Abstract
In this paper, a pre-assessment of the Byzantine era of Aigai will be
presented. Besides the western Anatolian cities of Pergamum, Ephesus and
Smyrna, Aigai is the only city which achieved to cope with the rough terrain
among the Aspordenon Mountains north of Smyrna. This city located 17 km east
of the Yeni Şakran town in the province Izmir, also known as Köseler castle due
to its location on Mount Gün near the Köseler village in the province of Manisa,
and is one of the twelve cities within the Aeolian region mentioned by Herodotus.
Thanks to the detailed studies by R. Bohn and C. Schuchhardt on inscriptions
from Aigai, the city was first introduced to the academical world in
1889. Archaeological studies started in 2004 and were conducted by Prof. Dr.
Ersin Doğer. While the archaeological and written sources about the history and
civilization of pre-Byzantine Aigai are rather well-known, in this paper it will be
attempted to give an overview of the scarce written sources about the Byzantine
era and to evaluate them in the light of so-far unpublished architecture and
small finds. Since 2004, area based excavations have been carried out in the
necropolis of the city, at Demirkapı and the insula situated east of the Tiberius
gate which are the entrance points of the city, in the Bouleuterion, Agora and
Macellum to its east, in the cisterns nos. I and II and in the easternmost part of
the acropolis. The residential areas, built by the last inhabitants of the region,
the Byzantines, by using spolia of older buildings, are badly preserved. The architecture,
which, due to its location on a hillside, has been harmed by landslides
and torrents, but also by human destruction such as treasure hunts and
stone borrowing, is very fragile. The only preserved architecture so far is a sacral
building dated to the 12th or 13th century. Abundant pottery and glass small
finds, together with some metal objects and coins, enable us to get an idea of the
Byzantine era in Aigai and provide a foresight to further studies.