Western Anatolia (Mentese highland)
Village: Geyre (3km/2mi northwest; population: 1,000)
Situation
The ruins of ancient Aphrodisias lie 82km/51mi southwest of Denizli, where the heavily wooded southern foothills of Ak Dag border on the broad valley of the Kekre Çayi. The site itself is located high in
a side valley of the upper Dandalas Çayi (Vandalas Çayi), a tributary of the Büyük Menderes Nehri (Great Maeander River).
History
Chalcolithic finds show the area to have been settled in the fourth millennium B.C.; early Bronze Age pottery also suggests there was an Assyrian trading colony here during the Hittite period. There is a tradition that the settlement took its earliest recorded name, Ninoe, from the Assyrian King Ninos (Tukulti-Ninurta I, 1245-08 B.C.); a more likely derivation however is from Nin (Ishtar) the Old Oriental goddess of love and war, with whom Venus, the Roman goddess of love, later became identified. Nin, daughter of the moon god Sin, was sister of the sun god Shamash and wife of Anu god of heaven. Her attributes were bestowed by the Greeks upon Aphrodite, goddess not simply of beauty and love but also of the Morning and Evening Star. The town only took the name Aphrodisias in Hellenistic times, having been known previously as Lelegonpolis, Megalopolis and probably also Plarasa. Through its sanctuary it became the center of the wide-spread cult of Aphrodite, in addition to which it had famous schools of sculpture, medicine and philosophy. The pinnacle of its fortunes was reached under the Julian emperors when Aphrodisias enjoyed the patronage of Sulla, Caesar, Antony, and Augustus; it was Antony who granted sanctuary status to the temple. This is reflected in the fact that the surviving remains are almost all Roman, an exception being the town walls which are of later date (fourth century).
In the Early Christian-Byzantine era the town was first a bishopric and then the seat of the Metropolitan Bishop of Caria; it was also rechristened Stavropolis. From 540 (in the reign of Justinian), as capital of the province of that name, it became known simply as Caria (of which the name of the present village, Geyre, is a corruption). Despite having its fortifications strengthened in the latter part of the seventh century, in the eighth and ninth centuries the town succumbed to the Arabs. Its decline was accelerated by Ottoman rule until, in 1402, Tamarlane found no more than a village in the shadow of the ruined city. Excavation has proceeded in several stages, at first under the Turks in 1904/05, 1913 and 1937, then since 1961 by U.S. archeologists led by Kenan Erim.
Print this page
Add to Favorites
