History of Research

The market place of Ephesos attested epigraphically as the "Tetragonos Agora" was superficially cleared between 1901 and 1907 by Wilhelm Wilberg, and in 1967 elements of the late antique columnar architecture were re-erected by the Efes Müzesi (Ephesos Museum) at Selçuk. Deeper excavations under the direction of Gerhard Langmann between 1977 and 1986 exposed, in the east of the agora, a section of a late archaic-classical burial ground, and in the west, parts of an early hellenistic storehouse. In 1987 Peter Scherrer joined the Agora Team as an excavation assistant, and since 1992 he has led the excavations as Project Director. From 1987 until 1996, a village settlement of the 8th to the 4th century B.C., concentrated under the hellenistic agora (itself divided into four building phases) has been studied, a settlement which may be identified with the site of Smyrna attested in ancient literary sources. From 1997-2001, field research concentrated on the building history of the agora, from its renovation and expansion in the early Imperial period until its final abandonment in the 9th century A.D. Currently, scholarly research is concentrated on the publication of the results of excavation.

Smyrna - A Subgeometric to Classical Period Settlement

At the time of the arrival of the Greek colonists, in the first quarter of the first millennium B.C., an inlet of the sea reached up to the western border of the later agora. In the innermost nook of this inlet, directly on the coast, the village settlement of Smyrna was developed in the middle of the 8th century B.C. An early, short-lived phase characterized by wooden structures was quickly replaced by buildings with stone socles bound with mud. One of these very early domestic structures has an oval ground plan with a maximum inner width of 6.4 × 4 m. The first phase of settlement ended already before the mid-7th century B.C. as a result of a widespread conflagration; this was probably due to the attack of the nomadic Kimmerians, an attack which is attested in literary sources. In the next phase, one- to three-roomed houses of from 12-30 m² grew up along narrow alleyways; in the 6th century, these were rebuilt into larger structures with courtyards and a greater number of rooms, with a building depth of up to 17 m.

In the mid-6th century B.C., the rising sea level must have been the cause for the abandonment of the village area under study. A kiln, a deep well and numerous basins dug into the ground indicate, however, that the area was still used for industrial purposes up until the 4th century B.C. From the burial field located 100 m. east of the settlement along the slope of the Panayırdağ, only inhumation burials of the 6th till the 4th century are yet known; of the expected cremation burials dating to the earlier period (8th -7th century), no evidence has yet come to light.

The Hellenistic Agora

During the second decade of the 3rd century B.C., in the course of the new foundation of Ephesos under King Lysimachos, the settlement was razed, the land was terraced, and a trade market was set up on terrain which at that time had the correct level of ground water. The sea must have already receded somewhat, as already at this time a road built of broken stones was laid down, leading from the west gate of the agora towards the harbour in the west.
The further increase in sea level (for a total of ca. 1.5-2 m. over the previous 3,000 years), and with it the increase in the groundwater level, necessitated over the next 1,000 years repeated elevations of the level of the Agora and of the main road leading to the west.

The hellenistic agora must have encompassed an area of ca. 70 × 100 m., according to the excavations which have only been extensively carried out in the west; along its borders free-standing storage buildings and stoas were erected step by step during the 3rd century B.C., until an enclosed stoa building which ran around all sides of the agora was built.

