Today, the ruins of Ephesus are a favourite international and local tourist attraction, being accessible from Adnan Menderes Airport and from the resort town Kuşadası.

Humans had begun inhabiting the area surrounding Ephesus by the Neolithic Age (about 6000 BC), as shown by evidence from excavations at the nearby höyük (artificial mounds known as tells) of Arvalya and Cukurici.

According to Hittite sources, the capital of the kingdom of Arzawa (another independent state in Western and Southern Anatolia/Asia Minor[13]) was Apasa (or Abasa), and some scholars suggest that this is the same place the Greeks later called Ephesus.

[5][14][15][16] In 1954, a burial ground from the Mycenaean era (1500–1400 BC), which contained ceramic pots, was discovered close to the ruins of the basilica of St.

The mythical founder of the city was a prince of Athens named Androklos, who had to leave his country after the death of his father, King Kodros.

Later, Greek historians such as Pausanias, Strabo and Herodotos and the poet Kallinos reassigned the city's mythological foundation to Ephos, queen of the Amazons.

This may explain why in 640 BC, Ephesus and the sanctuary of Artemis were raided, following Sardis, by the Cimmerians, a warlike people who had destroyed the kingdom of Phrygia in central Anatolia decades before.

Consequently, Pindar was exiled and Ephesus made peace with Lydia, while Croesus is said to have regretted the sacrilege and thus became the main contributor to the reconstruction of the temple of Artemis.

When Alexander the Great defeated the Persian forces at the Battle of Granicus in 334 BC, the Greek cities of Asia Minor were liberated.

Lysimachus forced the people to move from the ancient settlement around the temple of Artemis to the present site two kilometres (1.2 miles) away, when as a last resort the king flooded the old city by blocking the sewers.

Ephesus revolted after the treacherous death of Agathocles, giving the Hellenistic king of Syria and Mesopotamia Seleucus I Nicator an opportunity for removing and killing Lysimachus, his last rival, at the Battle of Corupedium in 281 BC.

The Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great tried to regain the Greek cities of Asia Minor and recaptured Ephesus in 196 BC but he then came into conflict with Rome.

When his grandson Attalus III died in 133 BC without male children of his own, he left his kingdom to the Roman Republic, on condition that the city of Pergamon be kept free and autonomous.

Hence in 88 BC Ephesus welcomed Archelaus, a general of Mithridates, king of Pontus, when he conquered Asia (the Roman name for western Anatolia).

Zenobius was invited into the city to visit Philopoemen, the father of Monime, the favourite wife of Mithridates, and the overseer of Ephesus.

Sulla imposed a huge indemnity, along with five years of back taxes, which left Asian cities heavily in debt for a long time to come.

[35] King Ptolemy XII Auletes of Egypt retired to Ephesus in 57 BC, passing his time in the sanctuary of the temple of Artemis when the Roman Senate failed to restore him to his throne.

[36] Mark Antony was welcomed by Ephesus for periods when he was proconsul[37] and in 33 BC with Cleopatra when he gathered his fleet of 800 ships before the battle of Actium with Octavius.

Not all of this area was inhabited due to public buildings and spaces in the city center and the steep slope of the Bülbül Dağı mountain, which was enclosed by the wall.

Contrary to the terms of the surrender, the Turks pillaged the church of Saint John and, when a revolt seemed probable, deported most of the local population to Thyrea, Greece.

Ayasoluk became an important harbour, from which piratical raids on the surrounding Christian regions were organised, some officially sanctioned by the state and some by private parties.

[55] Initially, according to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul attended the Jewish synagogue in Ephesus, but after three months he became frustrated with the stubbornness of some of the Jews, and moved his base to the school of Tyrannus.

[56] The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary reminds readers that the unbelief of "some" (Greek: τινες) implies that "others, probably a large number, believed"[57] and therefore there must have been a community of Jewish Christians in Ephesus.

[64] In the early 2nd century, the church at Ephesus was still important enough to be addressed by a letter written by Bishop Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians which begins with "Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which is at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness and fullness of God the Father, and predestinated before the beginning of time, that it should be always for an enduring and unchangeable glory" (Letter to the Ephesians).

A legend, which was first mentioned by Epiphanius of Salamis in the 4th century, purported that Mary, the mother of Jesus, may have spent the last years of her life in Ephesus.

[68] Pliny tells us that the magnificent structure took 120 years to build, but it is now represented only by one inconspicuous column, revealed during an archaeological excavation by the British Museum in the 1870s.

Some fragments of the frieze (which are insufficient to suggest the form of the original) and other small finds were removed – some to London and some to the İstanbul Archaeology Museums.

Designed with an exaggerated entrance — so as to enhance its perceived size, speculate many historians — the building faces east so that the reading rooms could make best use of the morning light.

[8] This open-air theatre was used initially for drama, but during later Roman times gladiatorial combats were also held on its stage; the first archaeological evidence of a gladiator graveyard was found in May 2007.

In 1895 German archaeologist Otto Benndorf, financed by a 10,000 guilder donation made by Austrian Karl Mautner Ritter von Markhof, resumed excavations.