New Excavations at the Ancient City of Hierapolis (Pamukkale)

11/21/2013

Ancient City of Hierapolis which is popularly known as Pamukkale today is located 200km south east of Ephesus. There are new excavations taking place in Hierapolis by Italian archaeological teams. Excavations have been continuing at Hierapolis since 1957 under the direction of an Italian archaeological team.

Recently a sculpture head of Aphrodite was discovered at the Plutonium. Discoveries at the city reveal that Hieropolis was visited as a holy place as early as 6 B.C. Church of St. Philip, is home to the grave of Philip, one of the apostles of Jesus Christ. Works have continued this year in the church’s necropolis area, bath and basilica. Two of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ are in Turkey. St. John is in Ephesus and St. Philip is in Hierapolis. When St. Philip came to Hierapolis to propagate Christianity in the first century, he was martyred by the Romans. At the time of the Byzantines, an altar was made on the place of his grave. Excavations around his grave revealed eight ruined columns and a church.

Hierapolis houses Turkey’s largest ancient necropolis (graveyard), dating back 2,500 years ago and is being unearthed. 2,500 years ago people came to this thermal source to recover their health. After a certain age, they began living here and were buried here when they died. Each grave is a different size, depending on people’s income. The restoration of the big and important graves here will be finished by the end of this year.

Pamukkale has been in the world heritage list of Unesco for 25 years.

We provide private tours to Pamukkale from Kusadasi. For more information please contact us.