Sagalassos, Turkey: A Lost City Among the Clouds
High in the Western Taurus Mountains of southwestern Turkey, ancient Sagalassos clings dramatically to a series of terraces overlooking the valleys and distant peaks of Pisidia.
At around 1,450 to 1,700 metres above sea level, it is one of the most spectacularly situated ancient cities in the Mediterranean world. Mountains rise behind its ruined streets, clouds drift across the surrounding peaks, and monumental fountains, agoras, tombs, and temples appear almost improbably high above the fertile plains below.
Sagalassos endured an extraordinary journey through history. It was Pisidian, Hellenised, Romanised and Christianised; it prospered as a wealthy regional metropolis, survived earthquakes and epidemics, contracted into a fortified Byzantine settlement, and was eventually abandoned. Vegetation and erosion then gradually covered much of the city, helping preserve its ruins for centuries.
Today, after decades of archaeological excavation and painstaking reconstruction, Sagalassos has emerged once again from the mountain slopes.
Before Sagalassos
The origins of Sagalassos reach into the complex history of ancient Pisidia, a rugged mountainous region corresponding broadly with the modern Turkish Lake District.
Hittite documents from the 14th century BCE mention a mountain settlement called Salawassa, which has sometimes been identified with Sagalassos. The connection is intriguing, but remains uncertain. Archaeological investigations have so far found little evidence of settlement at Sagalassos itself before the Iron Age, with the first substantial occupation appearing during the late Achaemenid period, around the late 5th century BCE.
The wider region nevertheless lay within a shifting world of Anatolian kingdoms and empires. Phrygians, Lydians, and eventually the Achaemenid Persians exercised power or influence across Pisidia.
The Pisidians themselves developed a formidable reputation. Mountainous terrain encouraged fiercely independent communities, and ancient writers portrayed them as difficult to conquer and resistant to outside authority.
One of history’s greatest conquerors would discover this for himself.
Alexander Comes to Pisidia
In 333 BCE, Alexander the Great entered Pisidia as part of his campaign against the Persian Empire.
According to the ancient historian Arrian, the people of Sagalassos resisted him fiercely. Alexander first confronted Pisidian forces on a steep hill south of the settlement before breaking their resistance and taking Sagalassos by storm. Arrian described it as no small city, although archaeological evidence suggests that the settlement at this stage was probably considerably more modest than the metropolis it later became.
Alexander’s conquest drew Sagalassos into the expanding Hellenistic world, but the transformation was neither immediate nor absolute.
Following Alexander’s death, Pisidia passed between competing Hellenistic dynasties, including the Antigonids, Seleucids, and eventually the Attalids of Pergamon. Greek became increasingly important, Greek civic institutions developed, and Greek architectural, religious, and artistic traditions became deeply embedded in the growing city.
By around the 2nd century BCE, Sagalassos had developed into a significant urban centre controlling a large and fertile territory that extended towards the Burdur Plain.
Hellenism had not erased the city’s Pisidian origins; instead, Sagalassos evolved through the meeting of indigenous Anatolian traditions with the increasingly dominant culture of the Greek world.
The First City of Pisidia
Another transformation followed with the arrival of Rome.
After the death of Attalos III of Pergamon in 133 BCE, his kingdom was bequeathed to Rome, although Roman authority over Pisidia developed gradually. In 25 BCE, following the death of the Galatian ruler Amyntas, Emperor Augustus incorporated Pisidia into the Roman province of Galatia.
For Sagalassos, Roman rule opened an extraordinary period of prosperity.
The city controlled fertile agricultural lands producing grain, olives, and other crops, while improved communications connected its mountain territory with wider trading networks. Yet one product became particularly associated with the city: Sagalassos Red Slip Ware.
Produced on a large scale from around the Augustan period until the 7th century CE, this fine red tableware was distributed throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Over fifty kilns and workshops have been identified, revealing Sagalassos as one of the great ceramic production centres of antiquity.
Agriculture, pottery, and trade generated wealth that was poured back into the city.
Streets were monumentalised, agoras enlarged, fountains erected, temples embellished and vast public buildings constructed across the steep mountain terraces. Sagalassos increasingly proclaimed itself not merely as another provincial city, but as the leading city of Pisidia.
That ambition reached its height during the 2nd century CE.
Hadrian and an Age of Grandeur
The reign of Emperor Hadrian ushered in a remarkable building boom.
Sagalassos became an important centre of the imperial cult, receiving the prestigious status of neokoros, or guardian of an officially recognised imperial sanctuary. It also carried the proud title of “first city of Pisidia, friend and ally of the Romans.”
