Ayasuluk Kalesi

Rising directly above the centre of Selçuk, Ayasuluk Hill is both the first and the last settlement area of Ephesus. According to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's page for the site, the hill was inhabited without interruption from the Neolithic period to the Ottoman era. It is accepted that Apasa, the capital of the Hittite-period kingdom of Arzawa-Mira, stood here; Late Bronze Age walls, tholos tombs and Mycenaean pottery support that view. Around 560 BC the Lydian king Croesus moved the city to the area of the Temple of Artemis, and around 300 BC Lysimachus founded the Ephesus we visit today. When the harbour silted up and the city began to fade, people drifted back to this hill from the seventh century AD onwards. The hill's name comes from Hagios Theologos, the name given to the Byzantine building that stood here; Turkish and Arab sources pronounced it Ayasuluk. According to the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam, the settlement was renamed Selçuk in 1914. A simple monument was first raised over the tomb, followed in the fifth century by a basilica with a wooden roof. After the earthquakes of the early sixth century, Emperor Justinian and Theodora built the present cross-shaped basilica with three naves and six domes. According to Wikipedia, a branch of aqueduct roughly 650 metres long was built in Justinian's reign to bring water to the hill. After the Arab raids of the seventh century, the hill was walled to protect the basilica; that Byzantine work is the first phase of the castle. In October 1304 Sasa Bey brought the area definitively under Turkish rule, and shortly afterwards Ayasuluk passed to Mehmed Bey of the Aydınoğlu dynasty. After 1350 it became the capital of the Aydınoğlu principality, and in 1375 İsa Bey built the great mosque that bears his name just south of the castle. Timur's campaign of 1402 damaged the castle; it reached its present form through repairs and additions in the principality and Ottoman periods. The census of 1475 counted about 2,200 people in the town; with the rise of İzmir the population fell from the seventeenth century onwards and the castle lost its importance. The inner castle walls at the highest point of the hill belong to the Seljuk-Ottoman period and are reinforced with fifteen towers. The castle is entered through two gates, one on the west and one on the east. Five vaulted cisterns are lined up near the gates; they supplied the water in days of siege. In the middle of the southern courtyard stands the single-domed Castle Mosque, its minaret partly preserved. Higher up on the west side are the Turkish-period Bey Pavilion, its bath and another barrel-vaulted cistern; according to Wikipedia the pavilion measures roughly 11 by 10 metres on the outside and is linked to İsa Bey. The remains of an older Byzantine basilica were later turned into a cistern. The outer walls, the monumental entrance, the chapel and treasury, the baptistery, the atrium, the Bishop's Palace, the Byzantine aqueducts and the South Terrace Houses are the other parts of the archaeological site. The first excavations were started by the Ephesus Museum in 1960; the second campaign, between 1990 and 2003, rewrote the history of the hill. From 2007 the team of Mustafa Büyükkolancı of Pamukkale University worked in the inner castle and uncovered the houses on the southern slope, the streets, the pavilion and the bath. Excavation and restoration continue today under Sinan Mimaroğlu of Hatay Mustafa Kemal University. An article Büyükkolancı published in 2023 presents two mosques with hospice wings south of the outer castle, identified from old engravings and photographs; in other words, the surroundings of the hill are still yielding new discoveries. In 2015 Ayasuluk Hill entered the UNESCO list as one of the four components of the Ephesus World Heritage site. The castle is visited with the ticket of the Ayasuluk-St. John archaeological site; the site is open every day and the Museum Pass is valid. The hours for climbing to the castle may differ from those of the site; check the current information on muze.gov.tr. The entrance is in İsa Bey neighbourhood, on St. Jean Street; after seeing the basilica you climb the slope and reach the castle gate. From the wall walk you can pick out the İsa Bey Mosque below, the site of the Temple of Artemis on the plain and, in the distance, the road to Ephesus. There is little shade in the castle; in summer climb early in the morning or in the late afternoon, bring water and wear flat-soled shoes. Selçuk has train and bus services from İzmir, and the site is within walking distance of the town centre. It combines well in a single day with the İsa Bey Mosque, the Ephesus Museum and the Temple of Artemis; the Çamlık Steam Locomotive Museum and the Belevi Mausoleum are also a short drive away.