Bathonea

Bathonea (Ancient Greek: Βαθονεία) is the probable name of a local community division known as a hekatostys (ἑκατοστύς, meaning "Hundred") of Byzantion or Rhegion that has generated considerable archaeological interest after being erroneously promoted as a "lost" city. It is located on the European shore of the sea of Marmara, 20 km west from Istanbul, Turkey in Küçükçekmece. Among the claims are that it was at some point home to some of the Varangian Guards, elite Norsemen guards & settlers in Constantinople. The ruins found at the site, which have always remained visible, were studied extensively in 1930, specially during the Republican era by the Swiss archeologist Ernest Mamboury, who firstly thought and identified the settlement as the town of Rhegion based on some ancient sources. In 2009 though, a new identification was proposed, as the Hellenistic-Roman city of Bathonea, which was taken as fact, generating considerable academic and public interest At the present, excavations are conducted under the direction of Dr. Şengül Aydıngün, an associate Professor of the Kocaeli University, and it continues to be promoted as a "lost" city despite the presence of only scant archaeological remains and no such city ever being referenced by any known contemporary sources from the Classical or Byzantine periods.