Home to the seaside resort of Kuşadası, and rich in cotton, tobacco, olives and fruit, the province of Aydın has played a vital role in the modern Turkish economy, contributing significantly to the development of Izmir to the north and Bodrum to the south. Blessed with fertile soils and a benign climate, the region was also a major crossroads of civilisation in earlier millennia. Our travel correspondent has been delving into the past of a province with more than its share of ancient sites. Here, he offers glimpses of six of Aydın’s historic cities.
For peering into the past, there are few better vantage points. Prehistoric traces suggest that Aydın has been a centre of population ever since human beings first came to live in settlements. The earliest written records date from the time of the Hittites. These sources speak of a river called Seha which watered a valley in the west – almost certainly a reference to the Büyük Menderes. The territories to the north of the Seha were known as Lukka - a word which was to re-emerge in later history when the Lycians settled in the Teke Peninsula to the south. Somewhere in the west of the district, there was a place called Ahiyyawa. From the yearbooks of Hittite King Mursil II (1340-1309 BC) and other Hittite sources we ascertain that in those far-off times Ephesus was known as Apasa, Milet as Milavanda, Priene as Pariyana, Alinda as Ilyalanda and Alabanda as Walivanda. Remarkably, we also learn that Aphrodisias was formerly known as Ninoe – a name which points to a connection with Mesopotamia.
Cradled in the dawn of history, these settlements grew and multiplied as various peoples arrived, either by sea or by land, to make their homes along the Aegean coast. The northern tribes which emigrated from Thrace to Western Anatolia in the 7-8th century BC soon populated the inner parts of Western Anatolia and the Menderes Valley. They established Nysa, Magnesia and other cities, and restored Aydın, the present provincial centre, formerly known as Atria. Then came the age of empire - Persian, Alexandrian, Seleucian and Roman. Key dates include 400 BC, when the Spartans made an unsuccessful attempt to wrest control of Aydın and its surroundings back from the Persians, 334 BC, when Alexander the Great succeeded overcame the Persians and turned the region into a base, and 190 BC, when the Romans placed Aydın under the rule of King Eumenes of Bergama (Pergamum, Pergamon). The following paragraphs offer a brief guide to the region’s ancient urban gems.
Its well-preserved, monumental buildings and its association with Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, have made Aphrodisias, in the Karacasu district, one of Turkey’s most important archaeological sites. The temple of Aphrodite was already famous in Roman times. In fact, the history of the settlement is much older. A tumulus, later decorated by a theatre, provides evidence of a prehistoric settlement dating back to 5000 BC. And the first temple of Aphrodite was constructed in the 6th century BC, when Aphrodisias was still a little village. The appearance of the settlement changed completely in the 2nd century BC, with the establishment of a grid planned-city. By this time, the city had spread over a square kilometre and was home to some 150,000 people.
In the first century BC, the Roman Emperor Augustus took Aphrodisias under his personal protection. The monuments which fascinate the visitor today were built over the following two centuries. Between the Theatre and the Temple, two public squares were laid out, each surrounded by columns. In the northern part of the city stood the stadium, now the best-preserved stadium of the ancient world. Towards the end of the 3rd century AD, Aphrodisias became the capital of the Roman province of Caria. In the middle of the 4th century, the city was surrounded by ramparts. But in the 6th century its importance began to dwindle. The Temple of Aphrodite was converted into a church. Reduced to a small town, the city was abandoned altogether in the 12th century.
Another of the cities of Caria, Nysa, is to be found within the borders of the Sultanhisar district. Substantial information about the city is provided by the ancient historian Strabon, who lived most of his life in Nysa. As Strabon explains, the city consisted of two parts divided by a flood-prone area.
The Gymnasium is situated in the western part of the city. Further north are to be found a library and the ruins of some Byzantine buildings. The two-storey Roman era library is the best-preserved in Turkey with the exception of the Celsus Library in Ephesus. To the north of the library stands a theatre. Historians and artists are particularly attracted to the reliefs of the stage building.
East of the flood zone are the odeon (concert hall) and bouleuterion (assembly room). The necropolis is situated on the road to Akharaka, a small settlement to the west.
