With a history that goes back 8.500 years. Izmir is the third most developed city of Turkey. Being one of the oldest port cities of the world, Izmir has always been significant meeting point for different cultures, languages and beliefs, Located on the furthest west of Turkey, Izmir has combined a western culture with Anatolian traditions.
Known as the hometown of Homer, “the Master of poets”, Izmir is also home to the ancient city of Ephesus, one of the best preserved in the eastern Mediterranean and to Bergama (Pergamon), one of Turkey’s oldest civilized settlements and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The name of the city, which is mentioned as Pergamon or Pergamonos in ancient texts, comes from a local language known in Anatolia since ancient times and means 'Castle Place'. Apart from the Ancient Pergamon settlement on the top of Kale Mountain, there are many mounds scattered across the Bakırçay Plain. In the light of the researches carried out in these mounds, it was understood that the settlement history of the city dates back to the Old Bronze Age (3000 BC).
Homer; he mentions that some tribes living in the 'Teuthrania Region and called Ketiler' were involved in the Trojan wars (Iliada and Odesseia). Some scientists doing research on this subject have said that these people may have been Hittites, called 'Kheta' in Egyptian monuments. However, even though Pergamon was one of the most extreme settlements of the Hittites in the west during this period, the people living in these areas were still living in BC. They must have mixed with the nomadic Thrako-Phrygian tribes and the Aeolians who came to Northwest Anatolia from Greece at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.
The first traces of settlement in the Acropolis on the Pergamon Hill date back to 7th-6th BC. It goes back to the century. Pausanias; he says that Pergamon was founded by the hero Pergamus, son of Andromaque. In another source, Telephos, son of Heracles, is shown as the legendary founder of Pergamon. In ancient texts, the name of Pergamon is mentioned for the first time in Xenophon's 'The Return of the Tens of Thousands'. Xenophon reached Pergamon in 400-399 BC and stayed in the house of Gongylos of Eretria, a local ruler attached to the Persian rulers.
With Alexander the Great's campaign to the East in 334 BC, the 200-year reign of the Persians in Anatolia came to an end. After this date, as in all of Western Anatolia, Pergamon came under the rule of the Macedonian Kingdom. However, with the cruel death of Alexander at the age of 33, the lands of the Empire were shared among his successors as a result of long struggles. Macedonian Commander Lysimachos, who captured the Pergamon region in 301 BC, declared his kingdom and appointed an officer named Philetairos to keep the war booty of 9000 talents in the Castle. Philetairos, who rebelled in 282 BC, seized the administration and the foundations of the Pergamon Kingdom, which would last approximately 150 years, were laid.
Pergamon Asclepion was a health treatment center of equal importance to the examples in Epidaurus and Kos in the Ancient Age. According to Pausanias, the first Asclepius Temple in Pergamum was established in the first half of the 4th century BC. During the excavations, it was determined that the holy place had existed since the 4th century BC and developed during the Hellenistic Period. However, Asklepion's brightest period was AD II. he lived in the century
The Asclepius Sanctuary was a very important health center in the Roman Period with its courtyard with a gallery, a theater with a capacity of 3500 people, the cult hall of Emperor Hadrian, its library, and the round-planned Temple of Asklepios. In the southern part, there are three small temples from the Hellenistic Period, sleeping rooms, sacred springs and pools. Besides the holy spring, a long underground tunnel was built in order to protect the patients treated here from the cold and hot air.
Just north of this underground tunnel is the round-planned Temple of Asklepios. This temple was built by Consul L.C Rufinus in 150 AD, taking the Pantheon in Rome as an example. It has a columned entrance. There are 7 niches in the temple alternately. In the niche opposite the entrance was the cult statue of the god Asklepios.
AD II. We learn the treatment methods from Aelius Aristides, who stayed here for 13 years. Various forms of suggestion and physiotherapy, which are still in use today, were generally applied here. Drinking holy water, water-mud baths, hunger-thirst cures, medicinal herbs, lubrication with creams were the main treatment methods.
