Turgut is a neighbourhood of the municipality and district of Yatağan,

Muğla Province Muğla Province (, ) is a Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of Turkey, at the country's southwestern corner, on the Aegean Sea. Its area is 12,654 km2, and its population is 1 ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. Its population is 1,580 (2022). Before the 2013 reorganisation, it was a town (''

belde Belde (literally "town", also known as ''kasaba'') means "large village with a municipality" in Turkish language, Turkish. All Turkish province centers and district centers have municipalities, but the Villages of Turkey, villages are usually too ...

''). The distance to Yatağan is and to

Muğla Muğla () is a city in southwestern Turkey. The city is the center of the district of Menteşe, Muğla, Menteşe and Muğla Province, which stretches along Turkey's Aegean Sea, Aegean coast. Muğla's center is situated inland at an altitude of ...

is .

History

The ruins of the ancient cult city Lagina is around Turgut and the alternative name of the town Leyne may be a corrupt form of Lagina. The town also houses an old mosque which is claimed to be built by İlyas Bey of Menteşe Beylik in 1311. Another building of historical importance is the mansion of

Osman Hamdi Bey Osman Hamdi Bey (30 December 1842 – 24 February 1910) was an Ottoman Turkish administrator, intellectual, art expert and also a prominent and pioneering painter. He was the Ottoman Empire's first modern archaeologist, and is regarded as the ...

, who stayed in Turgut between 1891 and 1893 during Lagina excavations. His house underwent a major restoration and refurbishment work and has opened to the public as a museum.

Archaeology

Recent studies have shown that the site had been inhabited or employed in an uninterrupted manner during a time span stretching back to the Bronze Age. Seleucid kings conducted a considerable reconstruction effort in the sacred ground of Lagina and transformed it into a foremost religious center of its time, with the nearby (at a distance of 11 kilometers) site of Stratonicea becoming the administrative center. The two sites (Lagina and Stratonicea) were connected to each other in antiquity by a sacred road. The archaeological research conducted in Lagina is historically significant in that it was the first to have been done by a Turkish scientific team, under the direction of Osman Hamdi Bey and Halit Ethem Bey. In 1993, excavation and restoration work was resumed under the guidance of Muğla Museum, by an international team advised by Professor Ahmet Tırpan. The friezes of the Hecate sanctuary are displayed in the Istanbul Archaeology Museums. Some of the archaeological finds unearthed are on display in Mugla Museum.

Economy

Main economic activity of the town is agriculture. Cereals and olive are the most important crops. There are some olive oil factories. There is a lignite mine around the town. The lignite is used in Yatağan Thermal Power Plant.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turgut, Mugla Neighbourhoods in Yatağan District