Initial results of the archaeological investigations of the Byzantine Aigai (Aiolis) [Erste ergebnisse der archäologischen untersuchungen des byzantinischen aigai (Aiolis)]

In this paper, a pre-assessment of the Byzantine era of Aigai will be presented. Besides the western Anatolian cities of Pergamum, Ephesus and Smyrna, Aigai is the only city which achieved to cope with the rough terrain among the Aspordenon Mountains north of Smyrna. This city located 17 km east of the Yeni Sakran town in the province Izmir, also known as Köseler castle due to its location on Mount Gün near the Köseler village in the province of Manisa, and is one of the twelve cities within the Aeolian region mentioned by Herodotus. Thanks to the detailed studies by R. Bohn and C. Schuchhardt on inscriptions from Aigai, the city was first introduced to the academical world in 1889. Archaeological studies started in 2004 and were conducted by Prof. Dr. Ersin Doger. While the archaeological and written sources about the history and civilization of pre-Byzantine Aigai are rather well-known, in this paper it will be attempted to give an overview of the scarce written sources about the Byzantine era and to evaluate them in the light of so-far unpublished architecture and small finds. Since 2004, area based excavations have been carried out in the necropolis of the city, at Demirkapi and the insula situated east of the Tiberius gate which are the entrance points of the city, in the Bouleuterion, Agora and Macellum to its east, in the cisterns nos. I and II and in the easternmost part of the acropolis. The residential areas, built by the last inhabitants of the region, the Byzantines, by using spolia of older buildings, are badly preserved. The architecture, which, due to its location on a hillside, has been harmed by landslides and torrents, but also by human destruction such as treasure hunts and stone borrowing, is very fragile. The only preserved architecture so far is a sacral building dated to the 12th or 13th century. Abundant pottery and glass small finds, together with some metal objects and coins, enable us to get an idea of the Byzantine era in Aigai and provide a foresight to further studies. © 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston