Austria treads new ground in the area of monument protection with a modern protective structure over Terrace House 2, a structure which aims to combine conservation requirements with optical aesthetics and which, through the use of the most up-to-date materials, is clearly distinguished from the ancient ruins.

   In 1995 - after all previous attempts had failed - planning was begun of a protective structure over Terrace House 2 in Ephesos, on the basis of the complex problems concerning the care of the monument and the climatological conditions.
   For this purpose, the so-called "Hanghauskommission" was established, consisting of three representatives respectively of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the National Ministry for Science and Traffic, the Sponsors, and of the Turkish Republic, supported by international experts.
   The protective structure, an important element of the necessary conservation work, must keep at bay from the ruins all adverse environmental and climactic influences. Due to the establishment of environmental conditions which are as favourable as possible, the preservation and ultimately the presentation of this unique building complex, with its wall paintings, mosaic floors, decorative stone work and other architectural elements, is consistently successful. For the planning of such a protective structure, the ruins themselves - the building materials once used here, the situation in the landscape, and the influence of the environment - were decisive. It was necessary for structural physicists, structural chemists, climate technicians and structural geologists to investigate the ancient building complex with regard to the causes of its decay.
   In 1996 the so-called "Hanghauskommission" selected one project from among five proposed, a project which was also chosen as the most suitable by the competent Turkish authorities in February 1997, and thereby the building permission was obtained.

   The project proposed by the planner Prof. Dr. DI Wolfdietrich Ziesel (Vienna) and the architect DI Otto Häuselmayr (Vienna) is based on a lightweight supporting structure of high-grade steel with a roofing of textile membrane and a transparent polycarbonate façade in the form of overlapping scales. Above all, the protective function was fulfilled: wind, sun, rain, and all other external influences which might damage the ancient remains, should be effectively and permanently warded off. Furthermore, the protective structure fits in to the environmental landscape of Ephesos through its simplified form, and presents no visual competition to the excavations.

   The transparent closures at the sides together with the translucent roofing material provide comfortable natural light in every area of the ancient enclosure. A room temperature which would be acceptable to the visitor and above all to the ancient remains was a condition of the project, a project which represents Austrian architecture and engineering.

EXCAVATIONS IN THE AREA OF THE TETRAGONOS AGORA

History of research

   The market place of Ephesos attested epigraphically as the "Tetragonos Agora" was superficially cleared between 1901 and 1907 by Wilhelm Wilberg, and in 1967 elements of the late antique columnar architecture were re-erected by the Efes Müzesi (Ephesos Museum) at Selçuk. Deeper excavations under the direction of Gerhard Langmann between 1977 and 1986 exposed, in the east of the agora, a section of a late archaic - classical burial ground, and in the west, parts of an early hellenistic storehouse. In 1987 Peter Scherrer joined the Agora Team as an excavation assistant, and since 1992 he has led the excavations as Project Director. From 1987 until 1996, a village settlement of the 8th to the 4th century B.C., concentrated under the hellenistic agora (itself divided into four building phases) has been studied, a settlement which may be identified with the site of Smyrna attested in ancient literary sources. Since 1997, field research has concentrated on the building history of the agora, from its renovation and expansion in the early Imperial period until its final abandonment in the 9th century A.D. Since 1996, as an element of FWF-Projects 11032 and 13233 and with the support of the University Anniversary Foundation of the City of Vienna, the scientific publication of the ceramic finds has been systematically pursued.

Smyrna - a subgeometric to classical period settlement

   At the time of the arrival of the Greek colonists, in the first quarter of the first millennium B.C., an inlet of the sea reached up to the western border of the later agora. In the innermost nook of this inlet, directly on the coast, the village settlement of Smyrna was developed in the middle of the 8th century B.C. An early, short-lived phase characterised by wooden structures was quickly replaced by buildings with stone socles bound with mud. One of these very early domestic structures has an oval ground plan. The first phase of settlement ended already before the mid-7th c. B.C. as a result of a widespread conflagration; this was probably due to the attack of the nomadic Kimmerians, an attack which is attested in literary sources. In the next phase, one- to three-roomed houses of from 12 to 30 sq. m. grew up along narrow alleyways; in the 6th century, these were rebuilt into larger structures with courtyards and a greater number of rooms.
   In the mid-6th century B.C., the rising sea level must have been the cause for the abandonment of the village area under study. A kiln, a deep well and numerous basins dug into the ground indicate, however, that the area was still used for industrial purposes up until the 4th century B.C. From the burial field located 100 m. east of the settlement along the slope of the Panayirdag, only inhumation burials of the 6th till the 4th century are yet known; of the expected cremation burials dating to the earlier period (8th-7th c.), no evidence has yet come to light.

The hellenistic Agora

   During the second decade of the 3rd c. B.C., in the course of the new foundation of Ephesos under King Lysimachos, the settlement was razed, the land was terraced, and a trade market was set up on terrain which at that time had the correct level of ground water. The sea must have already receded somewhat, as already at this time a road built of broken stones was laid down, leading from the west gate of the agora towards the harbour in the west.
The hellenistic agora must have encompassed an area of ca. 70 x 100 m., according to the excavations which have only been extensively carried out in the west; along its borders free-standing storage buildings and stoas were erected step by step, until in the late 2nd or early 1st c. B.C., in the course of a programme of monumentalisation, an enclosed stoa building which ran around all sides of the agora was built.

The Agora of the Roman Imperial period

   During the reign of the Emperor Augustus, in ca. 20-10 B.C., a complete renovation of the market was undertaken, sponsored by the Association of Roman Traders of the Province of Asia; this rebuilding consisted of a quadrangular court measuring 111 m. to a side, at a level of ca. 1.5 m. above that of the late hellenistic market structure. The encircling two-storeyed, two-aisled stoa, including the 23 rooms which lay behind each row of colonnades, occupied a width of 17 m. and an exterior length of 154 m. To enable easier delivery of goods from the harbour road, which lay at a lower level, an enclosed cellar accessed by six doors was laid out beneath the west stoa. The devastating earthquake of A.D. 23 demolished the still incomplete agora; only the wall foundations and the South Gate, which was completed in ca. 3 B.C., remained standing. The new building, identical in plan, was available for use during the reign of the Emperor Claudius (41-54 A.D.), the upper storey being dedicated under Emperor Nero, before the murder of the Emperor's mother Agrippina (in 58 A.D.). The final completion of the structure, with the concluding marble veneering of the walls, lasted however into the early second century A.D.

The Forum of Theodosius

   The remains which are visible in ruins today date primarily to the late 4th century A.D., when, out of the foundations of the early Imperial period a completely new building was yet again achieved. For this market, which from this point on was known as the Forum of Theodosius, re-used building materials were exclusively used, deriving from structures either destroyed by earthquake or demolished for ideological grounds, in particular from structures associated with the Imperial cult.