Iasos or Iassos (; ''Iasós'' or ''Iassós''), also in Latinized form Iasus or Iassus (), was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

city in

ancient Caria Caria (; from Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; ) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid- Ionia ( Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Carians were described by Herodotus as being Anatolian mainlanders ...

located on the Gulf of Iasos (now called the Gulf of Güllük), opposite the modern town of Güllük, Turkey. It was originally on an

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

, but is now connected to the mainland. It is located in the

Milas Milas is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Muğla Province, Turkey. Its area is 2,067 km2, and its population is 147,416 (2022). The city commands a region with an active economy and is very rich in history and ancient rema ...

district of

Muğla Province Muğla Province (, ) is a Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of Turkey, at the country's southwestern corner, on the Aegean Sea. Its area is 12,654 km2, and its population is 1 ...

, Turkey, near the

Alevi Alevism (; ; ) is a syncretic heterodox Islamic tradition, whose adherents follow the mystical Islamic teachings of Haji Bektash Veli, who taught the teachings of the Twelve Imams, whilst incorporating some traditions from shamanism. Differing ...

village of Kıyıkışlacık, about 31 km from the center of

History

View of agora from bouleuterion of Iasos AvL

Portico on eastern side of agora of Iasos AvL

Sanctuary of Artemis Astias in Iasos AvL

Ancient historians consider Iasos a colonial foundation of Argos, but archaeology shows a much longer history. According to the ancient reports, the

Argive Argos (; ; ) is a city and former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and the oldest in Europe. It is the largest city in Argolis and a major center in the same pr ...

colonists had sustained severe losses in a war with the native

Carians The Carians (; , ''Kares'', plural of , ''Kar'') were the ancient inhabitants of Caria in southwest Anatolia, who spoke the Carian language. Historical accounts Karkisa It is not clear when the Carians enter into history. The definition is ...

, so they invited the son of

Neleus Neleus (; ) was a mythological king of Pylos. In some accounts, he was also counted as an Argonaut instead of his son, Nestor. Family Neleus was the son of Poseidon and Tyro, and brother of Pelias. According to Pausanias, Neleus was the son o ...

, who had previously founded

Miletus Miletus (Ancient Greek: Μίλητος, Mílētos) was an influential ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in present day Turkey. Renowned in antiquity for its wealth, maritime power, and ex ...

, to come to their assistance. The town appears on that occasion to have received additional settlers. The town, which appears to have occupied the whole of the little island, had only ten stadia in circumference; but it nevertheless acquired great wealth, from its fisheries and trade in fish. Iasos was a member of the

Delian League The Delian League was a confederacy of Polis, Greek city-states, numbering between 150 and 330, founded in 478 BC under the leadership (hegemony) of Classical Athens, Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Achaemenid Empire, Persian ...

and was involved in the

Peloponnesian War The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (), was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek war fought between Classical Athens, Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Ancien ...

(431–404 BC). After the

Sicilian expedition The Sicilian Expedition was an Classical Athens, Athenian military expedition to Sicily, which took place from 415–413 BC during the Peloponnesian War between Classical Athens, Athens on one side and Sparta, Syracuse, Sicily, Syracuse and Co ...

of the

Athenians Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, Iasos was attacked by the

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

ns and their allies; it was governed at the time by Amorges, a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

chief, who had revolted from

Darius II Darius II ( ; ), also known by his given name Ochus ( ), was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 423 BC to 405 or 404 BC. Following the death of Artaxerxes I, in 424 BC or 423 BC, there was a struggle for power between his sons. The vic ...

. It was taken by the Spartans, who captured Amorges and delivered him up to

Tissaphernes Tissaphernes (; ; , ; 445395 BC) was a Persian commander and statesman, Satrap of Lydia and Ionia. His life is mostly known from the works of Thucydides and Xenophon. According to Ctesias, he was the son of Hidarnes III and therefore, the gre ...

. The town itself was plundered on that occasion. It became part of the Hecatomnid

satrapy A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Persian (Achaemenid) Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. A satrapy is the territory governed by a satrap. ...

in the 4th century and was conquered by

Alexander Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here ar ...

. We afterwards find it besieged by Philip V, king of

Macedon Macedonia ( ; , ), also called Macedon ( ), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, which later became the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal ...

