Ayasuluk Archaeological Site

Ayasuluk Hill rises above the modern town of Selçuk and tells the story of Ephesus at both ends. Excavations here since 1990 have changed the picture: the site was long thought to have been founded by Greek colonists around 1050 BC, but finds show settlement going back to the Neolithic, around 7000 BC. In the Bronze Age it was known as Apasas and it stayed the main city until the Lydian king Croesus took Ephesus in 560 BC.

When people left the old classical city after the 7th century AD and settled on the hill, it became a key Byzantine city and pilgrimage centre. It fell to the Turks in 1304, took the name Ayasuluk and, from 1350, was for a time the capital of the Aydınoğulları principality.

The inner citadel on the highest point has Seljuk and Ottoman walls with two gates, cisterns, a small mosque and the remains of a lord's pavilion and bath.

On the southern slope stands the Basilica of St. John. Christian tradition holds that John the Theologian, apostle and gospel writer, died in Ephesus and was buried here. A simple tomb was followed by a timber-roofed basilica in the 5th century, then a domed, cross-plan church built by Justinian and Theodora after earthquakes in the early 6th.