Now open, Meanwhile in the Mountains: Sagalassos at the Yapi Kredi Cultural Centre in Istanbul

Now open, Meanwhile in the Mountains: Sagalassos at the Yapi Kredi Cultural Centre in Istanbul. A total of 368 original artefacts from the excavations of Sagalassos are now on display at the Yapi Kredi Cultural Centre in Istanbul, Turkey. From small terracotta sculptures to monumental statues of Marcus Aurelius and Hadrian, the exhibit explores how people lived, worked, ate, and dealt with death.

About 100 km north of modern Antalya, the city is referenced in early Hittite documents naming a mountain site of Salawassa in the fourteenth century BCE. The town grew during the Phrygian and Lydian cultures. Sagalassos was one of the wealthiest cities in Pisidia when Alexander the Great conquered it in 333 BCE on his way to Persia. After Alexander's death, the region became part of the territories of Antigonus Monophthalmus, then possibly Lysimachus of Thrace, the Seleucids of Syria and finally the Attalids of Pergamon.

In 39 BCE, the region of Pisidia was ruled by the Roman client king Amyntas until his death in battle in 25 BCE, then Rome converted it to the province of Galatia. During the Roman Imperial period ancient Sagalassos was known at the first city of of Pisidia and favored by the Emperor Hadrian.

But, an earthquake devastated the city in 518 CE then a plague ravaged the population between 541-543 CE. Another earthquake in the 7th century finally destroyed what was left of the town and the site was abandoned.

Although the site was visited by explorers and antiquarians in the 18th and 19th centuries, archaeologists did not focus their efforts on the site until 1985 when an Anglo-Belgian team led by Stephen Mitchell began a major survey of the site. Then in 1990, a major excavation project led by Marc Waelkens of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium commenced.

Image: Sagalassos nymphaeum courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Ingo Mehling.