We can begin the history of techirghiol with the argonats whose legend unfolds at the shores of the Pontus Euxin (Black Sea). Jason the son of a Thessaly king breaks the heart of Medeea and causes the drama of king Aietes, forced to gather from the water of the sea the remnants of his son killed by his own sister. Could Medeea and the mighty Jason have walked near the salt water of Techirghiol? Could they have buried theyre love and passions in the surface of the water?
The roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso called Dobrogea the country near the Ursa Major, with frozen shores by the terrible frost situated not far from Bosfor and he talked about a lake called Meotic, which maybe later was called Techirghiol.
The lake situated on a roman imperial road that took from Callatis to Tomis could not pas unobserved by the romans that knew and used the mud as well as the egiptians. Special archeological discoveries were not made in this area but sporadic discoveries revealed architectural elements from greek antiquity and roman which speak of the inhabitance of the area and can lead to the idea that the therapeutic properties of te water and mud of the lake were well known.
Documentary Mentions
- 1560, Tekfür – köy, is recalled in two firmans of the sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, to the lord of Moldavia.
- The ottoman occupation of Dobrogea began in 1417 and finished in 1462.
- From here on the history of the establishment of Tekfür-golü is knitted to the history of the Otoman Empire until 1878 when Dobrogea returns to Romania.
- For approximately 300 years in Techirghiol there was a cadiat
- HAGI ALI (1650), turkish historian who traveled through Dobrogea wrote about a black water: “Gömlek-köy”, probably Techirghiol.
- YUSUF NABI, Turkish poet, in the historic paper “Filihnamei Kamenice” refers to Tekfür-köy, the place where the ottoman army stoped in theyre way to and from Poland. (1762).
- Unfortunately historiografic evidence about Dobrogea (including techirghiol) under ottoman rule is scarce due to the fact that in 1878 when the ottoman administration redrew the archive was taken along.
- The first information written about the therapeutic effects of the lake water are from 1854, during the time of the Crimeea war, when Said Pasa, the ottoman army commander, with a sick arm, while at the camp in Tekfür-golü discovers the beneficial effects of the mud and salt water.
