İzmir Agora Archaeological Site

Smyrna’s Agora is an open air archaeological site and the excavations conducted here began as one of the first excavations of the Turkish Republic in 1932 and maintained by Selahattin KANTAR, Director of Izmir Museum, and Rudolf NAUMANN until 1941. Nowadays, as an excavation permitted by the Cabinet of Ministers, “The Smyrna Ancient City Excavations” have been carried on by Akın ERSOY, Asst. Prof. Dokuz Eylül University. The Agora was the administrative, judiciary and trade center of the city of Smyrna. The sloped terrain on which the Agora was built was evened out with the cellars (of which the ruins have survived to this day), and a terrace was created, surrounded by porticos. Thanks to the usage of it as a cemetery in Byzantine and Ottoman times, the Agora of Smyrna has been relatively well preserved to this day. Excavations show that in accordance with the legends of the city being moved, the Agora area was planned and the buildings around it constructed right after Alexander the Great, from the end of 4th century BC onwards.