Aphrodisias

Aphrodisias is the ruin of a Roman city in the Southern Aegean region of Turkey, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its wealth of remains. Geyre is the small modern village next to it, deriving its name from Caria an early Grecian state absorbed by the Roman Empire.

Understand

Aphrodisias (Ἀφροδισιάς) was a settlement in Caria near a marble quarry. This marble was worked into fine sculpture (other quarries usually shipped out rough blocks to be carved nearer their customers) and erected as monuments to the local fertility goddess. During the Hellenistic period (4th to 1st century BC), this deity became one and the same as Aphrodite or Venus. Her early depictions were of a vast-hipped and sometimes multi-breasted earth mother, but by the time the town sculptors set to work she was more like a matronly civic protector, soberly garbed. She's not an erotic figure, unlike the luscious Aphrodite of Knidos carved at Datça in 364 BC. However she was sprightly enough to ride the sea-goat that we call Capricorn, according to details on her tunic shown in the museum.

The town was Christianised and a bishopric when that became the Roman religion, and pagan statues were smashed up or defaced. But more damaging were continual earthquakes: the 4th century AD quake also diverted water courses and made the town flood-prone, that of the 7th century was the final straw and the place was abandoned. It became covered over by dust and later settlement. However many fragments of monuments had been incorporated into the city walls, with inscriptions still legible, and these drew antiquarian interest in early modern times.

The first systematic excavations in 1904/05 revealed that much of the Roman city was built at the behest of Gaius Julius Zoilus. This man had been a slave of Julius Caesar, set free and richly rewarded by his successor Octavian. He returned as a wealthy free man to his home town with suitable gratitude to Octavian, and this mighty Emperor always favoured the city. Excavations continue, and in the 1960s the modern village of Geyre was shifted away from the site to stand 2 km west.

Get in

By far the easiest is to drive here, using D585 between Nazilli and Tavas. (From Denizli / Pamukkale to the east, circle the mountain south via Tavas not north via Nazilli.) There's a parking lot within the site and another at the village crossroads, effectively an overspill.

Geyre is not on the inter-city bus routes so you need to track down a dolmuş plying this road. Ask to be set down at dörtyol the crossroads by the site entrance rather than Geyre main village.

Hiring a taxi for the day, say from Denizli, will save a lot of waiting around for connections and anxiety about getting back before nightfall.

Get around

From Geyre village to the site entrance is 2 km along a main highway: there's no sidewalk but traffic is light. If you stay in the village, ask if the west service gate is open, a shorter walk on a quiet lane.

The paths around the site are in good repair.

See

Reckon 2-3 hours to explore the site, which is open daily Apr-Sep 09:00-19:00, Oct-Mar to 18:00. As of Oct 2023, admission is 280 TL.

• 1 Aphrodisias Museum is closed for restoration as of 2024 but normally exhibits a wide range of sculptures, reliefs and other artifacts from the area.
• Sebasteion just south of the museum is a temple to the Roman Emperor - in the western empire such a temple is called an Augusteum. Caesar Augustus or Octavian was the adopted son of Julius Caesar and hugely extended the empire, becoming a cult figure. His dynasty claimed divine descent from Venus/Aphrodite and were similarly worshipped, even those successors who were feeble incompetents, barking mad or dirty old goats. (Zoilus the civic father had especial reason to glorify Octavian.) Dynasties elsewhere liked the sound of this and the title of "August" has been taken by rulers as diverse as the Holy Roman Emperor, Brian Boru King of Ireland, and the chief clown of a circus who the custard pie always misses.
• Tetrapylon is the monumental gateway to a plaza in front of the Temple of Aphrodite, now grassed over.
• 2 Temple of Aphrodite from the 7th century BC venerated a local fertility goddess, who by the 1st century BC was subsumed into the cult of Aphrodite. A grander temple was then erected and became the focal point of town, and base for the sculptors. In the 480s AD the Christians partly dismantled it, turned it into a basilica, and hacked away at images of the pagan goddess.
• 3 Stadium is one of the best-preserved anywhere. It could seat 30,000, and measures about 270 m by 60 m. When the city theatre was smashed in the earthquake of 7th century BC, the stadium was partly re-purposed to stage those events.

Tetrapylon, gateway to Aphrodite's Temple

• Bouleuterion or Odeon is 50 m south of the Temple on the side of North Agora. Built maybe 200 AD, it was the council chamber and general-purpose secular events venue. It's now an open semicircular auditorium fronted by a shallow stage, with intact lower tiers of marble seats. It was built to seat 1750, but the upper seating has collapsed, along with the vaulted hall that once covered it. That may have happened by 400 AD, when the space was adapted as a palaestra or wrestling ground, and notches were cut in the seating to support poles for awnings.
• Bishop's Palace just west of the Bouleuterion is from the late Roman era, showing the city's continuing importance in early Christian times.
• Agora the public plaza and market place is south of the Bouleuterion, with a north and south colonnaded section.
• 4 Hadrian's Bathhouse dates from his reign in the 2nd century AD. The main surviving hall is the caldarium, the hot room.
• 5 Martyrion means a church built at a site of martyrdom, but it's not known who that might be, or even the date - anywhere between 200 and 600 AD.
• 6 Roman amphitheatre is well preserved.
• Theatre baths is another bathhouse just south.

Do

Hike: a walking trail circles the site.

Buy

Apart from the odd postcard from the museum shop, there's nothing you want to buy on site or in Geyre village. You might re-stock on food in Karacasu 10 km west, but the nearest sizable town for supplies and essentials is Nazilli 48 km northwest.

Testiciler Sk ("pottery street") south of town centre in Karacasu is lined by scores of seemingly ancient workshops where various ceramicware is produced and is on sale.

Eat

• Köfteci Orhan Baba at the village crossroads is a friendly place serving good meatballs, open daily 10:00-21:00.
• Afrodisias Restaurant across the street has acceptable food but squalid toilets.

Drink

The local water is safe to drink.

Sleep

Sebasteion

• Camping: no campsite, but it's usually permitted around the park entrance, ask the guard.
• 1 Anatolia Hotel, Hürriyet Cd 33, Geyre, ☏ +90 256 448 8138, anatolya@anatoliaturizm.com.tr. Tranquil place with garden and pool 2 km from the ruins. B&B double 1500 TL. (updated Oct 2023)
• 2 Elmas Pansiyon, Dandalas, ☏ +90 544 441 6515. Charming little pansiyon and restaurant with Dandalas stream running through it. B&B double 800 TL. (updated Oct 2023)
• Afrodisias Dandalos Hotel is in an old mansion in the village 3 km west of Elmas Pansiyon, ☏ +90 505 900 5072.

Connect

As of Oct 2023, Afrodisias and its approach highways have a basic mobile signal from Türk Telekom and Turkcell, but no signal from Vodafone. You should get 4G in Karacasu. 5G has not rolled out in Turkey.

Go next

• Denizli east across the mountains is the nearest town to Pamukkale, with dazzling travertine pools and the ruins of ancient Hierapolis.
• Nazilli to the northwest is the nearest sizable town. Nothing to make you linger there.
• Muğla southwest has a well-preserved old quarter. You come this way for the big beach resorts of Marmaris, Bodrum and Dalaman.
• Datça the peninsula beyond Marmaris was the birthplace of the first erotic Aphrodite, at Knidos in 364 BC. The original is long lost so you'll have to use your fevered imagination, as many classical authors obviously did.