, who, however, was compelled by the Romans to restore it to Ptolemy V of Egypt. The mountains in the neighbourhood of Iasus furnished a beautiful kind of

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

, of a blood-red and livid white colour, which was used by the ancients for ornamental purposes. Near the town was a sanctuary of

Hestia In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hestia (; ) is the virgin goddess of the hearth and the home. In myth, she is the firstborn child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and one of the Twelve Olympians. In Greek mythology, newborn Hestia, alo ...

, with a statue of the goddess, which, though standing in the open air, was believed never to be touched by the rain. The same story is related, by Strabo, of a temple of

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

in the same neighbourhood. Iasus, as a celebrated fishing place, is alluded to by

Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (, or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; ) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and Grammarian (Greco-Roman), grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century ...

. The place is still existing, under the name of Askem or Asýn Kalessi. Chandler (Travels in As. Min. p. 226) relates that the island on which the town was built is now united to the mainland by a small isthmus. Part of the city walls still exist, and are of a regular, solid, and handsome structure. In the side of the rock a theatre with many rows of seats still remains, and several inscriptions and coins have been found there. It seems to have been abandoned in about the 15th–16th century, in the Ottoman period, when a small town was founded nearby named Asin Kale or Asin Kurin, in the

sanjak A sanjak or sancak (, , "flag, banner") was an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans also sometimes called the sanjak a liva (, ) from the name's calque in Arabic and Persian. Banners were a common organization of nomad ...

of Menteşe within the vilayet of İzmir.

Archaeology

Preliminary research was done by the French archaeologist

Charles Texier Félix Marie Charles Texier (22 August 1802, Versailles – 1 July 1871, Paris) was a French historian, architect and archaeologist. Texier published a number of significant works involving personal travels throughout Asia Minor and the Middle Eas ...

in 1835. A number of ancient Greek inscriptions were removed from the site which were later donated to the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

by the Duke of St Albans. Since then, Iasos and the

necropolis A necropolis (: necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'' (). The term usually implies a separate burial site at a distan ...

have been under regular scientific excavations on behalf of the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens by Doro Levi (1960–1972), Clelia Laviosa (1972–1984) and Fede Berti (1984–2011). From 2011 till 2013 the Director of Iasos excavations has been Marcello Spanu . The site of Iasos has been settled continuously since the

Early Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

. In early times, Iasos was influenced by the culture of the

Cyclades The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...

islands. During the 1970s, archaeological excavations at Iasus revealed Mycenean buildings (with two "

Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture which was centered on the island of Crete. Known for its monumental architecture and Minoan art, energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe. The ruins of the Minoan pa ...

" levels underneath them).

"At Iasus, Mycenaean buildings, approximately dated by the presence of LH IIIa ware, have been found below the protogeometric cemetery. Below this again two 'Minoan' levels are reported, the earlier containing local imitations of MM II-LM I ware, the later imported pieces of the Second Palace Period (''AJA''
973 Year 973 ( CMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Spring – The Byzantine army, led by General Melias ( Domestic of the Schools in the East), continues the op ...
177-8). Middle and Late Minoan ware has also occurred at Cnidus (''AJA'' 978 321)."

Other archaeological finds cover

Geometric Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

periods, through the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

period. Outstanding remains in Iasos include an

stoa A stoa (; plural, stoas,"stoa", ''Oxford English Dictionary'', 2nd Ed., 1989 stoai, or stoae ), in ancient Greek architecture, is a covered walkway or portico, commonly for public use. Early stoas were open at the entrance with columns, usually ...

and

Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house in the territory of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Nevertheless, the term "Roman villa" generally covers buildings with the common ...

Church history

Four of its bishops are known: Themistius in 421, Flacillus in 451, David in 787, and Gregory in 878 (

Michel Le Quien Michel Le Quien (8 October 1661, Boulogne-sur-Mer – 12 March 1733, Paris) was a French historian and theologian. Biography Le Quien studied at , Paris, and at twenty entered the Dominican convent in Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he made ...

, ''Oriens Christianus'' I:913). The see is mentioned in the ''Nova Tactica'', 10th century (

Heinrich Gelzer Heinrich Gelzer (1 July 1847 – 11 July 1906) was a German classical scholar. He wrote also on Armenian mythology. He was the son of the Swiss historian Johann Heinrich Gelzer (1813–1889). He became Professor of classical philology and an ...

