EGETÜRKİYE

Roman era

133 BCE - 395 CE · Read the Roman Aegean through the different scales of its cities: civic buildings in one place, a long valley settlement in another, and stone production tied to its landscape. On the southern slope of the Kestane Mountains, north of Aydın, Tralleis offers a firm architectural anchor. Üç Gözler is part of a gymnasium built in the second century CE. The city also has a bath, theatre, agora and stadium among its public structures. Around the Penkalas, or Kocaçay, Aizanoi brings together the Temple of Zeus and a theatre-stadium arrangement with a macellum, bridges, agoras, baths and waterworks. The range gives the city a broad civic scale. In the Lykos/Çürüksu valley, Laodikeia lies where Phrygia, Lydia and Caria meet. Its long settlement history includes Roman and Eastern Roman layers, making this period one part of a much longer place story. At Aphrodisias, the ancient city and nearby marble quarries form one World Heritage property. The quarries’ proximity supported high-quality sculpture production, while excavated workshops preserve rare, systematic evidence for marble work in the Roman world. Together, these places show different relationships between civic space, settlement and materials: a dated gymnasium, a broad civic ensemble, a valley city with long layers, and a landscape of quarries and workshops.

How to read this period

Covering 133 BCE - 395 CE, the Roman era dossier is a reading point within the long transformation of settlement, movement, production and belief networks across the Aegean. Read the Roman Aegean through the different scales of its cities: civic buildings in one place, a long valley settlement in another, and stone production tied to its landscape. On the southern slope of the Kestane Mountains, north of Aydın, Tralleis offers a firm architectural anchor. Üç Gözler is part of a gymnasium built in the second century CE. The city also has a bath, theatre, agora and stadium among its public structures. Around the Penkalas, or Kocaçay, Aizanoi brings together the Temple of Zeus and a theatre-stadium arrangement with a macellum, bridges, agoras, baths and waterworks. The range gives the city a broad civic scale. In the Lykos/Çürüksu valley, Laodikeia lies where Phrygia, Lydia and Caria meet. Its long settlement history includes Roman and Eastern Roman layers, making this period one part of a much longer place story. At Aphrodisias, the ancient city and nearby marble quarries form one World Heritage property. The quarries’ proximity supported high-quality sculpture production, while excavated workshops preserve rare, systematic evidence for marble work in the Roman world. Together, these places show different relationships between civic space, settlement and materials: a dated gymnasium, a broad civic ensemble, a valley city with long layers, and a landscape of quarries and workshops.. Period boundaries are used to compare layers that changed at different speeds in different places, rather than to imply a clean historical break.

Records from the coast, valleys and inland areas are not reduced to one line of development. Region, place and narrative links are used to compare shared patterns with local differences.

Regional readings

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Places from this period

Period stories

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