Sagalassos Antik Kenti

Sagalassos is 7 kilometers north of Ağlasun District and on the slopes of Akdağ, at an altitude of 1700 meters above sea level. Sagalassos is the most important city of the Roman Imperial Period of the Pisidia Region. A great majority of the structures in the city belong to the Roman Period. Sagalassos was first identified in 1706 by the French traveler Paul Lucas. In the city among the clouds, at the entrance there are houses; below are baths, lime and metal furnaces, the lower agora (market), fountain and odeon; higher up, as you proceed northward, there are houses, on the right side the theater, Neon library, Hellenistic fountain, ceramic production center, in the center of the city the upper agora, council building, church, and on the upper left side the heroon, temple and Cladius gate.

The people of Sagalassos were from the Pisidia people, a branch of the Luwian tribes living in Western and Southern Anatolia at the end of the 3rd millennium B.C. In 333 B.C., Alexander the Great captured this city. Sagalassos came under Seleucid (Seleukos) and Attalid (Attalos) rule, and in 25 B.C. it was incorporated into the lands of the Roman Empire by the Galatian king Amyntas, and then by Agustus. The much larger-scale economic growth that began when Hadrian chose Sagalassos as the official center of the Pisidia imperial cult in the 120s started a century-long period of construction growth. The city, which continued to develop until the middle of the 6th century, was destroyed in the great earthquake that occurred in A.D. 590. Until the Seljuks eliminated the last Byzantine fortresses in the mid-13th century A.D., a few small villages continued to survive among the ruins of the city.

Its most prominent structure is the magnificent Antonine fountain. The city experienced its best period economically, politically and socially during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 2nd century). Sagalassos is perhaps one of the best-preserved ancient settlements in Asia Minor from the day it was abandoned to the present. Sagalassos was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2009. The statues of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and Emperor Hadrian, estimated to have been about 5.5 meters tall, uncovered in the excavations, along with other artifacts found, are exhibited in Burdur Museum.

Source: Kültür Envanteri, Ankara 2007

Places to Visit in Burdur Address: Ağlasun/Burdur