The Agora of the Roman Imperial Period

During the reign of the Emperor Augustus, in ca. 20-10 B.C., a complete renovation of the market was undertaken, sponsored by the Association of Roman Traders of the Province of Asia; this rebuilding consisted of a quadrangular court measuring 111 m. to a side, at a level of ca. 1.5 m. above that of the late hellenistic market structure. The encircling two-storeyed, two-aisled stoa, including the 23 rooms which lay behind each row of colonnades, occupied a width of 17 m. and an exterior length of 154 m. To enable easier delivery of goods from the harbour road, which lay at a lower level, an enclosed cellar accessed by six doors was laid out beneath the west stoa. The devastating earthquake of A.D. 23 demolished the still incomplete agora; only the wall foundations and the South Gate, which was completed in ca. 3 B.C., remained standing. In the course of the new construction, which was immediately set up, the pavement level of the South Gate, which resembled a triumphal arch, was raised up in order to create a barrier for the streams of water which poured down the Embolos (today called the Curetes Street) in rainy weather and which overflowed into the main drainage channels running beneath the Gate. One of the two-aisled porticoes of the Doric order, erected over the eastern colonnade of the Agora in the place of the upper storey, was dedicated during the reign of Emperor Nero still before the murder of the emperor's mother Agrippina (58 A.D.); this structure probably served as an auditorium, as a basilica for the hearing of legal cases. The final completion of the building complex with its concluding marble wall revetment, however, continued into the early 2nd century A.D. While the ground-plan remained the same, the new structure of post-23 A.D. was distinguished from the Augustan edifice above all by the execution of the ground-storeys of the porticoes with the Ionic order, in contrast to the originally Doric columns.

The Late Antique Agora

The remains which are visible in ruins today date primarily to the late 4th century A.D., when, out of the foundations of the early Imperial period a completely new building of only one storey - apart from the "Neronian Portico", also renovated - was erected. For this reconstruction, almost exclusively re-used building materials were employed, deriving from structures destroyed by earthquake or deliberately dismantled on ideological grounds, above all from structures associated with the Imperial cult.

In the 6th century A.D. the North Stoa was completely newly rebuilt as an arcaded structure with at least two storeys, likewise also of marble spolia. Due to the abandonment of the shops and offices which lay behind the colonnades, a massive wall, strengthened via the addition of buttressing pilasters, was erected in the entire region west of the North Gate above the wall of doors to the earlier offices; this wall served as a reinforcement for the artificially-created hillock north of the agora.
In the early 7th century, the Agora, which hereafter lay outside the new city wall, must have been deprived of its function as a marketplace, and was probably rededicated as a fortified barracks, until after the resettlement of the city to Ayasoluk in the 9th century the final decline set in.

Picture Captions
Fig. 1: Archaic Fikellura amphora (© OEAI)
Fig. 2: Atttic black glazed jug (© OEAI)
Fig. 3: Smyrna and Hellenistic porticoes (© OEAI)
Fig. 4: Reconstruction of the Roman Agora (© OEAI)
Fig. 5: Agora, view from the Panayırdağ to the west (© OEAI)


Bibliography:
V. Gassner, Das Südtor der Tetragonos-Agora. Keramik und Kleinfunde. Mit Beiträgen von A. Hansel, S. Jäger, S. Jilek, H. Liko, P. Lindenbauer, K. Wölfl, FiE XIII 1, 1 (1997).
P. Scherrer - E. Trinkl, Die Tetragonos Agora in Ephesos. Grabungsergebnisse von archaischer bis in byzantinische Zeit - ein Überblick. Befunde und Funde klassischer Zeit. Mit Beiträgen von S. Fabrizii-Reuer, G. Forstenpointner, A. Galik, A. Giuliani, H. Mommsen, M. Kerschner, B. Kratzmüller, M. Lawall, A. Schwedt, F. Soykal-Alanyali, H. Taeuber, G. Weissengruber, FiE XIII 2 (2006) (with complete bibliography).

Contact:
Peter Scherrer
ephesos@oeai.at
Co-workers responsible for forthcoming publications:
Maria Aurenhammer (Sculpture)
Tamas Bezeczky (Roman and late Roman amphoras)
Barbara Czurda-Ruth (Glass workshops of the 6th c. A.D.)
Gerhard Forstenpointner (Archaeozoology)
Anita Giuliani (Lamps)
Michael Kerschner (Finds from the archaic period)
Stefan Karwiese (Numismatics)
Sabine Ladstätter (Late antique ceramics)
Mark Lawall (Hellenistic amphoras)
Matthias Pfisterer (Numismatics)
Christine Rogl (Hellenistic ceramics)
Nikolaus Schindel (Numismatics)
Martina Schätzschock (General glass studies)
Feristah Soykal-Alanyali (Terracottas)
Elisabeth Trinkl (Finds of the classical period)
Susanne Zabehlicky-Scheffenegger (Roman ceramics)