New investigations at the ancient site of Kolophon in Ionia

The ancient city of Colophon ranked amongst the most important cities in Ionia and was the only one of the Ionian cities not located immediately at the sea. In 1895 C. Schuchhardt and P. Wolters located the city near the village of Degirmendere close to modern Izmir (Turkey). Literary and epigraphical evidence testify of Colophon`s wealth and prominence in the archaic period. In contrary to our available knowledge of the political history of this city, our understanding of the archaeological record is yet limited. Only one excavation campaign took place in 1922, after this no systematic investigations have been carried out. Aim of the new Survey project is to procure new archaeological data on the development, dimensions and urbanistic organization of a city from which we only know the city walls of the late 4th century B.C. and a few structures belonging to the late classical- early hellenistic period. These investigations will be carried out by using different methods of archaeological survey to obtain the basis for the reconstruction of the settlement`s area. Our aim is to study the urbanistic development, long-term settlement patterns and the natural surroundings of the site.

Aim of the project was to study the exploration of the extent of the urban area of Colophon ist development and spatial organization with archaeological methods. According to the historic sources the city belonged to the most important of the Ionian cities although is not located directly at the sea. In contrast to her original importance stands our knowledge of the city, localized already at the end of the 19th century between the villages of Camönü and Degirmendere. Besides one excavation campaign in 1922 by the American School of Classical Studies in Atehns and the Fogg Art Museum/Harvard and a short stay in 1925 Colophon remained unexplored. With five survey campaigns (2010 2014; financed by the FWF between the 2012 2014) we explored Colophon with different survey methods. The team of our turkish cooperation partner Christine Özgan (Mimar Sinan University Istanbul) concentrated on the so called Acropolis, where in 1922 official buildings (Metroon, Stoa) as well as a residential quarter had been excavated. The Austrian team, directed by Ulrike Muss (University of Vienna) investigated unexplored areas in the plain, mainly those included by the fortification walls and the necropoleis, excavated partly in 1922 and 1925. The exploration of the city was greatly enhanced when an airborne laser scan of the whole region was realized in 2013. As vegetation can be virtually removed from the resulting Digital Elevation Model (DEM) it was for example possible to clarify the course of the city walls in all sectors. The new data were used at full length for the localization and documentation of archaeological features in the Southwest Necropolis. Surveys on the fields in the plain - considering also the geophysical prospection show two main periods for the settlement inside the city walls, one belonging to the Archaic period, the second one to the end oft he 4th, beginning of the 3rd c. BC. It seems important that we traced a settlement pattern with insulae, to which belongs also one sector of the city walls as well as most of the offical monuments on the so called Acropolis. The further development of the history of Colophon can well be traced on the basis of written sources and with the new archaeological results it is not at all unlikely that the city did not recover after the emigration of its inhabitants to Ephesos organized by Lysimachus but was finally given up already in the 3rd c. BC.