As was common in antiquity, the city of Ephesos was also surrounded by extensive necropoleis. From whatever direction a traveller wished to approach the city, he or she had first to pass through a cemetery. Their location on the most heavily frequented traffic routes, and their manifest presence, confronted the living on a permanent basis with all of the uncertainties, expectations and individual beliefs concerning the afterlife which mankind has associated with death since time immemorial. The tombs, however, served not only as monuments connected with memory; differences in appearance, scale and individual features meant that they also conveyed messages of self-definition, and documented social and hierarchic distinctions.
Although the investigation of ancient cemeteries of the Greco-Roman world in many locations has always been of primary interest, the systematic, scientific analysis of the cities of the dead of the province of Asia - freed from a main focus on individual monuments - remains an essential need, in particular also at Ephesos. Apart from selective excavations - for example along the Damianos Stoa, at the so-called State Agora, or in the region of tomb monuments inside the city - and numerous rescue excavations, interrelated and extensive research on the necropoleis which are located outside the Hellenistic-Roman city area has been lacking up until now.

In 2005 and 2007, the ÖAI had to carry out rescue excavations to the south and north of the Harbour Canal, after robbers had illegally attempted to uncover sarcophagus chests. These activities, which constantly reoccur above all in the winter months, in a region far removed from the flow of tourists, have already resulted in substantial damage and a massive loss of information. For this reason it was the expressed desire and decision of the Ministry for Culture and Tourism in Ankara and of the excavation leadership at Ephesos to undertake systematic archaeological investigations in 2008 in this necropolis to the west of the Harbour bay, in order to study the extent, historical development, structure, and appearance of this city of the dead using modern scientific methods. For this work it was possible to raise substantial funding from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF-Project P22083-G19), which was supplemented by infrastructural payments by the ÖAI. The results of the enterprise, which is planned up until 2010, should be published in preliminary reports and finally in the "Forschungen in Ephesos" publication series.

These first systematic explorations into an Ephesian necropolis, by means of an interdisciplinary joint effort of scientists from the realms of archaeology, ancient studies, architectural history, geophysics, geoarchaeology and anthropology, will shed light not only on the history of usage, the appearance, the geographical extent, the topographical integration and the architectonic structure of this necropolis, but will also discuss fundamental themes such as burial rites and customs and the social structure of the population of the capital city of the Roman province of Asia between the poles of paganism and Christianity. As a basis for selected excavation work, in addition to surface surveys, above all the results from geophysical investigations of the region using georadar and geomagnetic survey will be brought to bear; these should provide detailed information regarding the structure of development and the expansion of the necropolis.
Since an exhaustive excavation of the necropolis, which is many tens of thousands of square metres in size, is clearly not possible, the stratigraphic excavation is concentrated on larger, connected areas which should supply a representive sample regarding chronology, structure and appearance of the individual grave houses and tombs. Forming the focal point of anthropological analysis are questions regarding sex, age, familial relationships, nutritional habits and cause of death of those who were buried. In conjunction with the evaluation of the furnishings, size and structure of the tombs, the grave goods as well as the analysis of possible epigraphical finds should provide information concerning the burial customs and social structure of the Ephesians. By means of the contextual evaluation of the ceramic material and the small finds from the necropolis, which according to current knowledge was laid out in the 3rd century A.D. and was used at least until the 5th century A.D., fundamental questions regarding its phases of usage, and later usage, should be clarified.

Finally, geoarchaeological investigations should provide explanation models for the complex silting-up processes as well as the fluctuating sea- and groundwater-levels over the course of centuries, processes which first made necessary the installation of the Harbour Canal - the prerequisite for the fact that the necropolis grew up in this location.

Consequently, the project concentrates not only on an almost completely unexplored region of Ephesos, but also on an until now less well-established area of research within the province of Asia. The results of the investigations in the Harbour Necropolis should therefore be understood as an essential contribution to, and impulse for, new scientific approaches in this area.

Picture captions
Fig. 1: City plan of Ephesos with the location of the Harbour Necropolis (Plan C. Kurtze, © ÖAI)
Fig. 2: Harbour Necropolis with tomb building 1/05 south of the Harbour Canal (M. Steskal, © ÖAI)
Fig. 3: Harbour Necropolis with tomb building 1/08 north of the Harbour Canal - view towards the east (N. Gail, © ÖAI)
Fig. 4: Harbour Necropolis - topographical setting of tomb building 1/08 (N. Gail, © ÖAI)
Fig. 5: Burials in tomb 3 of tomb building 1/08 (M. Steskal, © ÖAI)
Fig. 6: Grave goods from tomb building 1/08 (N. Gail, © ÖAI)
Fig. 7: Oil lamps from tomb building 1/08 (N. Gail, © ÖAI)
Fig. 8: Excavation of the area to the west and north of tomb building 1/08 in summer 2009 (M. Steskal, © ÖAI)

Contact:
Martin Steskal