Aeolian dodecapolis

A stone quarry used in the Hellenistic and Roman periods has been unearthed during a four-year surface survey in İzmir.

Kyme, the biggest of the 12 ancient Aeolian cities founded in the middle of the 11th century in İzmir, is now in ruins. Thanks to the maritime trade at the time, the city developed its economy and became one of the first cities to issue coins.

Popular artists had fans in antiquity too. Fans made figurines out of baked clay to pay homage or show their admiration to the artists of the time thousands of years ago, archaeological excavations in the Aegean province of İzmir's ancient theater of Smyrna have revealed.

Only one percent of the ancient city of Aigai in the Yunuslar district of the western Turkish province of Manisa has been unearthed so far in the excavations that started back in 2004. Click through for the story in photos...

A huge rock mass in the ancient city of Aigai, located in the western Turkish province of Manisa, has been broken by treasure hunters.

A road dating back to 2,000 years ago has been unearthed during the excavations in the ancient city of Aigai in the western province of Manisa.

The statements in the basilica of the Smyrna Agora, the last ancient city in İzmir, reveals the historic rivalry among the ancient cities of Ephesus, Sardis and Tralleis. 

Artifacts that were unearthed in 1882 by French researcher Michel Armand Clerc in the ancient city of Aigai in the western province of Manisa are currently being displayed at Paris' Louvre Museum. 

Though separated by millennia of history, İzmir's past will soon be symbolically linked with the opening of the ancient Smyrna excavation area to visits, allowing tourists to journey from Neolithic times to the relatively recent Classical past - stopping in ancient Smyrna along the way.

Travelers from French scientific missions to Anatolia brought back a sober and non-exoticized vision of the Orient during the 19th century. Now, the Arkas Art Center in İzmir is providing a glimpse at how sojourners saw the later Ottoman Empire.