Archaeologists from Batman Üniversitesi in Turkey have uncovered a three-headed statue of the Goddess Hecate while carrying out excavations at the ancient city of Kelenderis, close to the modern town of Aydıncık in Mercin Province, according to a press release issued by the university on 18 August 2023. Hecate was worshipped by the Ancient Greeks, and other peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, and was associated with magic, witchcraft, boundaries, doorways, night, light, the Moon, herbalism, graves, ghosts, necromancy, Dogs, and Snakes. Hecate was often depicted with a triple form, as three closely associated female figures, which may have given rise to the European belief in witches coming in threes. Interestingly, although Hecate was worshipped by the Greeks, and the oldest known depictions of her are all from Greece, it is thought likely that she was imported at some point from Anatolia and incorporated into the Greek religion. The Kelenderis statue of Hecate, however, is not evidence of this, as it depicts Hecate with three heads, a practice which is known to have started in Athens in the fifth century BC, and which implies that the statue dates from the Hellenistic Period at Kelendris.
The city of Kelenderis dates back to at least the eighth century BC, and was probably originally founded by the Phoenicians, although it appears to have attracted Greek settlers early in its history, and by the by the fifth century BC was a thriving Greek port. The city formed part of the Delian League, which fought against the Achaemenid Empire under the leadership of Athens, between 460 and 454 BC, but when Athens made peace with the Achaemenids, Kelenderis was effectively ceded to the empire, not coming back under Greek control until Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire in 330 BC.
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