, '' Georgii Cyprii descriptio orbis romani'', nos. 340, 1464), and more recently in the ''

Notitiae Episcopatuum The ''Notitiae Episcopatuum'' (singular: ''Notitia Episcopatuum'') were official documents that furnished for Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church. In the Roman Church (the mos ...

''. Iasus is listed among the

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

s of

Caria Caria (; from Greek language, Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; ) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Carians were described by Herodotus as being Anatolian main ...

in the ''

Annuario Pontificio The ''Annuario Pontificio'' ( Italian for ''Pontifical Yearbook'') is the annual directory of the Holy See of the Catholic Church. It lists the popes in chronological order and all officials of the Holy See's departments. It also provides nam ...

''. The titular see has had the following Bishops: * Bishop Salvador Martinez Silva (1940.08.10 – 1969.02.07)Iasos
at GCatholic.org. * Bishop Antonio Laubitz (1924.11.08 – 1939.05.17) * Bishop Gregorio Ignazio Romero (1899.06.19 – 1915.02.21) * Bishop John Joseph Keane (later Archbishop) (1888.08.12 – 1897.01.29) * Bishop Gaetano d'Alessandro (later Archbishop) (1884.03.24 – 1888.03.18) * Bishop Étienne-Louis Charbonnaux, M.E.P. (1844.07.08 – 1873.06.23) * Bishop Ernst Maria Ferdinand von Bissingen-Nieppenburg (1801.12.23 – 1820.03.12) * Bishop Emanuel Maria Graf Thun (1797.07.24 – 1800.08.11) * Bishop-elect Bartolome Gascon (1727.03.17 – ?)

Gallery

File:Iasos 5510.jpg, Iasos Agora File:Iasos Agora frieze 5524.jpg, Iasos Agora Frieze File:Iasos Agora frieze 5526.jpg, Iasos Agora Frieze File:Iasos Agora plan 5496b.jpg, Iasos Agora Plan File:Iasos Bouleuterion 5492.jpg, Iasos Agora Bouleuterion File:Iasos Bouleuterion 5489.jpg, Iasos Agora Bouleuterion File:Iasos Basilica 5505.jpg, Iasos Agora Basilica File:Iasos Necropolis 5501.jpg, Iasos at agora Necropolis File:Iasos Zeus Megistos area 5531.jpg, Iasos at agora Zeus Megistos area File:Iasos museum 5428.jpg, Iasos museum Altars File:Iasos museum 5430.jpg, Iasos museum Altar detail File:Iasos museum 5434.jpg, Iasos museum Altar detail File:Iasos museum 5435.jpg, Iasos museum Altar File:Iasos museum 5437.jpg, Iasos museum Treaty File:Iasos museum 5449.jpg, Iasos museum Capital File:Iasos museum 5452.jpg, Iasos museum Frieze File:Iasos museum 5462.jpg, Iasos museum File:Iasos museum 5469.jpg, Iasos museum

Notes

References

* * Grande Encyclopédie, ''s.v.'' Iasos 20:505. * Fede Berti, Roberta Fabiani, Zeynep Kızıltan, Massimo Nafissi (ed.), ''Marmi erranti. I marmi di Iasos presso i musei archeologici di Istanbul. Gezgin Taşlar. Istanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri'ndeki Iasos Mermerleri. Wandering marbles. Marbles of Iasos at the Istanbul Archaeological Museums. (Istanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri 7.12.2010 – 4.7.2011)''. Istanbul: Istanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri Müdürlüğü, 2010.

External links

Official Web Site

Iasos article at the Perseus Project

{{Authority control Populated places disestablished in the 16th century 1835 archaeological discoveries Greek colonies in Caria Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Former populated places in Turkey Geography of Muğla Province Buildings and structures in Muğla Province History of Muğla Province Populated places in ancient Caria

Iasus In Greek mythology, Iasus (; Ancient Greek: Ἴασος) or Iasius (; Ἰάσιος) was the name of several people: *Iasus (Iasius), one of the Dactyli or Curetes. * Iasus, king of Argos. *Iasus, son of Io *Iasius ( Iasion), son of Eleuther ...

Greek city-states Members of the Delian League Milas District