location
The city of Aphrodisias is located on the western side of Turkey, about 60 miles inland from the Aegean Sea.
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Temple of Aphrodite
Located on the north side of the city, the Temple of Aphrodite once stood as the center and nucleus of its community. It is one of the city’s most important monuments, dedicated to Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and fertility. It was built in many stages between the end of the 1st century B.C. and the beginning of the 1st century A.D. Built as an Octastyle temple, the building had 8 columns along the front and back of the building, with 13 on the sides, and was enclosed within a Temenos structure consisting of a 2-story high façade on the east side, and porticoes on the others. On some of the temple’s columns and door moldings are inscriptions that record the contributions to the construction of the building by some of the leading citizens. In the late 5th century, the Temple of Aphrodite was reconstructed as a Christian Basilica, where the columns were moved to extend the side colonnades. Stones were reused in the construction of new walls that enclosed the whole building. Rebuilt in a basilical plan, an apse and narthexes stood behind a colonnaded courtyard atrium. The temple was later damaged, perhaps in the Seljuk raids at the end of the 12th century, and was not repaired.
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Bouleuterion The Bouleuterion Council House, located north of the North Agora, was used for both the council sessions as well as for musical performances, seating 1,750. It consists of a shallow stage structure and a semi-circular auditorium, and large parallel buttresses suggest that the building was originally roofed, with tall arched windows along the outer wall for light. The construction of the Bouleuterion started around the turn of the 3rd century A.D., and was later adapted as a palaestra, a hall for lectures, performances, and displays. Many sculptures of important senators were placed at the end of the retaining walls of the auditorium, and 8 over-lifesize marble statues were found inside the council house, which were probably decorations for the stage front. Two other statues originally stood on each side of the entrance of the building from the North Agora.
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Theater The theater at Aphrodisias was a large auditorium that was built on the south side of the city, near the South Agora. Built on the eastern slope of the acropolis, it was completed in 27 BC and renovated in the 2nd century AD in order to strengthen the structure for gladiatorial games. It includes twenty-seven tiers of marble seating for 8,000 people and a three-story high marble stage, elaborated with a wide variety of ornamentation and sculptures. The north side of the theater was supported by a large retaining wall, which also formed the back wall of the south stoa of the South Agora. This retaining wall had a vaulted stairway that allowed for direct access from the theater to the South Agora.
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North Agora
The North Agora is a large public square, which is thought to have been the center of Aphrodisias. Used as a market and a popular meeting place, it is composed of two Ionic porticoes running along the east-west axis. Built in the 5th century, it was eventually damaged in the 7th century earthquake.
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Hadrianic Baths
Built in the 2nd century on the west side of the South Agora, the Hadrianic Baths were made from 5 great barrel-vaulted chambers with a colonnaded court in the front. It was heavily ornamented with sculptures of important people. The building consisted of a large central hall that was probably used as the caldarium or hot room surrounded by the four large sweating room, dressing room, warm room, and cold rooms. It had an underground system of service corridors, furnaces, and water channels.
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Sculptor's Workshop
The workshops where the world-renowned marble sculptures were made were located in two rooms of a small stoa north of the Bouleuterion. This workshop remained active until about the end of the 4th century AD. Excavations have found that the workshop specialized in making portraits and ideal works, in sizes that ranged from a statuette to over-lifesize.
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