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Ancient parliament of the Lycian League uncovered in dig at Patara in Turkey

NY Times:

Alexander the Great was here, and so was Saint Paul, on his way to Ephesus.

Centuries later, the drafters of the American Constitution took the ancient Lycian League, which was based here, as an early example - in fact, it was history's earliest example - of the form of republican government they envisaged as well.

The Lycian League was mentioned twice in the Federalist Papers, once by Alexander Hamilton, once by James Madison, so it could safely be said that it entered into the history of the formation of the United States.

Now, after literally centuries of neglect, teams of Turkish and German archaeologists have been working under the hot sun of this small Mediterranean seacoast town, uncovering some of its treasures.

Among them, liberated from the many hundreds of truckloads of sand that covered it, is the actual parliament building where the elected representatives of the Lycian League met. It has rows of stone seats arranged in a semicircle, like the chambers of the American Congress. Its stone-vaulted main entrances are intact, and so is the thronelike perch where the elected Lyciarch, the effective president of the League, sat.

...

Mentioned in the "Iliad," Patara was a port city that was used by the Persians in the fifth century B.C. during the Persian Wars, written about by Thucydides. One of the archaeological expedition's major findings so far is the impressive ruins of an ancient lighthouse, which guided ships crossing the wine-dark sea to its harbor two millennia ago.

The Lycian League itself had some 23 known city-states as members, which sent one, two or three representatives, depending on the city's size, to the newly uncovered parliament, or Bouleuterion, as it was called. Inscriptions uncovered at the site provide the names of the various Lyciarchs who sat in special seats about midway up the semicircular chamber.

Later, it was a province in the Roman Empire. An inscription uncovered by archaeologists at the ruins of an immense granary, which has also been dug out of the sand in recent times, indicates that the Emperor Hadrian and his wife, Sabine, visited Patara in the spring of 131 A.D. It ceased being a federation in the fourth century A.D., when it was taken over by the Byzantines.

Interesting piece.