Aydın, today’s provincial centre, is a city of many names. It was known as Ceasarec until the end of the Nero era, but in the first century AD it was redesignated Tralleis – an appellation which first occurs, in the form of Tralli, in the writings of Xenophon. Today, the ruins of Tralleis can be found on a trapezium-shaped hill called Topyatağı in the north of Aydın central district.
The first of the monumental buildings whose ruins are visible today were constructed under the Bergama Kingdom. During the Hellenistic and Roman eras, the city occupied an important location on the border between the provinces of Caria and Lydia. In 129 BC it was annexed to the Asia province of the Roman Empire. For four years from 88BC onwards, in the wake of the revolt of King Mithridates Eupator of Pontus against the Roman Empire, it was administered by Pontus
Initial research was carried out by Ch. Texier and Ch. Felows in the 19th century, and the first excavations were carried out by a German team headed by Von Kaufmann and directed by C. Humann and W. Dörpfeld in 1889. Like Aphrodisias, Tralleis turned out to have been built on an earlier settlement - the first residents lived in the Deştepe tumulus in Dedekuyusu 6,500 years ago. There are few remaining artefacts from the ancient era, but the works of art which survived the major earthquake in 1898 are exhibited in Aydın Museum and Istanbul Archaeological Museum.
Legend of Magnesia
The ruins of the ancient city of Magnesia are to be found in the village of Tekinköy in Ortaklar in the district of Germencik, on the Ortaklar-Söke highway. According to legend and ancient sources, the city was established by a tribe memorably known as the Magnets, who arrived in the area from Thesselia. Led by Leukippos and guided by an oracle of Apollo, the Magnets landed on the shore of what is now Lake Bafa but which at the time was an arm of the Aegean. The location of the original city of Magnesia is not known, although it is understood to have been located on the banks of the Menderes.
Magnesia occupied a significant location, commercially and strategically, within the triangle of Priene, Ephesus and Tralleis. The first excavations in the region were carried out by Carl Humann on behalf of the Berlin Museum in 1891. Excavations lasted for 21 months and brought to light a theatre, a temple of Artemis with an altar, a temple of Zeus and a prytaneion, or city hall. Artefacts found in Magnesia are exhibited in museums in Paris, Berlin and Istanbul. Nearly 100 years later, in 1984, a team headed by Prof. Orhan Bingöl resumed work at the site on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and Ankara University.
The Miletus monuments
Milet offers one of Aydın’s more spectacular and diverse collections of ruins. Under its ancient name of Miletus, the city was an important Mycean colony and a highly developed cultural and commercial centre in the mid-2nd century BC. It maintained its reputation during the Roman era but lost its commercial importance with the clogging of the Gulf of Latmos in Byzantine times. In the 13th century, Milet was turned into Balat by the Menteşe dynasty, and enjoyed another illustrious moment in history as the capital of Menteşeoğulları.
The first historic buildings to come into view as one advances along the Söke-Milet road are the theatre and the Byzantine castle. In addition to the theatre, the caravanserai, the Faustina Baths, the İlyas Bey Mosque, the Temple of Serapis, the bouleuterion, the Holy Road, the Ionic stoa building, the North Agora, the Delphinion (temple of Apollo), the harbour gateway, the Church of St. Michael and the Heroon (monumental tomb) are also well worth seeing.
The temple at Didim
Didymaion, now known as Didim, was once one of the most significant holy places of the region and a major centre of Apollonian soothsaying. Situated on the coast 55 km away from the district centre of Söke, its temple was demolished by the Persians when they attacked Miletus in 494 BC. Following his victory over the Persians, Alexander the Great determined to build a much larger temple. Construction work began in 300 BC and continued for several decades. Although the work was never completed, the temple was the third biggest in the world at the time, following the Temple of Artemisis at Ephesus and the Heraion in Samos.
Measuring 60m by 118m, the temple was set on a platform surrounded on four sides by flights of seven steps. At the eastern entrance, there are 13 steps. The building is surrounded by two lines of columns. There are 124 columns each 19.7m tall.
(DIPLOMAT - January 2005 - Ankara)