The city responded with architecture on an extraordinary scale.
The Neon Library, monumental fountains, temples, and the enormous Roman bath complex transformed the urban landscape. Construction continued under Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, creating many of the monuments whose remains dominate the site today.
Curiously, Sagalassos itself may have contained only around 3,500 to 5,000 urban inhabitants at its height, although thousands more lived throughout its extensive territory. Its monumental buildings were therefore far larger than the resident population alone required. The theatre, baths, odeion and sanctuaries could accommodate visitors arriving for markets, festivals, games and ceremonies associated with the imperial cult.
Sagalassos had become a mountain city designed to impress.
The Antonine Nymphaeum
Nothing expresses that confidence more vividly than the magnificent Antonine Nymphaeum overlooking the Upper Agora.
Constructed between approximately 160 and 180 CE, during the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, the monumental fountain stretched around 28 metres across the northern side of the square and rose to almost nine metres.
Its richly ornamented facade combined columns, projecting architectural bays, niches and seven different varieties of stone. Statues stood among the architecture, including representations of Dionysos supported by satyrs, while water cascaded into an immense basin capable of holding around 81 cubic metres.
The fountain must have been a dazzling sight in antiquity. Coloured stone, sculpture, elaborate architectural decoration and falling water formed a theatrical backdrop to one of the city’s most important public spaces.
A devastating earthquake in the 7th century CE caused the structure to collapse. When archaeologists excavated it between 1993 and 1995, however, many of its original blocks remained where they had fallen.
This allowed an extraordinary reconstruction.
Between 1998 and 2010, thousands of surviving fragments were painstakingly identified, repaired and returned to their original positions through anastylosis, using the ancient material wherever possible. Finally, water from a nearby mountain spring was reconnected to the fountain.
After more than thirteen centuries of silence, water once again flowed through the Antonine Nymphaeum.
Baths Fit for Emperors
Nearby stood another expression of Sagalassos’s wealth, the enormous Roman bath and gymnasium complex.
Developed principally between around 120 and 165 CE, the complex occupied over 5,000 square metres. Monumental vaulted halls contained hot and cold bathing rooms, raised floors for heating, coloured marble revetments, mosaics, and richly decorated interiors. It functioned not simply as a place for bathing but as an important centre of recreation, exercise and social life.
Among its most remarkable archaeological discoveries were fragments of colossal statues representing members of the imperial family.
Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius once stood here alongside the empresses Sabina, Faustina the Elder and Faustina the Younger. The heads and limbs of the emperors were carved in white marble, while other portions included gilded bronze, creating an imposing dynastic display celebrating the relationship between Sagalassos and Rome.
The monumental head of Hadrian recovered from the baths is among the most memorable works discovered at Sagalassos and is now preserved in the Burdur Archaeological Museum.
A Theatre in the Mountains
Higher still stands the great theatre, one of the most dramatic monuments at Sagalassos.
Built into the mountain slope at approximately 1,600 metres above sea level, the theatre could accommodate around 9,000 spectators, almost twice the likely population of the urban centre itself.
Its scale again reflects Sagalassos’s role as a regional centre capable of attracting large crowds for public performances, religious festivals and civic celebrations.
Construction probably began during the later 2nd century CE, perhaps under Marcus Aurelius. From its stone seating, spectators looked not only towards the stage but across a vast mountain landscape of ridges, valleys, and distant peaks.
It is frequently described as one of the highest Roman theatres ever constructed, and few ancient theatres possess such an extraordinary setting.
Even in ruin, with sections of seating broken and the stage building collapsed, it retains an immense presence against the Taurus Mountains.
Heroons, Agoras and a City of Monuments
Beyond its grand fountain, baths and theatre, Sagalassos contains a remarkable concentration of monuments.
The Upper and Lower Agoras formed the political and commercial heart of the city. The Bouleuterion housed the civic council, while a monumental colonnaded street connected important areas of the urban centre.
The reconstructed Northwest Heroon, probably dating to the early 1st century CE, rises around fifteen metres and was erected in honour of an unidentified member of the city’s elite. Its celebrated frieze of dancing young women, possibly connected with the cult of Dionysos, is now represented at the monument by copies, while the originals are preserved in the Burdur Museum.
Temples honoured deities including Zeus, Apollo Klarios and Tyche, while later sanctuaries celebrated the Roman emperors.
Rock-cut tombs and necropolises occupied the slopes around the city, reminders that even the landscape surrounding Sagalassos was shaped by its inhabitants.
