Ephesus Archaeological Site
Extensive Greco-Roman city near the Aegean, with the Library of Celsus and a 25,000-seat theatre.
Ephesus was among the largest cities of the Roman province of Asia, a harbour town at the mouth of the Cayster river whose bay gradually silted up, leaving the ruins several kilometres inland beside modern Selçuk. Settlement stretched back to the Bronze Age, and the city was renowned in antiquity for the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Systematic excavation began in 1869 under British and then Austrian direction and continues on the site today.
A marble-paved street descends from the upper civic quarter, past the odeon, the Temple of Hadrian and the fountain of Trajan, to the two-storey façade of the Library of Celsus, re-erected from fallen fragments in the 1970s. The Great Theatre, cut into the slope of Mount Pion and seating roughly 25,000, stands at the head of the Arcadian Way that once led to the harbour. The roofed Terrace Houses preserve Roman mosaics and painted walls. Ephesus was inscribed by UNESCO in 2015.
Highlights
- Re-erected two-storey façade of the Library of Celsus
- Great Theatre cut into the hillside, seating about 25,000
- Terrace Houses with Roman floor mosaics and wall paintings
- UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2015
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