Anemurium.

When I first pitched this column to Hank Sims four years ago, I had some initial trepidation about how well it would go over (or not) with readers back home. Doubtless, some readers would question why in hell they were reading about life in a city some ten thousand miles away, and about a culture so far removed from them.

But my thought was, the letters could be like writing home to friends and family — a way of staying connected. Over time, the letters have sought their own path, delving sometimes into politics, other times meandering into fiction, travel writing, as well as chronicling everyday life.

Together, we’ve taken ferry boats across the Bosphorus, as well as trips to the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts. We’ve wandered back into history, such as to the site of ancient Troy, and Cappadocia, the “land of beautiful horses.”

Together, we’ve witnessed the tragic plight of the Syrian refugees, making their way from their war-torn country south of the border, here to Istanbul, many of them en route to Europe.

And together, we’ve continued to pursue that ever-dissatisfied mistress, the city of Istanbul, as she winds, twists and shakes through her many volatile moods.

Where could we go next? On the way to work the other morning, looking out as the taxi wound along the coastal road near Suadiye, I found my thoughts returning to the original premise of the stories: Lost Coasts.

When I lived in Northern California, I would often drive to places like Black Beach, or Centerville Beach, Shelter Cove … Places that even now follow their own lonely destiny. In fact, it was always best, I found, to visit these places alone.

The Lost Coast is about more than geography, however; you don’t really look for it on a map. It’s more a state of mind. The people there like to live life off the grid. As the saying goes, “Not all who wander are lost.”

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With these associations in mind, I’ve decided to take a detour: Today we’re following the paths of various vanished peoples. People who once inhabited, even flourished, in this particular part of the world, and who — for various reasons — are no longer here … Lost peoples.

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Some years ago, I traveled to Bursa, a city about two hours south of Istanbul. It sits a bit inland, but not more than a half hour from the Sea of Marmara, and at the foot of Uludağ, the ancient Mount Olympus. Not the Greek Olympus – it was given this name by the Mysians, who were first mentioned by Homer as having been allied with the Trojans in his “Illiad.”

Further research tells us that they inhabited the northeast part of Asia Minor, and were brethren of the Carians and Lydians. You might find it interesting that the Mysians abstained from eating any living thing — their diet consisted apparently of milk, honey and cheese.

If we travel further, down to the south Turkish coast, where my wife’s family lives, we find more evidence of lost peoples. I took a trip with my father-in-law, Mehmet, to the ruins of Anemurium, an ancient city founded by the Phoenicians, and later occupied by the Assyrians and Hittites. Alexander the Great and his armies made it their own for awhile, during Alexander’s great conquests. Then it passed to the Romans; Mark Antony gave the surrounding coastline to Cleopatra as a wedding gift, and Roman coins have been found there during excavations. Later on, the lands belonged to the Byzantians.

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The labryinth of history winds along many diverse passages in this part of the world; you start to read about one region, and soon a series of hyperlinks lead you to still more peoples, with vanished names and destinies. These coasts, these lands, have passed through many hands.

Whatever happened to these peoples? How do peoples, civilizations, just disappear? War, conquest, have something to do with it. The Mysians, for example, or at least their lands, were later absorbed by the Romans. The Hittites, as well, who ruled a fairly large empire in what is now Turkey, were eventually usurped and vanquished by the Assyrians, and eventually scattered. The once-mighty Hittites were last heard of sometime around 1100 B.C., a long time ago.

With so many waves of conquest crisscrossing Asia Minor over the millennia, one suspects the same fate for most of the other lost peoples.

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Such reflections — admittedly, this was a very brief, discursory tour — inevitably lead one to thoughts on the present day. Are we seeing anything that different from what history has already shown? The Syrians, for example, are in Diaspora now — already some half of the country’s population has left, scattered all over Turkey, Europe as well as other parts of the Middle East.

Where do we come from? Where are we? Where are we going? The three fundamental questions of our existence. Maybe the fact is that we’re already all lost peoples, as much as the Mysians or the Hittites. Whenever some archaeologists get around to digging up our remains up two thousand years from now, perhaps our fates will be as equally inconclusive, mysterious.

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As I said, my father-in-law, Mehmet, and I toured the remains of the Anemurium last summer. Mehmet, a well-known local archaelogist, helped with the excavations of the site in the 1970s. We passed the cemeteries, the theater, the large and small baths, and the remains of a city wall running down the hillside to the sea. The Mediterranean waters here are especially clear and lovely. We watched some people swimming, coming up onshore and surveying the ruins.

Later, walking back, Mehmet showed me some beautiful ceramic tiles -– mosaics -– that were covered in dust, invisible to the casual eye.

“Why aren’t they displayed?” I asked.

“Because people would steal them,” Mehmet answered. With the instep of his boots, he carefully made sure the tiles were covered again before we resumed our walk.

There’s more than meets the eye in his response: Probably another reason we know so little about vanished civilizations is that so much of what they might have left behind gets destroyed or lost -– naturally, or otherwise.

Anyway, that spot, looking down toward the beach, far away from the tourist hot spots of Antalya, Bodrum and Marmaris, feels wonderfully isolated, undiscovered. Lost.

But then, most of the best places are.

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James Tressler is a writer and teacher living in Istanbul.