From Pagan Metropolis to Christian City
Sagalassos did not suddenly collapse with the end of Roman paganism.
Christianity gradually reshaped the city during Late Antiquity. Between the 5th and 6th centuries CE, at least eight churches were constructed within Sagalassos and its surroundings. The former Bouleuterion was transformed into part of a major Christian basilica complex, probably serving as the cathedral of the local bishop.
Ancient temples lost their original functions, while crosses, churches and Christian ritual spaces increasingly replaced the religious landscape of the Greek and Roman gods.
For a time, the city continued to prosper.
An earthquake around the beginning of the 6th century damaged Sagalassos, but its citizens rebuilt many monuments. More serious difficulties followed later in the century as epidemics, economic disruption, and changing environmental conditions weakened the city.
The great plague that swept through the eastern Mediterranean from the 540s contributed to population decline, while agricultural and commercial patterns were changing across the region.
Then came further earthquakes and the growing threat of Arab raids.
Earthquake, Survival and the Long Decline
A devastating earthquake during the 7th century CE destroyed many of Sagalassos’s monumental public buildings, including the Antonine Nymphaeum and much of the bath complex.
For many years, archaeologists believed this catastrophe marked the effective end of the city.
More recent research has revealed a more fascinating story.
Sagalassos did not disappear. It changed.
The monumental Roman centre was increasingly abandoned, but smaller communities survived among the ruins. Defensive walls were erected, older structures were reused, and occupation shifted towards fortified positions on the mountain. Sagalassos remained a Christian bishopric, while a Byzantine kastron, or fortified settlement, developed in parts of the former city.
Human occupation continued in some form until the 13th century CE.
Only then did organised settlement on the mountain finally end, as the population concentrated increasingly in the valley below, where modern Aglasun developed.
Lost Beneath the Mountain
Once abandoned, Sagalassos was gradually reclaimed by its surroundings.
Erosion washed soil from the steep mountainsides across buildings and streets, while vegetation covered collapsed monuments. Its remote position protected it from the extensive stone robbing and later construction that destroyed so many other ancient cities.
Consequently, architectural blocks often remained close to the exact places where earthquakes had thrown them centuries earlier. This extraordinary preservation has allowed archaeologists to reconstruct several monuments with a degree of certainty rarely possible elsewhere.
Yet describing Sagalassos as completely “forgotten” requires some qualification. The people living in the Aglasun Valley continued to know of the ruins above them even after the ancient city’s name had faded from memory. The idea of rediscovery largely reflects the return of Sagalassos to European knowledge.
French traveller Paul Lucas visited the ruins in 1706 while travelling through the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Louis XIV. More than a century later, in 1824, the British clergyman and antiquarian Francis Vyvyan Jago Arundell recognised the ancient name Sagalassos in inscriptions at the site.
Modern archaeological investigation intensified during the 1980s, followed by extensive excavation, conservation, and restoration from 1990 onwards.
The results have transformed our understanding of the city.
The City Among the Clouds
Today Sagalassos extends across both an Upper and Lower City, its ruins scattered over a magnificent mountain landscape above Aglasun in Burdur Province.
The reconstructed Antonine Nymphaeum once again sends water cascading into its ancient basin. The Northwest Heroon rises above the Upper Agora. The remains of the immense Roman baths preserve memories of emperors and citizens, while the theatre continues to gaze across the mountains from its extraordinary perch high above the valley.
Yet extensive areas remain deliberately unrestored. Fallen columns, broken walls, and scattered blocks have been left as ruins, preserving something of the city’s long encounter with earthquakes, abandonment and nature.
Sagalassos was placed on Turkey’s UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2009, where it remains today. UNESCO particularly recognises the remarkable preservation of its monumental structures, its long history of occupation, and its extraordinary evidence for ancient ceramic production.
Its location is part of its magic.
Around 110 kilometres north of Antalya, the journey rises away from the Mediterranean coast and into the mountains of ancient Pisidia. The modern world gradually recedes, and above Aglasun the remains of Sagalassos appear across the slopes.
Few ancient cities possess such a dramatic relationship with their landscape.
Alexander fought his way into these mountains. Greek culture transformed the settlement that followed. Roman wealth filled its terraces with fountains, baths, temples, and statues. Christianity changed its sacred spaces. Earthquakes shattered its monuments, and nature slowly covered what remained.
Yet Sagalassos endured beneath the soil.
Today, high among the Taurus peaks, a lost city has returned from the mountains.