Bergama Acropolis (Pergamon)

Pergamon crowns a steep hill above modern Bergama and entered the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014. Despite invasions and destruction, its strategic position kept it inhabited through history. The name is linked to the word for citadel. Around 283 BC Philetairos founded a kingdom that lasted about 150 years as a strong political, economic and cultural power, until Attalos III's will passed the kingdom to Rome in 133 BC and the city became capital of the province of Asia.

Against a difficult slope, the city planners built terraces bearing large sanctuaries, public buildings and houses. The monuments include the steeply set theatre, a long stoa, a three-terraced gymnasium, the Great Altar, tumuli, pressurised water pipelines, city walls and the Kybele sanctuary. The Attalid dynasty founded one of the largest libraries of antiquity, and rivalry among Hellenistic courts produced Pergamon's famous school of sculpture.

Roman times added the Trajan Temple, the Serapeum and other works, and the Asclepion healing sanctuary, with a sacred spring that still flows. In the Byzantine period Pergamon shrank to a middle-sized town, yet remained a place of Christian importance as one of the Seven Churches of Asia.