Aigai, also Aigaiai ( grc, Αἰγαί or ; la, Aegae or '; tr, Nemrutkale or '), was an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

, later Roman (Ægæ, Aegae), city and bishopric in

Aeolis Aeolis (; grc, Αἰολίς, Aiolís), or Aeolia (; grc, Αἰολία, Aiolía, link=no), was an area that comprised the west and northwestern region of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), mostly along the coast, and also several offshore islan ...

. Aegae is mentioned by both

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

and

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...

as being a member of the Aeolian dodecapolis. It was also an important sanctuary of

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

. Aigai had its brightest period under the

Attalid dynasty The Kingdom of Pergamon or Attalid kingdom was a Greek state during the Hellenistic period that ruled much of the Western part of Asia Minor from its capital city of Pergamon. It was ruled by the Attalid dynasty (; grc-x-koine, Δυναστ ...

, which ruled from nearby

Pergamon Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; grc-gre, Πέργαμον), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greek city in Mysia. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a promontory on th ...

in the 3rd and 2nd century BC. The remains of the city are located near the modern village of Yuntdağı Köseler in

Manisa Province Manisa Province ( tr, ) is a province in western Turkey. Its neighboring provinces are İzmir to the west, Aydın to the south, Denizli to the southeast, Uşak to the east, Kütahya to the northeast, and Balıkesir to the north. The city of Ma ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. The archaeological site is situated at a rather high altitude almost on top of Mount Gün (''Dağı''), part of the mountain chain of Yunt (''Dağları'').

History

Initially the city was a possession of the

Lydian Empire Lydian may refer to: * Lydians, an ancient people of Anatolia * Lydian language, an ancient Anatolian language * Lydian alphabet ** Lydian (Unicode block) * Lydian (typeface), a decorative typeface * Lydian dominant scale or acoustic scale, a m ...

and later the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...

when it conquered the former. In the early third century BC it became part of the Kingdom of Pergamon. It changed hands from Pergamon to the Seleucid Empire, but was recaptured by

Attalus I Attalus I ( grc, Ἄτταλος Α΄), surnamed ''Soter'' ( el, , "Savior"; 269–197 BC) ruled Pergamon, an Ionian Greek polis (what is now Bergama, Turkey), first as dynast, later as king, from 241 BC to 197 BC. He was the fi ...

of Pergamon in 218 BC. In the war between Bithynia and Pergamon, it was destroyed by

Prusias II of Bithynia Prusias II Cynegus (Greek: Προυσίας ὁ Κυνηγός; "the Hunter", c. 220 BC – 149 BC, reigned c. 182 BC – 149 BC) was the Greek king of Bithynia. He was the son and successor of Prusias I and Apama III. Life Prusias was ...

in 156 BC. After a peace was brokered by the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

, the city was compensated with hundred talents. Under the rule of Pergamon a market building and a temple to Apollo were constructed. In 129 BC the Kingdom of Pergamon became part of the Roman Empire. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in 17 AD and received aid for reconstruction from emperor

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

Ecclesiastical History

Ægæ was important enough in the

Roman province The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...

Asia Prima The Asia ( grc, Ἀσία) was a Roman province covering most of western Anatolia, which was created following the Roman Republic's annexation of the Attalid Kingdom in 133 BC. After the establishment of the Roman Empire by Augustus, it was th ...

to become one of the many suffragans of its capital Ephesus's Metropolitan Archbishopric; but it as to fade.

Titular see

The diocese was nominally restored in 1933 as

titular bishopric A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbish ...

. It has sat vacant for decades, having had the following incumbents, all of the lowest (episcopal) rank : * Titular Bishop Gérard-Marie Coderre (1951.07.05 – 1955.02.03) * Titular Bishop

Marius Paré Marius Paré (22 May 1903 in Montmagny, Quebec – 16 February 2002) was a Canadian clergyman and bishop for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Chicoutimi The Diocese of Chicoutimi ( la, Dioecesis Chicoutimiensis) is a Roman Catholic diocese in Qu ...

(1956.02.07 – 1961.02.18) * Titular Bishop Cornélio Chizzini,

Sons of Divine Providence The Sons of Divine Providence ( it, Figli della Divina Provvidenza), commonly called the Orionine Fathers, is a Roman Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men founded in 1903 by Luigi Orione (1872–1940) in Turin, ...

(F.D.P.) (1962.04.12 – 1978.05.26)

Remains

Layout

The city is situated on a plateau at the summit of the steep Gün Dağı mountain, which can be climbed from the north. The plateau is surrounded by a wall with a length of 1.5 kilometers. On the eastern side are the remains of the three-story indoor market with a height of 11 meters and a length of 82 meters. The upper floor of the Hellenistic building was renovated in Roman times. The partially overgrown remains of many other buildings are scattered over the site. These include the acropolis which is laid out in terraces, a

Macellum A macellum (plural: ''macella''; ''makellon'') is an ancient Roman indoor market building that sold mostly provisions (especially meat and fish). The building normally sat alongside the forum and basilica, providing a place in which a market cou ...

