped it with a beacon, turning a tomb into a working lighthouse. Most surveys date its construction broadly to the 2nd century CE, most plausibly the decades after Trajan's death, so it most likely had not yet risen at the snapshot moment.

What happened here

It was put up to be argued with. Public monuments carry an inscription at eye height naming who paid, what for, and by whose authority, because being read is the whole return on the investment. People meet at them, give directions by them, and shelter under them. Children climb them. The bronze fittings are stolen often enough that they are re-attached with lead. On anniversaries the base is garlanded and the local council makes a short speech nobody listens to. Monuments also date the town for you: a run of them along one street shows which families were rising in which decade, and which ones stopped. When a family falls out of favour, the name is chiselled out and the stone is quietly reused.