Ancient gymnasium to become open-air museum in Turkey’s İzmir

The 1800-year-old gymnasium unearthed in the western province of İzmir during construction works will be converted into an open-air museum.

The remains of the historical artifacts were discovered in 2016 when a firm demolished a 120-year-old business center in the Konak district in a bid to replace it with a newer center. Following the discovery, the construction was immediately stopped.

The İzmir Directorate of Museums under the Culture and Tourism Ministry then performed a salvage excavation on the site. During the excavation works, an ancient harbor bath, an imperial salon, shops and storage spaces from the second century were unearthed.

Upon the completion of excavations, the works of the teams were put into a report, which was then conveyed to the İzmir Board of Cultural Protection with the proposition of classifying the archeological site as first degree.

On Oct. 3, 2018, the board ruled that the artifacts have a complex structure, display a period's socio-cultural life and thus must be regarded as a "strict preservation zone." The board stressed that the site's status will be reassessed after the groundwater is discharged.

Yet, with time, the groundwater coupled with the rainwater flooded the "strict preservation zone," with the lack of protection measures to secure the archeological site raising eyebrows and archeologists calling for immediate action.

Since the ruins were prone to physical, chemical and biological degradation, demands on transforming the archeological site into an open-air museum emerged.

Following the demands, the İzmir Board of Cultural Protection prepared the museum's project. Upon assessment from the Konak Municipality, the project was later approved by the cultural heritage conservation...