, a gymnasium, a

bouleuterion A bouleuterion ( grc-gre, βουλευτήριον, ''bouleutērion''), also translated as and was a building in ancient Greece which housed the council of citizens (, ''boulē'') of a democratic city state. These representatives assembled a ...

and the foundations of three temples. About five kilometers to the east the foundations of a sanctuary of Apollo are found on the banks of the river which flows around the ruins. It was an Ionic order

peripteros A peripteros (a peripteral building, grc-gre, περίπτερος) is a type of ancient Greek or Roman temple surrounded by a portico with columns. It is surrounded by a colonnade ('' pteron'') on all four sides of the ''cella'' (''naos''), crea ...

temple from the first century BC. A

cella A cella (from Latin for small chamber) or naos (from the Greek ναός, "temple") is the inner chamber of an ancient Greek or Roman temple in classical antiquity. Its enclosure within walls has given rise to extended meanings, of a hermit's or ...

which is six meters high and three

monolith A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains. For instance, Savandurga mountain is a monolith mountain in India. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are often ma ...

s still remain.

Excavation history

The first western visitors of Aigai were

William Mitchell Ramsay Sir William Mitchell Ramsay, FBA (15 March 185120 April 1939) was a Scottish archaeologist and New Testament scholar. By his death in 1939 he had become the foremost authority of his day on the history of Asia Minor and a leading scholar in th ...

and

Salomon Reinach Salomon Reinach (29 August 1858 – 4 November 1932) was a French archaeologist, religious historian and was a major figure in the Franco-Jewish establishment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was vice president of the mo ...

in 1880. They reported about their visit in the ''

Journal of Hellenic Studies ''The Journal of Hellenic Studies'' is an annual peer-reviewed academic journal covering research in Hellenic studies. It also publishes reviews of recent books of importance to Hellenic studies. It was established in 1880 and is published by Camb ...

'' and the ''

Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique Bulletin or The Bulletin may refer to: Periodicals (newspapers, magazines, journals) * Bulletin (online newspaper), a Swedish online newspaper * ''The Bulletin'' (Australian periodical), an Australian magazine (1880–2008) ** Bulletin Debate ...

''. They were followed by

Richard Bohn Karl Theodor Richard Bohn (29 December 1849 – 22 August 1898 in Görlitz) was a German archaeological architect born in Berlin. Beginning in 1868, he studied architecture in Berlin, and in 1877 participated in the archaeological dig at Olym ...

and

Carl Schuchhardt Carl Schuchhardt (August 6, 1859 – December 7, 1943) was a German archaeologist and museum director. For many years, he was the director of the pre-historic department of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. He was involved in numerous excavations ...

, who examined the site as a part of the excavations in Pergamon. Since 2004 the site is being excavated by Ersin Doğer of

Ege University Ege University or Aegean University ( tr, Ege Üniversitesi) is a public research university in Bornova, İzmir. It was founded in 1955 with the faculties of Medicine and Agriculture. It is the first university to start courses in İzmir and the ...

in Izmir. By 2010 the access road, the bouleuterion, the odeon, shops, numerous water pipes and large parts of the market hall were uncovered. For the coming years it is planned to re-erect the market hall's facade with the original stones. In 2016, archaeologists discovered a

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

depicting the god

Poseidon Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a ...

. The mosaic was found in the

frigidarium A frigidarium is one of the three main bath chambers of a Roman bath or ''thermae'', namely the cold room. It often contains a swimming pool. The succession of bathing activities in the ''thermae'' is not known with certainty, but it is thought ...

part of the ancient bath. The bottom part of the mosaic contains partly ruined inscription in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: "Greetings to all of you bathing." Archaeologists believe that it dates back to the 3rd or 4th century B.C. In 2018, archaeologists unearthed a

, which is an ancient meat and fish market. In 2022 a marble inscription of the 2nd century AD during the excavations in the parliament building of Aigai found in 2005 was deciphered and records the people’s complaints at Roman tax officials’ greed. It also states that they sent a man named ‘Fortunatus’ to the Roman emperor to report on the various levels of taxes from goat skin by each tax collector and demanding that he solve the problem. The inscription is important in proving that the city's trade was based on goats and goat skins. The Roman Emperor later passed a law to fix the rate of tax from goat skin at 1/6th and threatened to enforce it strictly.1800-year-old marble inscription found in Turkey’s Aigai excavations deciphered https://arkeonews.net/1800-year-old-marble-inscription-found-in-turkeys-aigai-excavations-deciphered/ File:AigaiAufgang.jpg, Path to Aigai File:AigaiMarkthalle2.jpg, Facade of market hall seen from the interior File:AigaiBouleuterion1.jpg, Bouleuterion File:AigaiOdeon.jpg, Macellum

References

Sources and external links

GCatholic with titular incumebt biography links

Official website of Aigai Excavations (in Turkish)

More photos of the site

Description of Aigai on Current Archeology in Turkey
{{Authority control Aeolian dodecapolis Archaeological sites in the Aegean Region Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Aegae Former populated places in Turkey Geography of Manisa Province History of Manisa Tourist attractions in Manisa Province Populated places in ancient Aeolis